Tuff Country Toy

The old standby lift block raised the rear suspension of the truck. We did notice some spring wrap from the stock, worn-out springs, and the block only added to that, though we feel it wouldn't have been so bad had the springs been in better shape.

With the kit installed, we mounted up a set of the new BFGoodrich LT285/55R20LRD All-Terrain TA tires on Ultra Wheel Stargazer 20x9 wheels that measure roughly 33 inches tall. When we went to put the tires on the truck we found that the tires rubbed the spindle and couldn't be completely mounted. We found that a minimum of 4 1/2 inches of backspacing is needed to clear.

We went with a set of 1-inch wheel spacers from Kartek to get the wheels and tires to clear on the front. Always be sure to retighten the spacers after your first 300 miles or first tank of gas.

We wanted to test the new 20-inch tires against some more common 33-inch tires on 16-inch rims, so we brought along an extra set of BFGoodrich All-Terrains on 16x8 Ultra Wheels for our dirt testing. We will eventually come back and re-examine this comparison in a few months, but our initial review of the tires, wheels, and suspension is as follows: The Tuff Country 5-inch kit is a solid kit, and after a small wrestling match to get it on, we found the ride quality did not diminish from stock. The 33-inch BFGoodrich tires did rub just a little on the back edge of the plastic fender liner, but this could have easily been fixed by installing some replacement factory springs in place of our tired front struts, or just trimming the plastic back an inch.

As for the 20-inch tires, some of the staff really like it, others don't. The 20s definitely weigh more than the 16s and also transmit more road surface feel to the driver seat, but also seem to corner as well if not better.