Thread: Largest tyre sizes on a standard ratio driveline?

Not sure if that thinking is correct.

Firstly it is the inside of the tyre that rubs on the inside of the wheel arch, especially when on lock.

Second, a lift won't make any difference to rubbing. Although it does sit further away from the guard at rest, when articulating offroad, the wheel on a 2" lift will compress just as far as a wheel on a 3" lift unless extended bumpstops are used.

What tends to happen is that many off the shelf springs just used harder springs to gain the lift so the wheel doesn't compress as much. This will cause less/no rubbing but you have lost articulation and wheel travel.
At the moment I think I am at about a 2.5" lift but I have custom springs which are 170lb on front and 270lb on the rear.

Originally Posted by walker

Firstly it is the inside of the tyre that rubs on the inside of the wheel arch, especially when on lock.

I have found that with 32" and 33" tyres I do not have any inside rubbing when I use +30mm offset rims or 30mm wheel spacers. If I use standard offset wheels they rub on the front control arms.

Originally Posted by walker

Second, a lift won't make any difference to rubbing. Although it does sit further away from the guard at rest, when articulating offroad, the wheel on a 2" lift will compress just as far as a wheel on a 3" lift unless extended bumpstops are used.

As you point out, extended bump stops need to be used. I have a 3" lift, on the front my bump stops are extended by 30mm (have used orange urethane bump stops) and on the rear my bump stops are extended by 50mm (using Les Richmond Automotive White Tiger spacers). This is to avoid over compressing my Bilstein +2" shock absorbers (which are spaced up by 2" using Les Richmond Automotives White Tiger spacers).

Because of this, I retain the added benefits of the +2" lift, but avoid the rubbing.


When I had 255/70R18 which are around 32", they first rubbed on the inside on the control arms for the front differential - so I fitted 30mm spacers to solve this, they then rubbed on the outside of the tyre up the top on the factory flares due to being pushed out closer to the flares - this was with a 2" lift. With a 3" lift I do not have this issue.