Trailhawk All Terrain A/T Tire & Wheel Alternatives

Analysis Table Notes:

(1) Stock Trialhawk Tire Size is 215/65R17.

(2) Best Fit to Avoid getting Jeep Factory Warranty declared Void?

(3) The 225 size tire is .4" wider, .2" on the inner side that may cause rubbing.

(4) The 235 size will require New Rims or Wheel Spacers to avoid rubbing.

(5) 1010tires Recommends to be +/- 3% in Diameter Variance to your stock tires:

http://www.1010tires.com/Tools/Tire-Size-Calculator

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/tirecalc.php?tires=215-65r17-215-70r16

(6) The combined Tire and Wheel Weight, if it exceeds stock, may have a negative impact on drivetrain wear.

(7) Jeep lists the Falken Wildpeak in the Renegade literature and they claim it is being developed.

Size Selection & Warranty

Beyond the 3% WARNING! Diameter Variance rule, discussed above, that I'm also concerned about any possible impacts to the 9-speed automatic transmission, suspension and drivetrain component wear, but that is just the beginning. I want to make sure I have NO Impact on: Comfort, Road Noise, Handling, Steering, Braking, Alignment or Tire Wear.

Well okay, of course, there will be some compromise from a highway tread tire, but I’m speaking of trade-off between different brands and models of All Terrain A/T tires.

But MOST IMPORTANTLY: NO Impact on the Jeep Factory Warranty

Discussions about Larger Tires Voiding Jeep Warranty's:
http://jeepcherokeeclub.com/41-whee...on/109969-question-about-oversized-tires.html
http://www.jeeppatriot.com/forum/showthread.php?t=77184
http://www.jeeppatriot.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5227

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So after reviewing the information tire size alternatives, perhaps the Best Size Selection may be the 215/70R16, for the reason being it is the same width as the stock tire and it is .15 inches shorter that the stock 28" tire height. This may help from Jeep claiming a larger diameter tire size contributed to any warranty claims you may have and saying you voided your warranty.

Best Brand & Model Tire for the Trailhawk

What is the Best Brand and model tire to choose for the Trailhawk? Well of course that is somewhat subjective, what combination are you looking for, Ride, Handling, Mileage?

For me, the Best combination of On-Road Comfort, Minimum On-Road Noise and Good Off-Road Traction. Review of surveys such as the one at Tirerack and others helps:
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/surveyresults/surveydisplay.jsp?type=ORAT

For example, in the 215/70R16 size, the Yokohama Geolandar A/T-S has the Lowest Noise, Best Comfort and Good Dry Traction.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/surve...ameter=16&showwp=N&showdp=N&showws=N&showcm=N

What Brand and model best fits your needs?

LonN said:

Ok - please educate me here. The Renegades all come with tires, right? Are the stock tires so bad that it's common to immediately go out and spend an extra $1000 or so on new ones? What do you then do with the brand new stock tires?

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Depends on the tires. my subaru came with the bridgestone potenza re92 (or RE92A forget which was the "special" oem coding). I've never in my life driven on more scary tires in the wet (lateral traction? what's that?), and I've bought cheap non-name store brand tires as a youngster. I ate the $500 and the tire store did whatever they wanted with them.

Car before that, OEM was a perfectly OK tire, but I wanted different wheels and tires. SO I took them off early, and slapped them back on when I sold the car.

The other option is to have the tire shop pull the tires off, and put the tires online cheap on a model specific forum, or your local craigslist or whatever. If you are not using the wheels either, hold onto them and keep an eye on the WTB. Someone WILL be messing up their OEM wheels, and they will need replacements and givien the absurd price of OEM replacements form the manufacturer, they are worth some decent cash. For example, my subaru, I had a blowout due to a too delicate tire brand vs. NJ potholes at highway speeds, and ate a wheel in the process. Cost to replace was about $300. THe businesses that specialize in selling used OEM wheels wanted about $240. You could move them as fast as you wanted at about $160 a pop on subie forums after the car was on sale for about a year.

teddyfirehouse said:

Do we know for sure if any larger tire would void the warranty? Even if it's around 3% bigger?

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They can't specify replacement parts. Even for tires labeled exactly the same, there are a range of actual measured diameters despite the sidewall label. On top of that, the OEM selection of tires on the same drive train from the factory are fairly different. On top of THAT, there just aren't that many choices of tires that will fit at all.

I think the reality is that without a lift kit, you won't have a choice of something likely to cause debate of the subject.

With a lift, if a lift is a thing one can get done on the renegade, it will not void the warranty on anything other than stuff immediately affected by the lift, wheels, and tires.

A quick example of a few scenarios.

You do a lift with bigger tires, strut spacers, and wheel spacer to get everything to fit. It looks hella cool, but...

a) your air conditioner stops working. They can't deny because your changes have nothing to do with that.
b) your wheel bearings die a very early death. They can and should deny that, because with spacers you changed the offset of your wheels and thus increased stress on the thrust bearings. You might get away with it, but the most likely culprit is your modification of the vehicle, and a denial is justified.
c) You hit a vicious pothole and your suspension mount rips through the body. They'll deny you lift kit or no, because you struck something. Lift kit has nothing to do with the denial, even if the lift kit was designed like crap and exacerbated the situation.
d) The car keeps on overheating. This would depend on the design of the vehicle. Bigger tires can make the tranny and engine work harder. That could lead to overheating, especially if the design of the vehicle uses the radiator to cool the transmission fluid. However, they should perform diagnostics and warn you you will be billed if it is related to the modifications. If they find a bum circuit breaker or fusible link is causing the fan to not cycle properly, that is MUCH more likely to be the culprit and should be warrantied as it has nothing to do with your modifications. Similar if they find a coolant leak that doesn't look to have been caused by the monkeys who installed your kit. If they find something they can argue is the result of faulty work, it's not warrantable, you need to take it up with the hack who damaged your vehicle.

You want a fully intact warranty, don't mess with stuff too much.