Tire & Suspension upgrade journey with issues

[khurramm]

When I bought my Tahoe, it came with 20" rims which meant tyre profile was not high enough.

My initial desire was to just have high profile tyres so I chose to replace with 17" inch rims and tyres 275/70. 

The important thing that I completely missed was the original width of the rim was 7.5" vs new ones 9".

I was very happy with look of the car with tyres sticking out a bit until I drove back home and tried to park. This was my first experience of tyre rubbing.

I was told that the new rims were perfect for my car and with 0 offset. I had no idea what offset really meant at that point in time. Well to be honest I still have no idea 🤓.

The first thought was to trim the body/fenders which I was not happy about. We then tried to tweak the alignment but was not of much help. Then the garage suggested and convinced me (very easily😆) that I will anyways do a lift since I am into off-roading. So I also got dobinsons shocks and springs with a 2 inch lift which I was very happy about mainly because of the increased ground clearance. It did help with the rubbing but not 100% when on the sands.

Then we also tried some force on the fenders to push them back.

Anyways right about at this time, my control arms gave up on me. I am guessing this was due to a combination of the lift and also a couple of medium level unintended jumps .

I chose to go with after market control arms and guess what??!!

Now my tyres was rubbing on the control arm!! because of the rim width!

Only possible solution seemed to be installation of 😀25mm spacers.

Guess what happended next??

Spacers meant tyres protrude out even more and again we had rubbing on the outside while turning!

I succumbed to cutting my fenders, trimming body and side steps. 🤐

I will get to see the final look of the car tomorrow hopefully

I did learn a lot from this experience but I keep blaming my rim choice and lack of patience as the main reason for all this trouble.

Happy to hear your feedback where you think I have taken wrong decisions/solutions and what would have been possibly better choices 

Thanks in advance

Hopefully my experience above will help new off-roaders like myself to avoid the mistakes I have already made.

[Andrew John Melvill]

5 hours ago, khurramm said:

When I bought my Tahoe, it came with 20" rims which meant tyre profile was not high enough.

My initial desire was to just have high profile tyres so I chose to replace with 17" inch rims and tyres 275/70. 

The important thing that I completely missed was the original width of the rim was 7.5" vs new ones 9".

I was very happy with look of the car with tyres sticking out a bit until I drove back home and tried to park. This was my first experience of tyre rubbing.

I was told that the new rims were perfect for my car and with 0 offset. I had no idea what offset really meant at that point in time. Well to be honest I still have no idea 🤓.

The first thought was to trim the body/fenders which I was not happy about. We then tried to tweak the alignment but was not of much help. Then the garage suggested and convinced me (very easily😆) that I will anyways do a lift since I am into off-roading. So I also got dobinsons shocks and springs with a 2 inch lift which I was very happy about mainly because of the increased ground clearance. It did help with the rubbing but not 100% when on the sands.

Then we also tried some force on the fenders to push them back.

Anyways right about at this time, my control arms gave up on me. I am guessing this was due to a combination of the lift and also a couple of medium level unintended jumps .

I chose to go with after market control arms and guess what??!!

Now my tyres was rubbing on the control arm!! because of the rim width!

Only possible solution seemed to be installation of 😀25mm spacers.

Guess what happended next??

Spacers meant tyres protrude out even more and again we had rubbing on the outside while turning!

I succumbed to cutting my fenders, trimming body and side steps. 🤐

I will get to see the final look of the car tomorrow hopefully

I did learn a lot from this experience but I keep blaming my rim choice and lack of patience as the main reason for all this trouble.

Happy to hear your feedback where you think I have taken wrong decisions/solutions and what would have been possibly better choices 

Thanks in advance

Hopefully my experience above will help new off-roaders like myself to avoid the mistakes I have already made.

@khurramm, thanks for providing some very real world and current information on this suspension geometry issue. Your learning experience will help many others. 

[Gaurav]

12 hours ago, khurramm said:

The important thing that I completely missed was the original width of the rim was 7.5" vs new ones 9".

I was very happy with look of the car with tyres sticking out a bit until I drove back home and tried to park. This was my first experience of tyre rubbing.

You could have realized and raised this concern earlier, as sadly in mod world, ppl wanna sell more upgrades to solve one issue, which may or may not be relevant as far as they are making sales, they are happy.

Starting from the beginning now, while changing 7.5 vs 9, have you considered reversing the ball joint from left to right and right to left? This is the most common hack in the US suspension system to gain a bit of extra tolerance.

I recall doing the same with my wife Trailblazer when we lifted 2 inches as per US based forums. 

Your first concern should be thorough research on similar issue with credible data like on forums, reditt, youtube videos from the owners who have done the same upgrade before. My balljoint swap could be relevant as Tahoe and Trailblazer are sibling, so research on this specific part and find credible answers as a first starting point.

Also research on swapping upper arm with ball joint, as I vaguely remember reading this part too somewhere.

Also find some performance UCA that addresses this specific issue for off-road use.