I recently had new tires and wheels installed. The tires are 235/65-R17. I can drive it all day and make tight turns while driving forward with no rubbing. Once I start backing up and turn the wheel hard right or left the tires rub the front of the wheel wells. It's not a hard rub but just a slight one. Being that they're stock sizes, could I have a problem with something in the suspension ? To me that's the only thing that makes sense. If it were the tires then I would think they'd do it in forward as well as reverse. Does anyone have any ideas on what I need to do to fix it ? New shocks ? A 2" lift ?

 

What's the backspacing on the new wheels? The OE I believe are 5.25" on 7" wheels and you have to choose what you want when you buy new ones.

 

I think it is only happening when you are in reverse because of how the weight shifts. Essentially, it is equivilant of the tires moving forward towards and into structures attached to the vehicle just ahead of the tires.

The front end picks up and forward when you are accelerating in a forward direction. The front end dips down and backwards when you are going in reverse.. The opposite happens to the tail end when you are accelerating forward, and when reversing.

(edited to add):
Saggy older springs possibly now making this prominent?

 

I looked up the specs. Backspacing is 4.5 and offset is 0.

 

I'm planning on changing out the shocks before late Fall.

 

I put some plastic tarp down under the front end and tried to figure out how to fix this. I read where some people use a heat gun to reshape the parts out of the way but that wasn't something I was wanting to do. Here's what I did do.


Here you can see how the inner splash shield mounts from the factory.


Here I've taken the bracket and bent it up. This moves the splash shield back about 1".




This is a hole I drilled in the fog light mounting bracket. Easy to do as it's plastic. I drilled the corresponding hole thru the center of the splash shield and when the push clip was installed it increased the clearance by about an inch also. Sorry the pic is so big. I thought I had compressed it like the others.



Here you can see the inner clip installed into the bent bracket, and higher up you can just see the head of the push clip that attaches the center of the splash shield to the fog light bracket. As you can see the clearance is now about an inch. If you look at the 45 degree bend in the shield you'll see the rub marks and how much the new clearance is.



In the bottom of the lower front fascia are 4 mounting holes that use plastic reusable rivets. I pushed it towards the front of the rig, and after drilling new holes, reinstalled the rivets. This gained my another 1/2" or so at the outside of the fender well.





I got in the rig and turned the wheels right and left while backing up and the only thing I hear now is the power steering pump complaining that it can't go any further. Mission accomplished.