Best M/T tires for a rock crawler in 2021
- Thread starter suicideking
- Start date
They are okay, that's it. I wouldn't run a free set where it matters. For the street and mild wheeling, sure.
Gotcha. They seemed like a similar tread pattern to the Nittos, but maybe a bit better wet weather performance.
Duratracs have been hard to beat for me, but my grandpa that lives 30 miles away had a set of 31's on a stock TJ that went bald in about 25k miles, so I figure it's kind of a crapshoot anyways
I refer to them as Duratrash. We get so many complaints about road noise and vibrations on the GM trucks all the time.
Customers buy the Colorado's and Silverado's with the OffRoad package because it looks cool. They are back at the dealership within about 1k miles complaining about them.
A trailer may be cheaper than a set of tires today. Consider some stickies and trailer it.
I have duratracs on my F150, 21k and they are pretty worn. I missed one rotation and the noise never went away.
The problem with that is the trailer is now mandatory. I know someone who flat towed a rig with a brand new set of BFG Reds to JV and back. 300 mile round trip took off 1/2 the tread. They are not even a hop in and bop down to the store tire.
I have a set of the Falken Wildpeak AT’s on a GMC Yukon. About 8,000 miles into them. So far I like that tire. It may speak of the quality of the MT.
OP
The sidewall is hugely important to me too. I've seen some sidewalls that were unbelievably thin for a supposedly offroad tire, ProComp tires are notorious for paper-thin sidewalls. No matter how perfect the tread looks my first concern is how tough the sidewall is.
I own a jeep rental business and burn through a lot of tires. Over the years I've tried lots of different brands. Most of them are comparable. They really don't shine good or bad with a few notable exceptions.
BFG A/T- Not a mud tire, but fantastic street manners, very quiet, they balance nicely too.... horrible tire for what I use them for. Rocks chew them apart. I was having them chunk at 4-5k miles. There was plenty of tread left where it had not chunked. Ruined tire in 4-5k miles. I would actually recommend for a weekend warrior, but not heavy off road use.
Most tires I can get about 10k miles out of before they get chewed up. Even off-brand like Hercules.
The "horrible" Patagonia's do fine and fall into the 10k range.
The winner so far... hands down Falken Wildpeak M/T. I've got some well over 15k miles and still going strong. They are lasting the longest by a considerable margin. Sidewalls seem tough enough. Only lost one to a sidewall rip when a broken sway bar link tore it out.
This info is only based on longevity and toughness in a commercial setting, not on performance. The entire fleet now sits on Falkens so I guess the experiment is over. My own personal Gladiator sits on Baja Boss M/Ts and so far I love them, but only time will tell.
BFG A/T- Not a mud tire, but fantastic street manners, very quiet, they balance nicely too.... horrible tire for what I use them for. Rocks chew them apart. I was having them chunk at 4-5k miles. There was plenty of tread left where it had not chunked. Ruined tire in 4-5k miles. I would actually recommend for a weekend warrior, but not heavy off road use.
Most tires I can get about 10k miles out of before they get chewed up. Even off-brand like Hercules.
The "horrible" Patagonia's do fine and fall into the 10k range.
The winner so far... hands down Falken Wildpeak M/T. I've got some well over 15k miles and still going strong. They are lasting the longest by a considerable margin. Sidewalls seem tough enough. Only lost one to a sidewall rip when a broken sway bar link tore it out.
This info is only based on longevity and toughness in a commercial setting, not on performance. The entire fleet now sits on Falkens so I guess the experiment is over. My own personal Gladiator sits on Baja Boss M/Ts and so far I love them, but only time will tell.
B00mb00m
The Church of Cutting Brakes of Atlas-Front Digs
Supporting Member
Ride of the Month Winner
When I was shopping for new MTs recently I always interpreted long lasting tires as being too hard for rock crawling. I know you mentioned this also. For a non fleet you basically want the softest treads that are just hard to enough survive regular road use.
I also ended on Baja Bosses. They seem to be doing the job I ask of them 3 times a week road duty and at least one hard wheeling day a month. No chunking so far but I don't think PNW terrain causes a lot of chunks. My Patagonia had minimal chunking as well.
06TJ35's
TJ Addict
I really liked my duratracs. I thought they were quiet, absolutely amazing in snow/ice, and handled the CO rocks easily. I think I swapped them out at 45k, but given the amount of wheeling I did with them, wasn't upset.
My Toyo M/T's had chunks but they were also sipped pretty deep. It was around that time that Les Schwab started to only go about 1/3 into the tread so they wouldn't chunk as bad.
Well on a Jeep I'm not sure that is saying much. Turn up that high end stereo....
If on my Harley I'd crank the throttle a little more...
I usually wear ear plugs when I am in the Jeep or riding. That cuts out most of the noise.