[Philly_Ken]

Hello all, I'm new here. I just purchased a clean 70K miles, 2008 Sienna LE AWD and I'm settling in nicely. I did have two questions that I hope the folks here can answer.

First, the Sienna has brand new(ish) Bridgestone DriveGuard RFT's and I'm not a fan of the way they feel. At all. The build date is late 2019 on the tires. This van has more of a truck feel than a family hauler feel if that makes sense and I'm wondering if it's all in the tires. I've dropped the tire pressure down to 30 just to improve the ride and that helps but only to a point. Anyone want to chime on how their AWD feels?

Second is that while I can see no spacers of any kind, the van seems to ride pretty high. I'm attaching a pic for those interested. Does anyone have a ride height measurement spec they would like to share?


Thanks,

Ken

 

[bill_toyota]

That's about how my van looks in terms of ride height. If you do a search on the forum, you'll find people tend to keep their air pressure at about 40psi for better tire wear. Anything lower seems to wear the tires out faster since the van is heavy.

 

[sixto]

What size tires are on it?

Sixto
‘04 LE FWD 207K miles

 

[ericreyn]

This is with 235/65/17 which are larger than stock. The height of yours looks normal,

 

[Philly_Ken]

Hello all, I'm new here. I just purchased a clean 70K miles, 2008 Sienna LE AWD and I'm settling in nicely. I did have two questions that I hope the folks here can answer.

First, the Sienna has brand new(ish) Bridgestone DriveGuard RFT's and I'm not a fan of the way they feel. At all. The build date is late 2019 on the tires. This van has more of a truck feel than a family hauler feel if that makes sense and I'm wondering if it's all in the tires. I've dropped the tire pressure down to 30 just to improve the ride and that helps but only to a point. Anyone want to chime on how their AWD feels?

Second is that while I can see no spacers of any kind, the van seems to ride pretty high. I'm attaching a pic for those interested. Does anyone have a ride height measurement spec they would like to share?


Thanks,

Ken

This is with 235/65/17 which are larger than stock. The height of yours looks normal, View attachment 61067

What size tires are on it?

Sixto
‘04 LE FWD 207K miles

Stock tires 225-60/17. Thanks for asking!

 

[datsa noydb]

The appearance is somewhat normal. I used to have an '05 LE AWD.

Tires: The only thing that 30 psi is going to do for you is to destroy those awful tires quicker. The bad part of that is that it endangers your safety in the meantime.

Virtually nobody likes the run-flat tires and switch them out at first opportunity. I have also found that running the tires a few psi over the recommendation on the sticker helps even out the wear.

.

 

[blah415]

run flat tires have a stiffer sidewall. i haven't used runflats since i got the car since i'm cheap. I've been running on normal tires with stickys in my trunk, tools and a mini compressor. i had to fix my tire on the street once since giving up runflats.

 

[Philly_Ken]

Thanks for all the advice. I pumped the tires back up but I'm not too worried about them being near the recommended psi. They are practically brand new, I don't load the van in normal driving and my round trip commute is now 10 miles a day (which also means that I'm not too worried about gas mileage.)

I really just care about comfort at this point and, my god, do they ride harsh. I feel every bit of slop in the old suspension (despite the lower miles) and it just plain annoys me. Not annoying enough to swap out a set of tires though! I have the receipt for the tires and they have under 2K miles on them. I'd spend the money for regular tires but the whole point of the van was to save a little money on a car payment and have a relatively reliable and practical vehicle.

I've already spent on a backup camera and modern (Android Auto) head unit and I haven't done a thing mechanically to the van, which I'm sure will creep up soon enough, even if just from the low mileage.

Thanks again everyone!

Ken