Alternative spare tire size

[Shdwdrgn]

I saw this suggestion over on offroadtb.com and thought folks here might be interested as well. When you start going with wider tires, and continue to mount your spare underneath, you lose clearance under the back end. I currently run 265/70-16's, and the bottom of my spare tire was almost even with the differential. By using a tire calculator, you can find a tire which has nearly the same diameter, but is much narrower. This gives you a functional spare tire without sacrificing clearance.

265/70-16:

215/85-16:

The difference is pretty obvious. The new tire is about 0.2" smaller in diameter, but nearly 2 inches narrower. You can actually see the differential now! Hope this is helpful to others...