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You don't know until you try it😅

Hey Doc, unfortunately I will have to drop out - my wife lands back in AUH on Saturday night…not sure I’d be very popular if I sent a taxi to meet her… 😂

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.

Hi @SIBIN I checked Method MR105 options from Method website. There are two offset options. 0 mm and -38 mm. The standard rim on Prado is 25 mm offset. When I compare standard vs MR105, If your rim now is 0 mm offset, the tire sticks out by 25 mm. This is the illustration how the fender clearance is reduced. When you add 30 mm wheel spacers, the tire will stick out by 55 mm. Like what @Frederic said it will be too far out even you lifted by 2” because the tires are not inside the wheel well. CMIIW

Hi all, Unfortunately Saturday I cannot join. I'm sure you all will have a lot of fun with this night drive! Enjoy and see you next time

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.

My jeep is going in for service tomorrow, I’lll update my attendance if anything changes .

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

Hi @Aringga Malga Alfion, welcome to Carnity 👏👏

Also, go with a real branded spacer from a reputable brand and not a lookalike/replica, as they will surely fail during off-road stress and will cause endless wobbles on the highway.

Wheel spacers can be very helpful to widen the stance of your vehicle a bit, which is recommended after lifting it, so it does not become too top heavy. Some people claim it can cause premature wheel bearing wear. I have not experienced this with my previous vehicle. Just be careful that for RTA inspection it might fail if the tires protrude too far out of the fenders. Another potential issue is that it might rub the fenders a bit.

@Ale Vallecchi Many thanks again for a great drive yesterday. We had some long periods of really good flowing lines and the convoy moved at a good pace. It was also a treat to find so many fresh ridges which gave us some very easy going rides with the sun sitting low on the desert. @Warbs, @Sam Selim, @Glenn W it was a pleasure driving with you guys - you tackled so much of the terrain with a good mindset and no dramas. All our recoveries were followed well and we worked everything out without having to step out of our cars - great work and meant that @Aser and I got to sit back and enjoy! Hope to see you all out there soon!

During a recent drive - I have damaged the Front recovery Point on my 2010' X-terra. Fortunately the Metal Hook was attached to the Radiator Guard & was blocked by the skid plate. Else the damage would have been more severe. On close examination, I understand that during fixing the Skid Plate + Radiator Guard (at one of the famous Garage in Al Quoz). They had welded the Nut to the chassis with few spot welds. That could not take the load during this recovery & came out. According to the mechanic: This nut was weak on my pre-owned car. So while fixing Radiator Protector he did this welding without keeping me informed. :: Before – After :: I have witnessed this happing to other X-terra during one of the Technical Challenge Drive. Thus, I was always cautious about my front recovery point. But now we have somewhat similar situation with my car. @Chaitanya D@Gaurav @Foxtrot OscarSeek your advice on how to reinforce the chassis end. Once it is secured: Option A: Will use the same stock Hook Type recovery Point - or - Option B: Should I get something like this for front end, which has 3 bolting points (two from Bottom + One from Side). Thanks.