4th Gens on bigger than stock tyres

wrote:

Fordem, I have also heard about the weight distribution issue from a friend. I am guessing it would be hard to estimate the overall gain in performance in a slightly lighter wheel+tyre setup if at the same time you get most of its weight shifted outwards, right? Probably not worth spending a small fortune on those A-LAP-J wheels to find out... I know you have not spent much time yet with the General Grabber tyres, but how do you like them thus far? It's one of the few options for 215-75-15 I have here.



 

I'm quite impressed with the Grabber A/TX - to the point where I have been tempted to swap out a perfectly good set of Geolandar AT G015 tires (on my Grand Vitara) that have at least two more years of tread left on them.

They have very good reviews (in the US markets), and so far I've found only one "down side" to them - they fit just under the arch flares of the Jimny, which means they throw mud & dirt onto the sides of the vehicle and out the back, mud flaps are a must if you're going to run these, I have them on order.

I'm in Guyana (so to speak, your next door neighbor) and as in Brazil, we have a lot of two lane (one in each direction) roads, so far I've had no issues with overtaking, the car accelerates just fine - the performance degradation is only really noticeable from a standstill, and in my opinion is minor, once you're moving, it's not that noticeable, at least that's how I feel.

Incidentally, neither the Geolandars nor the Grabbers are available on the local market, and the only 215/75R15 tires available here were an LT (light truck) tire, which would have been significantly heavier - both the Grabbers on the Jimny and the Geolandars on the GV were purchased in the US and shipped out - the pricing when I do that is comparable to what I would pay here, so I do it to get the tire that I want.

exceptional tyre the general grabber. 215/75R15
have done about 5000km.

on road they are NOT noisy, and the same as std tires. Grabbers have good handling characteristics in wet and dry, off road they come to their full potential.

In sand I run them at .7 bar. the jimny just float over sand.
on rocky terrain, drop pressure down and they ensure you have a mountain goat jimny.
on gravel it is exceptional tyre.

not tested in heavy muddy terrain, but have heard good stuff.

PabloAzH wrote: Thank you folks!

Fordem, I have also heard about the weight distribution issue from a friend. I am guessing it would be hard to estimate the overall gain in performance in a slightly lighter wheel+tyre setup if at the same time you get most of its weight shifted outwards, right? Probably not worth spending a small fortune on those A-LAP-J wheels to find out... I know you have not spent much time yet with the General Grabber tyres, but how do you like them thus far? It's one of the few options for 215-75-15 I have here.

Thanks for sharing your experience Lambert, I guess my main worry with performance could be resumed to overtaking long trucks on simple one-lane-in-each-direction roads, which is the way most of the Brazilian roads in the countryside are. Sometimes you need to overtake, where allowed, trucks going at 40-50 kph or you may find yourself stuck behind them for really large stretch.

Soeley, I wish I could get the Geolanders here! Curreently the only 215-75-15 AT tyres I can find here are General Grabbers, Maxxis or Pirelli Scorpions. I have heard good things about the first two. I would have to go up in size to the tyres used by pickup trucks such as Hiluxes and Rangers to get more variety, but then I am pretty sure the effect on performance would be more noticeable.

Pablo
visit the South African 4x4 community forums. just search "General grabber" on the forum. there are 100's of posts about the general grabbers in SA.

excellent overlanding tyre also.

there are also results of tyre manufacturets tests in SA of which grabbers were part. they did perform very well against well known brands at double the price.


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wrote:

I did something very similar with a Suzuki Swift many years ago - I went from the OEM steel wheels with OEM 155/70R13 tires to an alloy rim with 185/60R13 rubber - increase in diameter was 0.2", I don't remember the individual weight of the tire & rim, but the increase in total weight wasn't worth worrying about - we had more than enough power to get the car rolling, but stopping it from any speed was an absolute nightmare.

Kinda sounds more like a breaking issue or those cars had dreadful dreadful brakes as standard.

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Let me put it this way, we had three Swifts, two five doors and a four door, only one had the wider tires, only one had brake issues and ended up with warped rotors, and the start of the issues coincided with the installation of the tire/rim combination.
That's enough to convince me that the problem was related to the additional rotating mass

I agree with 300. I've made much bigger changes in tyre size to small cars and never felt that much difference with braking. Going from 135/65-13 to 195/55-15 on a Peugeot 205 caused lots of issues but braking wasn't one of them.