Paid off the JK and finally can afford bigger tires!
(Got a 2.5" terraflex with 1" spacers, a budget of around $1200)

...Mud T's or AT"s?
...Size? (Thinking 35's)
...Brands?
...new or used?
...Keep the stock wheels, right?

thanks

 

depends on how you plan on using them. if you spend most of your time on pavement and only do light wheeling, AT's might be the better way to go for you. but, there are plenty of folks who run mt's anyway and there's nothing wrong with that - they just might be a bit louder on pavement. also, if you spend a lot of time on pavement and tire wear is an issue, you might want to get something like BFG's as they tend to wear like iron. if you want a good off road tire, i would recommend toyos or goodyear mtr's. unfortuantely, buying new 35's would eat up your entire budget so you might want to shop used. you can keep your factory wheels and they'll work just fine but you will need to get wheel spacers

 

I think the 35s are cool. In my opinion, the new Goodyear MTR/K is a good choice, very nice tire for off road wheeling, and the tire noise is acceptable. I am running a set of them right now.

 

X2 on everything he said... and you can consider selling your stock wheels and tires and buying some Cragar soft 8's that cost 50$ or so.. you can buy 5x 15" steel wheels Cragar and you gonna save money in buying your tire in R15 VS R17. R15 look nice IMO and tire are way cheaper than 17" so you'll save a lot on the long run. and no need of wheel spacer since those wheels has 4" of BS and cost nearly the same price of a wheel spacer... So if it was me, i'll go for 15" for sure. Also, they look nice. 35x12 R15 KM2 !!!

Just my 2¢.. for free today.