Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Largest Tires for CRD Jeep Liberty KJ Running Stock Set Up

I recently purchased a 1972 25' Airstream Trade Wind Land Yacht to refurbish (more on that later), and also needed new tires for my Jeep (they were pretty much bald).  I was planning on doing a 2 inch lift, and thus had been researching larger tires for the lift.  Now that the lift cash has gone into the Airstream purchase, I will be running stock set up on the Jeep a while longer.

There seems to be a lot of debate as to what the largest tire is that you can put on your Jeep KJ while running stock set up, so I am posting my real world experience here.

The "smallest" (there are of course a lot of different combos with width, wall height, rim size, etc.) Dueler A/T Revo 2 or Destination A/T (after researching price combined with customer reviews, this is where I landed) you can get in the “LT” version which is 10-ply instead of just 4-ply (a must for me with the trailer and off-roading) is LT245/75R16.  In order to get to the stock LT225/75R16 from Bridgestone/Firestone, I would have to purchase Transforce tires, and I don't like what I see from the reviews of those tires, especially in ice/snow and the amount of road noise they emit.

I chose Revos or Duelers because they seem to get good reviews for on and off road use without being too loud on pavement.  They also seem to get highest marks among similar tires (on/off road) for their handling of wet and icy pavement.  The Destination A/T’s were about $200 cheaper than the Revo 2’s, and from the reviews I’ve read and customer testimonials, it didn’t seem like the Revo’s were worth the extra cash (which I can now put into the Airstream).

Since there was some question if the 245’s would fit, the Firestone guys offered to mount the larger tires and let me drive around for a couple days before deciding, but just driving home this morning I'm sold.  The only rubbing I get is when I turn extreme left.  I can still do a u-turn in three lanes (I love my Jeep wheel base!) without rubbing, so you really have to cut to the max to rub.  In fact, just backing off a tiny bit stops the rubbing and really doesn't affect the radius of the turn but a few inches.

The hard right turn doesn't rub at all.

What is being rubbed is just the inner plastic lining of the wheel well, and when it does rub, the rub mark is only about an inch high (see photo with Chapstick for size reference).

I'm sure mileage will vary for specific vehicles as suspensions can vary a bit, but for my particular '06 CRD, while it's a bit tight, the LT246/75R16's definitely work!  You can see from the photo below of the front tire that it’s a bit tight, but like I mentioned, this is the smallest LT tire I can get in the Dueler/Revo, so I’m going with it!

Thanks to all who have posted on the Jeep forums in regard to this issue, as it has helped me with my tire purchase quite a bit.

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