USA vs Asian BF Goodrich Tires

[Wombat]

Spent the best part of last Saturday rotating and trying to balance up a set of BFG 33x10.5x15 on 8" alloys with my Tyre guy.

Only done about 20,000 k's and one tire is impossible to balance, when he fitted them up a year ago he thought this might happen because he had some trouble balancing it up when new - he's going to talk to BFG about a replacement but even if I get a new one I'm still pissed off because I set up a five Tyre rotation and a new one will not have even tread depth which undermines my intentions when buying five new tires.

Nevertheless, my tire guy showed me something very interesting about "USA vs Asian BFG Tyre's", so I thought I better share it up.

The BFG's he gets that are stamped "Made in the USA" come together in two haves...

The BFG's he gets that are stamped "Made somewhere in Asia" do not come together in two haves...

It's the same story for BFG; MT's & AT's. He recons the Asian version is far much more consistent with respect to balancing then the US stamped version.

I plan on selling my MT's and moving to (the Asian) AT's, we will see how just how well they fare up in the long run.

Q&A
Anyone else noticed this?
Perhaps other manufactures are moving in this way?

Check your rubber and post! We just might find a correlation - for better or for worse, I for one would like to know before I spew up a sh#t lode on my next set.

 

[Sundowner]

Am I mistaken, or are all tires not made with a two-piece mold? Balance issues and quality control aside, are we not seeing a flashing line?

 

[Jamesval035]

I can double check tomrw, but I don’t think my km3 ‘s have a prominent line like the one seen in the pic

 

[Wombat]

are we not seeing a flashing line?

Not sure what a "flashing line" is but the Asian Tyre presents to be a lateral construction? not sure if that's how you would describe it.

I can double check tomrw, but I don’t think my km3 ‘s have a prominent line like the one seen in the pic

Looking forward to that, and I hope many more will weigh in. My current understanding is USA two pieces longways Asian about a dozen lateral

 

[Chris]

Interesting comparison! Most of the tires I've owned (that I can remember at least) all seem to be made from a 2-piece mold.

I wonder if there really is a difference at all in terms of balancing and or performance.

 

[MallCrawlOnTons]

Call you local shops. The bfg all terrains have a lot of issues. We have probably warrantied close to 100 of them since they updated them.
All with balance issues. They couldn’t pass a road force test brand new.

 

[Mattific]

I had issues with the previous gen ones when it came to balancing as well. No issues with the KM3 though

 

[Wombat]

No issues with the KM3 though

Photo?

 

[-T.]

Interesting. I'm actually intending on dropping in at my local tire shop to order this exact size tire, but I'm leaning toward the MTs at this point. I wonder if they will have any information about this.

 

[Mattific]

Photo?

 

[Jamesval035]

Here ya go, there seems to be a seem down the middle. Also, for those interested in km3’s the 35x12.5x15 (atleast mine) seem to run about 1” narrower than the advertised 12.5”. Otherwise they balanced well and ride nice. Have about 3-4K in then and quieter than my 33” procomp mt2’s

 

[Jerry Bransford]

Am I mistaken, or are all tires not made with a two-piece mold? Balance issues and quality control aside, are we not seeing a flashing line?

That's exactly my thoughts, that's just a flashing line from the two halves of the mold coming together. Not like the tires are made in two halves and then glued together lol.