2007 Toyota Rav4 One Flat Tire on Rav4, Do I need to buy 4

HI there,

This is just not true, the fact that you have an all wheel drive vehicle is an advantage as the central diff will account for any minor rolling Dia of the new tyre, you can put a new tyre on with out any worry.

mark (mhpautos)

Hello Mark,

First, thank you very much for taking the time to answer my question.

I was not able to check for your answer until today. But I did call around to two Toyotas near my location. One told me it was Toyota's policy that all four tires needed to be changed. The reason being that the new tire would rotate at a slower rate since it had more thread on it than the other three and this would cause problems witht the differential system and then to the transmission.

The other Toyota did not mention any policy but the service representative stated that it would depend on the thread of the other tires compared to the new one. He stated that I could bring the car over and he could look at it to make sure it that I would not cause damage to the differential system and transmission due to the depth of the old tires versus the new one.

I think I might go to the Toyota for the checkup but my gut feeling tells me that I will be just fine by leaving the spare tire on the car (remember that my spare is the same brand and size as the other three). I will just need to buy another tire to carry as a spare.

Again, thanks for all of your help and if you have any other thoughts, I would appreciate them.