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Tyres

Julian

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Sep 9, 2012
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Well new forum and all, we haven't had a which tyre is best thread yet!
So here goes
I am in the fortunate position of having 10 rims for my Land Cruiser with the intention of running to sets of tyres
Now what would you do?
A) Run a set of 285/75/16 Road biased all terrains like the Cooper ATR and a set of 315/75/16 All round mud terrains like the Cooper SST
B) Run a set of 285/75/16 Normal all terrains like BF Goodrich and a set of 35/11.5/16 Simex or Silverstones
All input gratefully received my head is getting a little sore trying to work it out
J
 
Will be watching this thread closley as this is something that I am considering..
 
On an 80:

BFG AT 285/75-16 for the road
BFG MT 285/75-16 for the off road (or every day use!) I always fitted AT's but have been running on MT's for a year with no worries.

For something newer with stuff like Traction Control:

General Grabber AT2's

Having said that, the new BFG MT's look the business
 
i Would go for b for 2 reasons

1) AT tyres are actually decent in the snow, this will save you embarrassment by not being able to go up the tiniest hill in your landcruiser when it snows
2) if you only use the MT for playing once in a while then get the best you can as you don't have to worry about tyre wear. why compromise?
 
My concern is not enough gap in the middle, meaning not enough reason to change the wheels over
 
orcatech1 said:
My concern is not enough gap in the middle, meaning not enough reason to change the wheels over
which choice are you referring to?
 
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Shall we see who tows who out next on the plain :lol:

Thats buggered it if i get stuck. :cool:
 
Well, I can vouch for the Dunlops needing a tow. I got towed of pretty flat grass by TOmmo:oops:


Edit: Tommo / Jimbo are not the same person :oops:
 
option A might be too close together
that's what i meant, why have a rather tame set of MT for occasional use
 
If you ask me, the Cooper STT's should be used as a compromise, not a dedicated off road tyre - IMO they're as good as (perhaps better than) BFG AT's on the road and as good as BFG MT's off it. They're also damn near indestructible.

If I was going to run 2 sets of wheels/tyres I would go for a good all terrain for road use and light green laning and the Simex's for more extreme stuff.

Just my 2p
 
Jimbo4x4 said:
IMO they're as good as (perhaps better than) BFG AT's on the road and as good as BFG MT's off it.

Really? I would have thought that the smaller amount of rubber on the road would have lead to an interesting drive both in the dry and more so in the wet?
They do look better than "normal" tyres though. :>
Gary does speak highly of them as well.
 
Crispin said:
Jimbo4x4 said:
IMO they're as good as (perhaps better than) BFG AT's on the road and as good as BFG MT's off it.

Really? I would have thought that the smaller amount of rubber on the road would have lead to an interesting drive both in the dry and more so in the wet?
They do look better than "normal" tyres though. :>
Gary does speak highly of them as well.

They speak for themselves - My girlfriend couldn't keep up with me on a twisting coastal road in the wet in her seat leon 110 tdi (remembering my 70 is a lowly 2.4td auto with part time 4wd) as she kept sliding all over the place. The tread depth also means that while the left hand lane of the A55 was running at 40mph because of an inch of standing water earlier this year, I was more than happy at 65mph in the right hand lane.

My LC had worn AT's fitted when I got it, which weren't bad in the dry, but emergency braking in wet or dusty conditions resulted in all four wheels locking up with ease. Now, though, brown trousers are a thing of the past.

I think the compound of the rubber can affect the the handling quite alot, and the soft but hard wearing compound used in the STT's makes for excellent road holding.
 
Jimbo4x4 said:
Crispin said:
Jimbo4x4 said:
IMO they're as good as (perhaps better than) BFG AT's on the road and as good as BFG MT's off it.

Really? I would have thought that the smaller amount of rubber on the road would have lead to an interesting drive both in the dry and more so in the wet?
They do look better than "normal" tyres though. :>
Gary does speak highly of them as well.

They speak for themselves - My girlfriend couldn't keep up with me on a twisting coastal road in the wet in her seat leon 110 tdi (remembering my 70 is a lowly 2.4td auto with part time 4wd) as she kept sliding all over the place. The tread depth also means that while the left hand lane of the A55 was running at 40mph because of an inch of standing water earlier this year, I was more than happy at 65mph in the right hand lane.

My LC had worn AT's fitted when I got it, which weren't bad in the dry, but emergency braking in wet or dusty conditions resulted in all four wheels locking up with ease. Now, though, brown trousers are a thing of the past.

I think the compound of the rubber can affect the the handling quite alot, and the soft but hard wearing compound used in the STT's makes for excellent road holding.

Interesting. How many miles have you done, how much of the tyre remains and how much do you expect to get? I'm liking....
 
You can't really compare old tyres of one brand with new of another brand to get an idea of which is best because the compound is usually much harder when tyres are worn.

There are some new Mitchelin AT/MT mix tyres that look interesting, they look like half the tyre is an AT pattern and the other half is an MT pattern. Haven't seen any available in this country yet or I might try a set.

To me there doesn't seem much point having two sets of wheels if both have tyres that are still such a big compromise for your intended use so I'd go for some good AT's on one for DD / overlanding and a Simex like pattern for playing.
 
So option B looks like the most popular choice
Now which All Terrain tyres?
The contenders are
A BF Goodrich (Expensive, but in my experience the most popular choice on overlanding Cruisers by a big margin
B General Grabber AT2 (Better Price and from what I have read, pretty much a BF Goodrich copy in a better compound)
C Toyo Not sure the 285/75/16 has been discontinued
D Cooper ST
And Which Mud Terrains
A Simex 35/11.5/16 ( like the idea of a tall and narrow tyre)
B Silverstone
C Maxxis
On a slightly different angle what do people think of using these style of Mud Terrains green laneing?
 
On the AT front i have had both BFG's and General Grabber AT2's

The BFG is legendary but i think always has the edge due to the very high miles so pence per mile is good.

General Grabber, found to be a little softer so on much newer vehicles found it worked better with the traction control, there are some good write ups on the Disco3 website about it.
 
There are mixed views on Simex for laning. I've used them a lot but you need to be careful you don't let them spin or they dig a hole very quickly! They're not too hot on wet stone or tree roots.
 
I chucked off the Dunflops after getting stuck in Wales last year and put on the Cooper STTs. First impressions have been good (I've had them on for a year and a bit now). They balance pretty well, and are damn good on-road, even in the constant Scottish rain and snow. Managed to slide the truck twice so far (deliberately) going down a hill with a tight bend - drifting in a 4wd is different ;)

So far they have worn OK - tread depth was the deepest I could find when I bought them, at 16mm IIRC. They're down to 14mm all round now, which isn't too bad - I've done about 7k miles on them, mostly on road. I've rotated them once - the next rotation due this weekend, now that my Snap-On rethreaders have arrived :mrgreen:

They are noticeably noisier than the Dunflops though. But what the heck - turn up the stereo.

They're supposed to have a monstrously tough side-wall, but I've noticed little cracks in some of mine, and also managed to cut one sidewall up a bit in the Lakes - but considering the sharp shale we were on I'm supposed all I had was a bit of abrasion and a little cut, and they handled the terrain well, only driver-error on the first night causing any issues :oops:

I'll probably go for them again as a 50/50 tyre. If the BFG KM2 is a LOAD quieter I might go for them, but they're a lot more expensive ...

We'll see how the Coopers do in France in June :?
 
Crispin said:
Interesting. How many miles have you done, how much of the tyre remains and how much do you expect to get? I'm liking....

I've done about 10k on these and have, again, about 14mm of tread left. I don't treat them kindly either. I'll probably look at changing them when they get down to 7-8mm or so, so I should be looking at getting another 30k out of them easily.

As for the OP's question, I would go for the Grabbers (my dad had a set of the old style ATs last over 100k, and they perfomed bloody marvelously. The AT2's are supposed to be better) and the Simex's, but don't use the Simex's for laning. They're designed to be spun up for maximum traction in wet mud and clay and they're very effective, but they don't half leave a mess. Also as Jon says, spin them up in the wrong place and they'll dig you a very neat hole very quickly.
 
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