Nothing catches my eye more quickly than a Tacoma with large tires. Just how good do they look? If you want to perform serious off-roading and overlanding with the Tacoma, you really need to go bigger to notice the wheels and enhance break-over angles. This explains why so many people are interested in learning what tire size will fit comfortably on a stock Tacoma. Can 33 inches fit without a lift? Will you require a front leveling kit or wheel spacers? This essay will provide answers to all of these queries and more.
What size tire can you fit on a Toyota Tacoma that is factory-fresh? The largest tire that will fit on factory rims without a body or suspension lift is 275/70/17. To fit 33-inch tires, or 285/70/17, on a stock suspension, the front fender liner and rear fender flair must be altered.
Therefore, there are three things to think about before upgrading the factory tires on your truck or ute.
- Clearance for fender liners
- Wheel offset and backspacing
- spare wheel room
Since the 275/70/17 tire is narrower but still offers more ground clearance with the 70 profile, which is 1 inch taller but the same width as the factory, you can get away with installing a wider tire on the stock Tacoma rims.
But what if you want to travel 33 miles per hour with a factory suspension and a 0 offset wheel? What adjustments are necessary to make them fit?
In This Article...
Will 33 tires fit a Tacoma with stock wheels?
No and yes. You can put 33s on your car without making any adjustments and drive straight without any problems. There are issues when you turn. It takes very little cutting and spacers to completely clear 33 tires without a lift.
Without using wheel spacers, we initially installed the 33s on our third-generation Tacoma. However, once you turned, the tires rubbed horribly on the upper control arms. The rubbing on the body wasn’t all that severe, and you could drive on them with little contact on the fender plastics.
When we installed 33s on a lifted 2nd Gen Tacoma even with aftermarket control arms and a lift, we encountered the same problem. While the friction on the body was barely noticeable, it was intolerable on the control arm. The truck is not appropriate to drive and is absolutely not suitable for off-road travel with just one problem.
The rubbing on the 3rd Gen Tacoma’s UCAs was gone after we installed a 1.25 spacer, however the rubbing on the body was quite unpleasant because we extended our scrub radius by extending the tire outward.
No, you can’t simply install wheel spacers and trim the fenders and fender well plastics to fit 33s on a Tacoma.
Spend some time making room for that size tire in order to fit 33s without using a lift. Both on- and off-road testing should be done in this.
Can I fit tires of what size?
When making tight turns or when the suspension bottoms out, the tires may rub against the fender well if the new wheels and tires are larger than the stock ones. Speedometer readings can be erroneous because they measure speed by measuring the distance covered with each wheel rotation. Both the factory diameter and breadth of the wheels and tires must be preserved in order to keep the suspension and speedometer operating properly.
On the original rim, it is generally safe to install a tire that is up to 20 millimeters wider than stock. Depending on the rim’s width, the tire’s actual width will change: For every half inch (12.5 millimeters) increase in rim width, the tire will enlarge by 5 millimeters.
Because tire sizes are a combination of metric and percentage measurements while wheel sizes are in Imperial measurements, switching to a different rim becomes a little more challenging.
For instance, the car’s current tires are 225/45R15. This is what it indicates:
- Dimensions of 15Rim in inches
- Millimeters of tire width, 225
- Sidewall height expressed as a percentage of tire width is 45.
Multiply the wheel size by 25.4 to get the millimeter equivalent:
1.5 times 25.4 equals 381 millimeters.
Next, multiply the tire width by the height percentage to determine the sidewall height:
101.25 millimeters is equal to 225 millimeters times 0.45.
To determine the combined height of the wheel and tire, add the two figures together:
482.25 millimeters (381-201 = 381.25)
The new tire and wheel should be within 3% of the height of the original combination in order to maintain speedometer accuracy. A tire with a height of 75.85 millimeters, or 34 percent of the 220 millimeter width, or 220/34R16, would be needed to move to a 16 inch (406.4 millimeter) rim. The closest size produced, 220/30R16, is well within the size tolerance of 3%.
Are 285 and 33-inch tires equivalent?
You are really comparing two entirely different measures when you compare a 33 tire to a 285 wide tire. The 33 is equal to the tire’s width (285), multiplied by the sidewall’s height % (75), multiplied by two because there are two sidewalls, and added to the inch-based wheel size (16). Phew!!! Let’s simplify that mouthful into a straightforward formula as there’s a lot to process at once.
Although 285 is the tread width in millimeters and 33 is the tire diameter, 285 broad tires are identical to 33 tires. The standard metric equivalent size for 33’s is 285/75/16.
Do larger tires affect fuel economy?
For instance, because larger tires are heavier, they reduce fuel efficiency whereas smaller tires improve it. Additionally, larger tires take more resistance and work to roll than smaller tires since they have a higher rolling resistance.
Does a 33s Tacoma have much lift?
While it’s not impossible, you will undoubtedly need to cut or trim something in order to fit 33s without a raise. Depending on whether you clear the control arms or not, you ought to be capable of lifting 2-3 pounds.
Although suspension lifts technically do not clear tires for off-road use, they can nonetheless be useful. Your body’s static ride height is altered when you lift your truck. For instance, while driving every day, you might not rub, but when driving off-road and stuffing that tire into your wheel well, you almost certainly will. This rubbing would be significantly harsher both on and off the road without a lift.
In response to the infamous query, no raise is necessary to accommodate 33-inch tires on a factory Tacoma; other modifications may be necessary, such as fender liner pushback, CMC (cab mount chop), rocker panel cap trimming, fender trimming, body trimming, etc. Having said that, you can still bolt the wheel and tire to your hub; you may simply need to perform some trimming. Something needs to give since even when you grow taller, the inner fender’s size remains constant.
In order to determine exactly what needs to be trimmed, we will place 33 tires on a stock, third-generation Tacoma without the use of a lift. Snail Trail 44 will shortly donate that truck.
Realize that it’s crucial that the tires under your Tacoma don’t rub, regardless of the size you choose. If they continue to rub and you don’t fix the problem, eventually you’re going to destroy something or rip something off.
Our up/down travel on the Bilstein 5100 kit 2.8 front with Icon Add a Leaf 2 rearit has cleared everything fairly well after mounting, operating, and flexing it. Following tire installation, there were NO general on-road rubbings on the fender liners or fender well. That included the curb drop test as well as full-lock reverse. The tires cleared the pavement fully.
Driving off-road is a little bit of a different situation. Even driving on a bumpy dirt road wasn’t too difficult, although when the tires were jammed into the wheel wells, they did rub a little. It wouldn’t take much cutting at all to completely clear 33s since they hardly ever rub on the inside of the fender close to the pinch weld.
Will the stock Tacoma’s 265 70R16 fit?
Realistically, the answer is 32 if you are using standard suspension and don’t want to wreck your truck.
The stock tire size for my Tacoma (265/70R16) was 30.610.4. If you don’t want to alter your truck in any way, switching to a little larger tire size (265/75/1631.610.4) is the best option. Make sure the tire you choose is a real 32 tire or one that is very near to it.
Some tires may measure 32.8 inches, which is actually a 33-inch tire, and you will undoubtedly experience some rubbing problems. I recently chatted with an off-road enthusiast who drives a Toyota Tacoma stock with 33 tires. He told me that in order to make the configuration work, he had to drastically cut back his cab mount and raise his fender liners.
Therefore, it is possible to run 33 tires on a stock Tacoma, but you will need to make significant cuts.
The height of 275 70R17 tires.
275/70R17 tires have a 32.2″ diameter, a 10.8″ section width, and a 17″ wheel diameter. They had a 101.0″ circumference and 627 rotations per mile. They can typically be put on 7-8.5″ wide wheels.
The height of a 265 75R16 tire.
265/75R16 tires have a section width of 10.4, are 31.6 tall, and suit wheels that are 16.5″ in diameter. 99.4 miles is the circumference, or 638 revolutions per mile. They can typically be placed on wheels with a rim width of 16 x 7-9 (LT Tires 7-8).
What is the diameter of a 265 70R17 tire?
The section width of a 265/70R17 tire, which measures the width of the tire from its inner to its outer sidewall, is 10.4 inches. The largest size of wheel that can accommodate the tire’s mounting is one with a rim diameter of 17 inches. The distance between the wheel rim and the top of the tire tread is measured as sidewall height, which is 7.3 inches (186 mm). The tire’s outside diameter is represented by the overall diameter of 31.7 inches (804 mm), which also denotes the height of the tire. The tire’s outer perimeter measures 99.5 inches (2524.6 mm) in circumference. The number of tire rotations represents how many times a tire turns when traveling a given distance in miles or kilometers. the 265/70R17 tire rotates at 637 miles per hour (396 revolutions per kilometer).
Will my truck be hurt by larger tires?
The average miles per gallon of your vehicle will be impacted by installing larger tires (MPG). Larger tires decrease fuel efficiency for a number of reasons.
First off, larger tires are typically heavier. Your car will gain a significant amount of weight if you add a set of four large, heavy tires. The additional weight may reduce your car’s acceleration and cause it to burn more fuel. Your brakes may have to work harder to slow down the car.
Second, bigger tires can protrude from the wheel well rather than lining up with your SUV or truck. Your car may become less aerodynamic as a result, using more gasoline.
Last but not least, wider and more aggressive tires, which have a bigger contact area with the road, may have more rolling resistance.