35'' tyres honest opinion please

[muskie]

i know this has been covered loads of times but, i am considering going to 35'' tyres on my 91 4.2 swb safari..NON TURBO.. everytime i decide to do it someone allways puts me off by saying it zaps power and the truck becomes horrible to drive, brakes turn to crap etc etc JUST LOOKING FOR SOME HONEST OPINIONS REALLY. i dont know anyone i can borrow a set from to try before i buy. thanks

[curly12]

I have 35 creepys on my pos 4.2 lwb high roof non turbo oil burning heap of crap. Apart from looking damn good, being fantastic off-road and not bad on road, they don't sap as much power as I thought they would.

I do admit that 5th gear is only used on the flat now and the but overall am happy. Offroad they go well, seem to have enough power to spin them. But like all things, sometimes you want just a wee bit more power, even if you are running a 600hp chev.

I would do it, I personally will not go back to 33' ever. In fact I might just consider 37' for the next set, but then will be putting in a turbo or ls1.

[Bubba]

In the last two years on my 70 i have had 31 MTR, 33 Coopers, 37 MTR and finally 35 Mudzilla's. I can say with out any doubt that I never missed the smaller tyres, but it is all about trade offs

31' On road - Best handling, best acceleration and braking
31' Off road - Best steep down hill engine bracking, worse diff clearence, worst traction

33' On road - Almost as good as the 31's, no real difference
33' Off road - Not as good down hill enginge braking but still not bad, better diff clearence but still not good enough, again better traction in the loose stuff but normally not enough of a difference to play with the big boys

37' On road - 5th gear, whats that? Handled like a bitch, needed two hands on the wheel all the time. Very tiring driving any real distance
37' Off road - Farking brill!! great fun, huge clearence, didn't feel I needed to hammer it as I had a huge amount of traction

35's On road - Not as good as the 33's, way farking better than the 37's
35's Off road - Yet to tested but I expect, again, that they will be way better than 33 but not as good as the 37's

My preferred choice is the 35's for a wagen of that size, unless you want to start dropping some coin (bigger tyres = bigger brakes, longfields etc etc) But that is just my very humble opinion

[darinz]

I'm still running almost standard GQ brakes and mine passed break tests with 35x11.5 Simex on. So brakes are OK, not great but OK.
I fitted 34" Simex (bigger than most radial 35's) to mine before turboing it and it took some power out of it on road but not enough to be as slow as a Hilux and off road the extra traction and clearance made up for any short comings.

As for handling. That is a tyre pressure, construction issue not specifically size. So anything that isn't working 100% will be made much worse by bigger tyres but the tyres themselves aren't the cause. I have run 35 Simex's exclusivly on my truck for the past few years and even unbalanced beadlocked tyres are more than OK as long as everything else is good. eg Panhard rod bushes, tie rods, wheel bearing, draglink, radius arm bushes etc.
Mine is still quite a OK to drive and it has about 3" of lift and no castor correction at all.

My wife's GQ (TD42T) has 33's on it and I'm replacing them with 35's when worn out.

[rokhound]

In the last two years on my 70 i have had 31 MTR, 33 Coopers, 37 MTR and finally 35 Mudzilla's. I can say with out any doubt that I never missed the smaller tyres, but it is all about trade offs

31' On road - Best handling, best acceleration and braking
31' Off road - Best steep down hill engine bracking, worse diff clearence, worst traction

33' On road - Almost as good as the 31's, no real difference
33' Off road - Not as good down hill enginge braking but still not bad, better diff clearence but still not good enough, again better traction in the loose stuff but normally not enough of a difference to play with the big boys

37' On road - 5th gear, whats that? Handled like a bitch, needed two hands on the wheel all the time. Very tiring driving any real distance
37' Off road - Farking brill!! great fun, huge clearence, didn't feel I needed to hammer it as I had a huge amount of traction

35's On road - Not as good as the 33's, way farking better than the 37's
35's Off road - Yet to tested but I expect, again, that they will be way better than 33 but not as good as the 37's

My preferred choice is the 35's for a wagen of that size, unless you want to start dropping some coin (bigger tyres = bigger brakes, longfields etc etc) But that is just my very humble opinion

That is probably the best description I have ever read regarding tyre size, and bang on the money!

[muskie]

awesome, thanks for that. as the truck is not used every day i will go for the 35''s and give it a go. no real negatives from anyone, well, that cant be lived with anyway... thanks

[PR]

Just do it dude you wont regret it I didnt

[gary_in_nz]

yeah i have only had one run out with my 35's so far and they are awesome best thing that could happen to a safari to get those big diff housings off the ground!!

[Swamped]

Hey
Yeah Definitely go to the 35s. My 93 patrol has lost a bit of power...ie the Hamilton Kawhia road never sees 5th gear. Handling has hardly been affected (given that I don't drive like a total animal) and the factory brakes on mine read fine at warrants. Just be aware you will probably need to modify some body work to fit them if you have a 75mm lift or less. A mate had 2" lift with 35 wranglers on 15x8 rims and they only just fit, still scrapping a bit in the rear. The front guards had to be beaten back a bit I think too. My 35 creepys have quite a lot of offset and even with 75mm lift there had to be some cutting done. Finally watch the offset...I got the 'recommended' offset from the manufacturer guide and the truck ended up being super wide...so wide its gotten jammed in deep ruts, between trees etc (does stop panels getting smashed in though). But yeah the issues I've found aren't real major and going bigger definitely helped offroad.

Doug....

[Shane]

i know this has been covered loads of times but, i am considering going to 35'' tyres on my 91 4.2 swb safari..NON TURBO.. everytime i decide to do it someone allways puts me off by saying it zaps power and the truck becomes horrible to drive, brakes turn to crap etc etc JUST LOOKING FOR SOME HONEST OPINIONS REALLY. i dont know anyone i can borrow a set from to try before i buy. thanks

Go the 35's you wont look back.I use the BFG 35's good all round tyre(road noise,wear,etc pretty good),not as good as Cross/ply style tyres off road though.