Noob 4x4ing?

:bandit:

Nice. ..and really, the new Hankooks look like a completely different tire than the old one I was thinking of anyways…I was thinking quite a ways back…lol

Wahoo!!! Truck tire chat. I'm a geek for truck tires. A benefit of owning a tire and service shop is being able to run any tire I want whenever I want. I generally swap out tires every month. Average 1500-2000km per month of on and off road driving, mostly off road. I run them on a Nissan Frontier. I run 235/85R16, 265/75R16 and 285/75R16 in D and E rated tires. In the past year I have had BFG A/T KO2 3PMS, General Grabber AT2 3PMS, Cooper Discoverer AT3, Hercules Trail Digger MT, Nexen Rodian MT, Westlake CR857+ 3PMS, Atturo Trail Blade MT, Unroyal Laredo HD 3PMS Studded, and Hercules TerraTrac D/T.

The Cooper AT3 is by far the best overall tire I have used and is the only tire that I have kept. Excellent on road manners in dry, wet and snow. Have seen sets with 70K and still plenty of usable tread. Lots of tread siping and handles as good as a winter tire. Only issue off roading was steep sloppy/muddy hills. Tread packed with mud but cleaned out quickly with some wheel spin. They also have a bit of a softer sidewall so were squirmey at low tire pressure (20psi) on gravel. AT3 is not as expensive as BFGs.

If you want a tire geared more towards off road and don't mind spending a few $$$ look at the Toyo Open Country CT, although you might have an issue with tire size. Not sure if they come in 15". Choose KO2s over Grabber AT2. KO2 has better rubber. AT2s are hard and get harder over time. They are a good tire but it's worth spending a bit more for the KO2.

If you want a good "budget" tire have a look at the Hercules TerraTrac AT2.

thanks for the expert opinions. if you own/run a tire shop that's pretty fucking expert! any thoughts on the goodyear adventure at's, l/t? newer version of the silent armors. i have them on my Fronty and i'm happy with them so far (about a yr).

it was between the ko2 and ath cooper at 3 when I was buying..
sweet sidewall lugs and a snow rating is what made my decision for me.

I like where this discussion is going as I want some new tires. I have a set of 30x9.5x15 BFG AT KO's (not the new KO2's), which I've found extremely bad on wet pavement. I love them off road in the summer, and they've been pretty good in snow, but I am terrified driving in the rain… even a light sprinkle of rain has me easily spinning out when starting from a stop on a hill, and needing an abnormally long space to stop. I don't remember how they were when they were new, but for sure within 10-15,000km they were starting to get pretty bad in the wet. At 30,000km now and they've only gotten worse. I'm sure it's partially my vehicle (2000 Jeep Cherokee), but has anyone else noticed this tire is particularly bad on wet pavement? I know they have the snow peak rating but they really haven't seemed special on the snow either, unless it's dry and packed.

Most of my driving is just to work Mon-Friday in the city, but pretty much every weekend in the winter I take my snowmobile on a trailer somewhere between Squamish and Pemberton, which often means having to drive a few km's up the logging roads until I meet the snow line. This can get extremely sketchy as you'll sometimes have to drive a few hundred m over patchy packed snow before you find somewhere you can park or turn around, and I really don't want to get stuck spinning out somewhere with the trailer.

So my ideal tire would be very good in snow, good on logging roads (they don't usually have deep mud), and also good on wet pavement. The Cooper AT3's sound pretty interesting, anyone have experience in snow with them?

My first hand experience suggests that the ko2's are a huge improvement over the old in snow and wet weather, lots of new siping and a different rubber compound, at least when theyre new they are really good. I was contemplating the toyo at3, the cooper at3 and the new bfg and went with the bfg cause I liked the look of em the tire shop and everyone else I talked to was telling me these are the ones to get for what I wanted to do.

http://expeditionportal.com/nmbrs-long-term-bfgoodrich-ko2-review-15000-mile-report/

to go along with their previous review of the Cooper AT3 shootout..

Has anyone tried these out yet?
http://us.coopertire.com/Tires/Light-Truck/Discoverer-A-TW.aspx

Cooper keeps making some great tires. Thinking these would be well suited for our Sequoia.

Those look sweet. Lotsa sipes, prolly has good road manners.

So my ideal tire would be very good in snow, good on logging roads (they don't usually have deep mud), and also good on wet pavement. The Cooper AT3's sound pretty interesting, anyone have experience in snow with them?

No personal experience with the AT3 in snow but, I put a set of AT3s on a good friends 2014 Chev 1500 in October. The truck sees Squamish-[HTML_REMOVED]Burnaby 5 days a week. We had some snow up here this year and he was blown away by the traction. We did a few rips up the logging roads and into the deeper snow and his only issue was ground clearance of his front air dam.

If you want more off road oriented tire go with the KO2. It also has 3PMS (snowflake) that the AT3 does not. KO2 has a wider tread block spacing to help clear mud/rocks/snow and a square foot print that helps the side treads dig when you get into some deeper stuff. Plan to spend $800-$1000 for a set in that size.

thanks for the expert opinions. if you own/run a tire shop that's pretty fucking expert! any thoughts on the goodyear adventure at's, l/t? newer version of the silent armors. i have them on my Fronty and i'm happy with them so far (about a yr).

I cant compete with CTs pricing on Goodyear products so dont have to much to say about them. Have seen a few sets on some 4runners and light pickups and everybody is happy. The KEVLAR goodyear products are some of the toughest tire casings out there so i would suspect that the SILENT ARMOR shares some of that technology but that is just a guess.

Has anyone tried these out yet?
http://us.coopertire.com/Tires/Light-Truck/Discoverer-A-TW.aspx

Cooper keeps making some great tires. Thinking these would be well suited for our Sequoia.

The AT-W was released last winter in the US. I believe that Canadian Tire was the only place to get them in Canada. They are a good looking tire. Nice to see another LT/SUV tire in the Cooper lineup with 3PMS. The X/T4 just wasn't cutting it. Hopefully Cooper will allow private dealers to order them soon. There was alot of interest in them.

Very happy with the Cooper AT3 other than the hwy noise.

Well, my tire purchasing ended up slightly more value based after a nail went into one our Pathfinders tires the other day. Getting quotes from Vancouver dealers got old pretty fast as they were all quoting the same prices for the same tires and around $1000.

Good 2 Go Excel Tire in Squamish offered some Hercules TerraTrac AT2s for less than 800 all in so I got those installed today. Thanks guys! Seems like well rated tires at the cheaper end of the market and I'd not noticed just how crap the handling on our vehicle was until putting new rubber on.