What do you think are really good tires for most off road ventures

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Lanlubber In Remembrance

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Excluding extreme rock crawling or mud bogging, what tires do you thing perform the best for most on-off road conditions in all weather situations and for technical trails as well. I am about to buy 5 new tires for my LRD2 in preparation for my fall, winter, spring adventures. My trips will be in NM, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Washington, and Organ. I will be on paved roads as little as possible but unfortunately I cant just go anywhere I want so whatever road is available for travel will be what I use in my wonderings.
Lanlubber Jim
 

Billiebob

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After 40 years of wheeling, starting with a M38.... I've been thru Super Swamper, BFG KOs. KO2s, MTs. MT2s, Goodyear DTs, and a dozen different 235/85R16s on pickups.

I just bought some 7.50R16s for my TJR, they are the smoothest riding grips I've ever had on a Wrangler. And they do everything I need for a 50% saving over the mainstream 10.50/12.50 33s most guys run.

DSC_0014.jpg

Skinniest tiresI could find. A dream on pavement. obviously, not for the extremes of mud bogging, rock crawling or running sand dunes but for what 90% of us really do, they are perfect. Before Dick Cepek,,,, these were the tires everyone ran.
 

Lanlubber In Remembrance

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I run Duratracs which I daily drive, rock crawl, mud and water, plus 5mo/year of Canadian winter.
Unfortunately, they stop at 35". So my next tire won't be a Duratrac...
Thank you , 32" will do me just fine. Never thought I would have trouble selecting a tire but this rig will go more places than any tire I have ever owned.
 
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Lanlubber In Remembrance

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After 40 years of wheeling, starting with a M38.... I've been thru Super Swamper, BFG KOs. KO2s, MTs. MT2s, Goodyear DTs, and a dozen different 235/85R16s on pickups.

I just bought some 7.50R16s for my TJR, they are the smoothest riding grips I've ever had on a Wrangler. And they do everything I need for a 50% saving over the mainstream 10.50/12.50 33s most guys run.

View attachment 114748

Skinniest tiresI could find. A dream on pavement. obviously, not for the extremes of mud bogging, rock crawling or running sand dunes but for what 90% of us really do, they are perfect. Before Dick Cepek,,,, these were the tires everyone ran.
I saw these the other day on your post and liked what I saw. I will check these out for my tire size. I thought Dick Cepek were expensive tires ?? I do have to drive a lot of sandy roads, rocky roads and muddy roads in my area. Not a lot of snow but plan some Colorado trips and I like winter driving. Thank you Billybob I know you have much experience driving off road.
 

Lanlubber In Remembrance

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This has been very interesting so far. I have checked on many suggestions and found some interesting info. One, you cant go by prices to determine quality based on use by buyers. Some of the so called better tires (BFG's, Goodyear) have very poor ratings buy owners of the tire. Several of the cheaper tires have very good ratings by their owners. I think I have found a tire no one has mentioned here so far and would like to know if anyone else has used them. They are Mildstar Patagonia brand. They have a 4.6 overall rating @ Discount Tire sales with all users. I'm looking at 265/75R/16 @ $138.00 each and because I want 5, there is a $100 discount. (discount comes because if I order them now they are out of stock so I will have to wait) I hope there is an OB'er out there who has some knowledge of this tire. It looks promising to me.
 

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This is a good question, but also a challenging one. People will probably give you a recommendation based on what works for them and their needs, but that might include variables that are not relevant to you.

For us, we ran Cooper Discovery AT3s. This decision was made for two reasons: They were more reasonably priced than the competition, and they came recommended as the Value AND Editor's Choice from Expedition Portal, which is a pretty solid recommendation -- I liked how they showed the testing and results in detail, and explained the choice they made instead of just making a choice and saying "Trust us". You can read that article here, but be warned it is older and tire technology is changing: Where the Rubber Meets the Road

For a more general option, I'd be willing to bet that if you asked 1000 experienced overlanders this question, the most common answer will be "BFG KO2s". The BFG KO line has more successful off-road/overland miles than most other brands, and for the most part they are very resilient, grip well, and check all the boxes for a good tire. In other words, if you decide you just want to make an easy choice, you cannot go wrong with the KO2s.

And finally -- most modern name-brand tires are pretty good. In the early years of overlanding, I used to get punctures WAY more often than I do now. Perhaps that was over-enthusiastic driving in my youth, but the fact is that tires are a tight market, with the major brands all being very competitive with one another in terms of reliability, grip, etc. So if you go buy a set of Coopers, and then the next week see a glowing review of the latest Duratrec or BFG AT -- don't worry about it. There isn't likely to be a substantive gap between any of the major brands/models to make any 'buyers remorse' worthwhile.

I think for most people it's more important to make sure you are getting the right class of tire for your needs (i.e. an All Terrain vs a Mud Terrain) than it is to ensure you are getting a specific All Terrain from a specific company, so long as you are shopping from one of the bigger manufacturers like Cooper, BFG, Goodyear, Falken, etc. and not picking up the Wal Mart brand (But hey, if that's what is in your budget, there's nothing wrong with the cheaper brands so long as your expectations are managed appropriately and you prepare accordingly -- I'd take an actual adventure on cheap tires over expensive tires that leave no money for gas any day of the week!). An example of this tire class issue is with the Jeeps - Rubicons come with MTs, but in a lot of dry-land Overlanding (gravel travel, deserts, etc.) they are terrible -- they wear very unevenly which introduces uncomfortable shudder in the drivetrain, which creates extra wear on both the driver and components (I've had a set go from balanced to vibrations in a single trip), and they are LOUD. The Cooper AT swap was excellent to address both issues.
 

jeep670

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I ran the Cooper Discoverer AT3 on my Grand Cherokee. They are great from highway to dirt roads, maybe dry forest roads, but not beyond that. They are not an offroad tire.
I don't care what the Editor of EP says, I speak from my experience running that tire.
 

ToddT_503

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I had a hard time not getting KO2's again. I put them on my 4runner at about 25k miles and they are still on it today at 96kish with tread left, not much but still above the wear bars. i will be installing 285s this week and using those left overs for my new trailer build. The biggest complaint i have seen on the KO2's is wet traction. i have not experienced that issue.

Just my .02 and thoughts on the KO2.

Keep your eyes on eBay also. i got my set of 285s from there they are labeled as "Takeoffs" still had the stickers on the tread. i see a lot of new Rubicons around here with them on the stock setup. i'm guessing a dealer in CA is pulling them and putting on MT's of some sort. saved me a few hundred bucks so i'm happy.
 

Lanlubber In Remembrance

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I just looked at Goodyear Wrangler Trailrunner and was quoted a great price on 265/75R/16 for 5 tires. It is about the only tire I have found that has a 5* rating, 55,000 mile warranty and can deliver now. It's not a M/T, it is an A/T. Do you think that tire meets the criteria I listed on my thread ?
 

Ghost

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The biggest complaint i have seen on the KO2's is wet traction. i have not experienced that issue.
I see that all the time also???? I live in Washington and similar to Oregon average 64 inches of rain a year, so wet is normal. Having run BFGs ATs on 3 different rigs and now KO2s on the wife's 4Runner my experience has been nothing but normal tire performance. Nothing amazing, nothing horrible. I wonder if some of it is just peoples driving habits that live in areas that don't get a lot of rain? Much like when Portland gets hit with 3 inches of snow :grinning::grinning::grinning:
 

Lanlubber In Remembrance

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I had a hard time not getting KO2's again. I put them on my 4runner at about 25k miles and they are still on it today at 96kish with tread left, not much but still above the wear bars. i will be installing 285s this week and using those left overs for my new trailer build. The biggest complaint i have seen on the KO2's is wet traction. i have not experienced that issue.

Just my .02 and thoughts on the KO2.

Keep your eyes on eBay also. i got my set of 285s from there they are labeled as "Takeoffs" still had the stickers on the tread. i see a lot of new Rubicons around here with them on the stock setup. i'm guessing a dealer in CA is pulling them and putting on MT's of some sort. saved me a few hundred bucks so i'm happy.
I bought my last set of tires and wheels like that. Great price for dealer take offs including the wheels. Bad thing is original equip tires are not the quality of a store bought tire. For the price though they are great.
 

ToddT_503

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I bought my last set of tires and wheels like that. Great price for dealer take offs including the wheels. Bad thing is original equip tires are not the quality of a store bought tire. For the price though they are great.
i have heard that lots of times. only time will tell. on a 4 runner i would be happy to get the 50k out of them since they are so light. but we will see.