18" alloys and larger tires

[LC5280]

I just spent the last few days figuring out everything I needed to get larger tires on my Grennie without a lift. There is such little information out there for 18" wheels, I thought I'd share what I found.

Knowing 285/75/17 size tires fit without rubbing, I needed to find what would be a similar size for 18" wheels. I used a tire size calculator to find 285/70/18 tires would be almost an exact size match.

So I order up my Falken Wildpeak RT01s. They fit just fine and look amazing.

Now comes the difficult part. The spare relocation bracket. I went with Agile's and they have the spacer available that isn't really explained well on the site what it's for, but you NEED it for the bigger tires on the 18" wheels. Without it, it hits not only the rear wiper, but also the door itself. The rectangular portion that is raised is not your friend here. So I put the spacer on and all seems well until I tried to move the rear wiper. It got stuck part way through it's arc. I think well I'll pull the fuse. The fuse also runs the front wipers per the chart in the owner's manual. So I just took the wiper arm off and tie wrapped the fluid hose and nozzle up around the bolt. Maybe not super clean, but who's going to see it behind the spare anyway? And is the rear wiper even necessary since you can't see out the rear window with the spare mounted?? I think not. Pretty disappointing that Ineos didn't think anyone would be putting bigger tires on a dedicated off road vehicle, but this seems to work for my 18" wheelie friends.

 

[ColoradoMike]

Nice work! I am ditching my 18" alloys for 17" aftermarket wheels. I chunked the sidewall on one of the KO2s...then the spare wheel and tire on a week of wheeling in Salida. I'm considering the Mickey Thompson Baja Boss ATs at the moment.

 

[LC5280]

Nice work! I am ditching my 18" alloys for 17" aftermarket wheels. I chunked the sidewall on one of the KO2s...then the spare wheel and tire on a week of wheeling in Salida. I'm considering the Mickey Thompson Baja Boss ATs at the moment.

I went all in and got another set of the same wheels to put my Blizzacks on in a few months. I was pretty determined to make these work.

 

[ColoradoMike]

Awesome Job! Bummer about the rear windows wiper. I use mine a bunch as my Wolfbox camera has trouble seeing with dirt when wheeling.

 

[LC5280]

Awesome Job! Bummer about the rear windows wiper. I use mine a bunch as my Wolfbox camera has trouble seeing with dirt when wheeling.

I'll be okay. It is pretty lame that the OEM rear camera doesn't come on in off road mode though. Wolf box is next on my list.

 

[ColoradoMike]

I'll be okay. It is pretty lame that the OEM rear camera doesn't come on in off road mode though. Wolf box is next on my list.

Actually it does come on in off road mode! It is buried in the pathfinder mode where you can tap the slider on the infotainment screen. It is something like RVC ON or something like that. @ForceV4 showed me this trick when we were on Mt Antero 10 days ago.

 

[JurassicMark]

Thanks for the write up! I'll be doing the same with mine soon. FYI with the wolfbox, the rear wiper is still helpful in snow/rain as the glass in front of the camera pretty quickly.

 

[LC5280]

Thanks for the write up! I'll be doing the same with mine soon. FYI with the wolfbox, the rear wiper is still helpful in snow/rain as the glass in front of the camera pretty quickly.

Well know that the Owl van bracket will not work and the spacer with the Agile bracket doesn't allow the tire to clear the wiper. So unless you can figure something else out, the wiper has to go or be made inoperable. Let me know if you figure something else out for the wiper. I've just gotten used to only using my side mirrors anyways.

 

[C-Mack]

I’m using Agile’s reverse mount bracket on my spare 18” alloy wheel and even with the stock tire size it’s close to the wiper arm but still clears... barely! For added clearance I installed their spacer plate just to be safe. The more positive offset of the 18” alloys puts it really close to the door as the mount was really designed more for aftermarket wheels with less positive offsets.

If I end up keeping these wheels and mount larger tires I’ll most likely remove the three studs from the bracket and install longer ones and fabricate a thicker spacer plate to move the wheel out away from the door more. The view out the back is restrictive enough so not having a functional rear wiper, even for the little good that it does, wasn’t an option for me.