Alright so with the help of the forum I have figured out that my 2010 JK has a dana 30 front and a 44 rear with 3.73 gears. I'm currently running 35x12.5 Firestone M/T's. I bought the jeep like this and I'm pondering changing things out. Here are my questions.

1. Will I hurt the drivetrain any with my current setup? Too much strain etc.

2. If I buy new tires should I bother with A/T's? My only real question is how much more wear I would get out of them.

3. I am thinking of going from 18" wheels to 16" to try and save costs on tires in the long run. Do I need to consider any special offset etc. to fit the 16's with 35x12.5 tires? (I have at least a 3.5" lift). I'm more worried about the brakes etc. when I turn.

 

I'll try and answer your questions as best I can.

Running 35s on the d30 is a long debate, but it comes down to how hard you wheel and your typical driving habits. Many people have broke their d30 with 35s and some have ran them with no problems. Use caution and comment sense.

You should be fine with 16" wheels as some JKs came stock with them and probably 4.5" back spacing on those.

Hope that helps

 

Oh yeah about the AT vs an MT tire. I have ran BFG MTs on my TJ and got about 47k out of them with mild wheeling. What is your type of terrain? Mud, rocks I would run an MT. You could also pick a tire like the duratracs and kinda get a more aggressive AT without getting a true MT. Duratracs and the nitto trail grapplers are very good tires as well as the BFG MTs and ATs.

 

Cool thanks for the input.... yeah I think I'm gonna switch to pro comp 16's when it's time for new tires. That will save me about $300-400 every time I swap tires. I think I will stick with the M/T's. I mean from what I see I'm only going to get another 10-15k out of the all terrains if I rotate my M/T's frequently. So I prefer the aggressive tread and the ability off road.

As for the dana 30, I shouldn't be doing anything off road that will break it. I try and keep things tame. My biggest concern was burning up the tranny or the engine with that gear ratio and tire load. If that's not a concern than I'm good to go.

 

You should be fine with the Dana 30 provided you don't get too crazy with it.

Checkout the 15" mb72's vs. steel thread for even more savings on tires. "Jholder" a member here, got them and they are very nice and not too pricey.

 

I drove my 08 with 35" MT/R's and 3.21 gears lol. No 6th gear but other than that is was drivable and the only problem I had was my ball joints went but but that could be unrelated.

 

Cool, thanks guys. I read that every 10 lbs. of axle weight equals 100 lbs. in the Jeep. So with the 16's I'm looking at trimming almost 500lbs. of "load". I will take a look at that 15's thread. I was wondering but I read that 16's were the minimum.

 

THANK YOU for this info. I just did the search and this is probably the way I will go. My #1 & #2 concerns were with reducing the weight, and reducing the cost. This does both and I thought 15" was out of the question. THANKS!