Tires & Wheels On My Truck

June, 2001 I purchased 33"x12.50" Mickey Thompson MTX tires mounted on American Racing "Polished Sliders". The wheels are 15"x8" and have a 3.7 back-spacing. This back-spacing was required to prevent the wheel from hitting the steering components.

Sitting beside a 2000 Xterra. Size difference is noticeable.

With 32" tires on Nissan stock 15x7 wheels or aftermarket wheels with identical size and offset, the following will be necessary on the front fender flares(if you have them). If you don't have the front fender flares, you will not notice the rubbing:

Red circle indicates location of small trimming required.

Two sets of these tires were bought new and worn out. They provide excellent grip on most surfaces. The tread design leaves little room for mud or snow to stick to the tire. The soft tire compound is easy to notice. Put the Baja tire beside a typical street tire and you can easily feel how much softer the Baja is. This provides a benefit when rock crawling. However, a negative effect is the tire wears out quickly. As with any tire I run, I didn't hold back and left many scares in the tires after a hard day in Moab, Utah or just throwing rocks when back home in Virginia. Before one trip out West, the tires were bought new less than one month before. The trip lasted 3 weeks. Driving to Telluride, Moab, Las Vegas, then back home left two of the tires completely worn out. There are two other negative sides of these tires: One, they are extremely loud. Eventually I got tired of yelling to the person next to me when driving at highway speeds. The second negative aspect is they perform mediocre when driving on pact snow and ice. The large gaps in the tire leave less edges to bite. I found myself sliding more than usual. For mud, snow, rock crawling, and looking unique these tires performed well.

While these tires aren't as aggressive and unique looking as the Baja Belted tires, they have turned out to be good all-terrain tires. I am currently running these tires (32x11.50). Traction is good as any tire I have had while on the road in all conditions. Unfortunately, I broke a CV-Joint this past year in Moab and was unable to thoroughly test the tires out in the rock-crawling environment. They were used in Telluride, CO and back in Virginia. They perform well and I feel like they are on par with any all-terrain tire. They have done well in bad conditions such as undisturbed, unpacked snow up to 8-12 inches, heavy rain, and ice conditions. Compared to the Baja Belted tires, these run very quiet. In reality, they are probably average. The tread has hundreds of small cuts that increase road traction and help when on ice and rock crawling. These help make up for the harder compound used in the tire. Mileage is probably on par with other all-terrain tires. I have had these for over two years now and they survived a trip out West with plenty of tread left over! When this pair wears out, I'll buy another. If I stayed off-road 90% of the time, I'd probably go back to the Baja Belted.

Tire Size	Fits Stock Vehicle	Rubs Rear Frame	Requires Removing Mud Flaps	Fits trimming panels
<31x10.50	X
31x10.50	X
31x11.50	X	X	?
32x11.50		X	X
33x12.50		X	X	X
34x	Not recommended for 15x7 wheels
35x	Not recommended for 15x7 wheels