To those ridin 20s.......

[87XJRob]

my stock michelins are wearing down badly on the insides(yeah, I know I need an alignment) regardless of my rotations every oil change ~5000miles since new. Anyways I am looking at new tires and wanted to wait till the stockers wore down before I upgraded the wheels and after our cross country trip to Vegas and Cali, 30000 miles have passed and the time is near. What size tires are you running and do you have any rubbing going on? Recommendations on tires? I prefer one with a rim guard so that I have a little protection from the wifes habit of curb checking when she drives it(used to her tahoe where curbs are non-issue). I also prefer not to ride rubber bands or stretched tire so the ride is still smooth and also don't want a tire with noise, but decent wear(hopefully longer than the 30000mile Michelins that came on the XLS). Another caveat is that I have larger relatives that commonly plop into the back, so the avy is no stranger of bottoming out the rear suspension when pulling out/in places with bigguns in the back.

[tfelton]

Tires seem to be a very personal thing. What you like really depends opon what you want out of your Avalon. If you haven't already, check out tirerack.com

[boosted-fc3s]

The only thing you can stuff under there with 20's is a 235/35 or a 245/35, neither will ride all that comfortable if you ask me.

[87XJRob]

what size wheels are you on?
I like the Drag DR-11s that are 18" in gunmetal/stainless lip to match the magnetic grey, but they only come in 17" and 18" and the wife is afraid they won't look much different than stock. She gave me the greenlight for 20s;I am not 100% sold on them yet as I have yet to find any reasonable I like. I want the avy to handle better and looked at getting the beefier rear sway bar that the camry forums rave about as well, but I don't want it to ride like my jeep either.

[hghflyrjd1]

I have 20s with a 225 35 20 and those r smaller then most use BUT Those that do use 245s will prolly rub with people in the back..And it depend on the wheels offset also..The ride on 225s with 20s is not at all that noticeably worse.Still rides like a dream with no rub no matter what

[00avxls]

The first set of 20's I had on my car were some 20x7.5 with 225/35/20 tires and +42 offset and had no rubbing issues at all but the wheels sat in too deep in the wheel well and didn't look right to me. Another set I had were some 20x8.5 with 235/35/20 and a +38 offset and had some rubbing issues in the rear. I think if the offset is higher than +40, you should be good as far as having any rubbing. I now have 21's on my car with 255/30/21 tires and every once in a while it'll rub in the back when people ride with me, but that's not very often so it doesn't bother me.

[87XJRob]

until I can get a pic posted(when I get home) I just took a quick one with the phone and was able to change it at work. I ended up going with MSR 093 black face and backing with polished lip 20 X 8.5 with 40mm offset and General Exclaim UHP (directional tread) in 245 35 flavor.
So far the only place it rubs if I have the wheel cocked about half while pulling out of the driveway/curb area; and it is the edge of the tire on one of the plastic screws that holds the factory mud flaps on. I have yet to have any passengers ride in back, but it appears to have just enough clearance by eyeballing it with very little fender gappage f/r. I definately like the look and glad I went with 20s over 18s. Torque steer and overall steering feel is definately more pronounced and not as numb, but expected due to the size, aspect, and directional tread design. Road noise is up higher than the stock michelin energys, but tolerable and not excessive so far; actually about equivalent to last few weeks of me riding on the michelin wear markers(without the vibrations). The local tire shop recommended the tires and I persued them after reading the reviews on several of the sites and forums; most of the vette, audi, and bmw crowd gave this tire good reviews over the stock runflats with price not being the only factor.
Thanks again to all that aided my decision and I wll try to get some actual pics up when I have time at the house.