New Tires For Big Blue

[Nothing Special]

That is useful, Bob. Especially the part about "They developed a whine that was getting pretty annoying." That would certainly upset me.

On the road groove issue, I'm sure you played with tire pressures. I ask because I remember so very well a 1980 Chevy Citation X11 we bought new. It had wide tires and on I-70 headed to Colorado I had to constantly fight it as it did NOT play nicely with the grooves. Turned out that raising the tire pressure a few pounds above the recommended level fixed that as it got the center of the tire carrying more of the load instead of the edges. But I'll bet you tried that and it didn't work.

One thing that I read a lot about the K02s is that they are poor in the wet. In fact, apparently my son read the same thing as when I told him that I'm considering the K02s that was the first thing he said. Given that, if I were to buy today I think I'd go with the Falken WildPeak A/T3W's. They are a little bit better in the wet than the K02's are, as shown in the excerpt from the spreadsheet below. So I can tell him I listened.

Manufacturer BF Goodrich Falken

Tire BFG T/A KO2 WildPeak A/T3W

Road Ride

Ride Quality 6.86 6.63

Noise 7.05 6.75

Steering 7.07 6.63

Overall Road 6.99 6.67

 

Wet Test Track

Braking 6.63 6.50

Steering 6.60 6.00

Cornering 6.24 6.50

Handling 6.32 6.00

Overall Rating 6.45 6.25

 

Stopping - Dry 100.30 99.70

Stopping - Wet 148.50 135.20

G-Force - Dry 0.69 0.79

G-Force - Wet 0.50 0.60

Actually I didn't play with tire pressure that much. I typically ran those tires at 50 front / 40 rear, so pretty high (trying for better mileage and I thought the ride was OK). But I did run them at 80/80 when loaded and didn't notice an improvement. But then again I was loaded then too (well the truck was, not me:nabble_smiley_beam:)

I will say that I never had any complaints about the KO2 traction on wet pavement. Not saying I have a good base for comparison, but it wasn't something I ever thought was lacking.

And I might be off on this, but doesn't the "W" in the "A/T3W" stand for "winter"? I thought I remember that being the better snow tire and the Falken A/T3 likely being a better choice if snow and ice aren't a factor. But my memory might be off on that, so take it for what little it's worth.

[Gary Lewis]

Actually I didn't play with tire pressure that much. I typically ran those tires at 50 front / 40 rear, so pretty high (trying for better mileage and I thought the ride was OK). But I did run them at 80/80 when loaded and didn't notice an improvement. But then again I was loaded then too (well the truck was, not me:nabble_smiley_beam:)

I will say that I never had any complaints about the KO2 traction on wet pavement. Not saying I have a good base for comparison, but it wasn't something I ever thought was lacking.

And I might be off on this, but doesn't the "W" in the "A/T3W" stand for "winter"? I thought I remember that being the better snow tire and the Falken A/T3 likely being a better choice if snow and ice aren't a factor. But my memory might be off on that, so take it for what little it's worth.

From the Falken website: "Full-depth grooves and sipes help to maintain snow and wet traction throughout the life of the tire, resulting in long-lasting wear, proven snow traction, and strong wet weather performance (hence the 3W: Wear, Winter, Wet)." I didn't know that, so thanks for asking.

[mat in tn]

From the Falken website: "Full-depth grooves and sipes help to maintain snow and wet traction throughout the life of the tire, resulting in long-lasting wear, proven snow traction, and strong wet weather performance (hence the 3W: Wear, Winter, Wet)." I didn't know that, so thanks for asking.

I do know that mine have that little "mountain" molded into them with the snowflake symbol

[Gary Lewis]

I do know that mine have that little "mountain" molded into them with the snowflake symbol

Yep, the K02's and A/T3W's both have the snowpeak.

 

Talked to FoxFord33 this morning at church. He used to work at the local tire shop, which is an area chain called Tate Boys, and he said he doesn't recall any problems with either of those two tires. He thinks they are comparable.

 

Then I talked to a guy with a Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro with K02's. He used to live in Africa as well as Colorado and has done a lot of offroad driving. Says he uses K02's or K02's. And, he's had no trouble with them at all.

 

And, after we'd talked about what I'm doing a bit, he recommended that I check out his friend Andrew St Pierre White's Youtube channel: 4XOverland. So I came home and started watching some of his videos. He has one regarding the work he was doing on his Land Cruiser and the episode is called Lithium VS AGM Batteries. Lo and behold he mounted Falken WildPeak A/T3W's. And, he mounted 285/75R16, the same tire I'm looking at.

 

I've commented on his channel telling him about his friend's referral to his channel and asked him what he thinks of the WildPeak's 2 1/2 years on. We shall see.

[Bruno2]

I just recently switched to the Firestone MT2 in a 10ply. These are supposedly the most quiet mud terrain tire around. I believe it because the noise is almost non existant.

[Bruno2]

Don't waste your time with the Geolanders. I thankfully just got rid of mine for the Firestones. The Yokohama wore horrible (maybe 30k if I was lucky) and noisy.like couldn't believe.

Jason was running the Falkens and kept having bad vibration issues like they needed to be balanced every 10K.

[Bruno2]

Don't waste your time with the Geolanders. I thankfully just got rid of mine for the Firestones. The Yokohama wore horrible (maybe 30k if I was lucky) and noisy.like couldn't believe.

Jason was running the Falkens and kept having bad vibration issues like they needed to be balanced every 10K.

The Geolander mud terrain is what I had on my Tundra and currently have on my Dodge.

I put a set of Geolanfer AT's on my F250. I had previously been running Firestone AT transforce for years. I have never had that truck stuck in it's life with me until I changed to the Geolander. I have never been stuck so many times in any vehicle and I had a 2wd Chevy for a few yrs too. I cant say enough bad things about the geolander All Terrain. Such a disappointment.

[Bruno2]

Yep, the K02's and A/T3W's both have the snowpeak.

 

Talked to FoxFord33 this morning at church. He used to work at the local tire shop, which is an area chain called Tate Boys, and he said he doesn't recall any problems with either of those two tires. He thinks they are comparable.

 

Then I talked to a guy with a Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro with K02's. He used to live in Africa as well as Colorado and has done a lot of offroad driving. Says he uses K02's or K02's. And, he's had no trouble with them at all.

 

And, after we'd talked about what I'm doing a bit, he recommended that I check out his friend Andrew St Pierre White's Youtube channel: 4XOverland. So I came home and started watching some of his videos. He has one regarding the work he was doing on his Land Cruiser and the episode is called Lithium VS AGM Batteries. Lo and behold he mounted Falken WildPeak A/T3W's. And, he mounted 285/75R16, the same tire I'm looking at.

 

I've commented on his channel telling him about his friend's referral to his channel and asked him what he thinks of the WildPeak's 2 1/2 years on. We shall see.

A lot of off road guys run the KO2 and swear by them. I hear they're fairly quiet too. I have a feeling if you go with the Falkens your experience will be the same as Jason's. They performed like a cheap tire.

[Gary Lewis]

Don't waste your time with the Geolanders. I thankfully just got rid of mine for the Firestones. The Yokohama wore horrible (maybe 30k if I was lucky) and noisy.like couldn't believe.

Jason was running the Falkens and kept having bad vibration issues like they needed to be balanced every 10K.

Thanks for the input, Brandon.

Given what you said I've gone back to Tire Rack and compared the Falken A/T3W, the BFG K02's, & the Firestone Destination M/T2. The "consumer ratings" are shown below, but I'll reiterate - these are from people like us and are just opinions as they aren't backed up with hard data like in an actual head-to-head test with instrumentation.

But, the Firestone is clearly thought to be the better tire off-road. However, it doesn't get as high of marks for noise, and remember that in these #'s higher is better/less noise.

So what I really want to do is to compare actual test data. And Tire Rack has done a test on the Firestone, so I need to put it in my spreadsheet so we can see their results compared to the others I'm thinking of. I'll do that and post it here again. But one thing that they said in their overview about the Firestone is "What We'd Improve: It could use a significant noise reduction."

[Gary Lewis]

Thanks for the input, Brandon.Given what you said I've gone back to Tire Rack and compared the Falken A/T3W, the BFG K02's, & the Firestone Destination M/T2. The "consumer ratings" are shown below, but I'll reiterate - these are from people like us and are just opinions as they aren't backed up with hard data like in an actual head-to-head test with instrumentation.But, the Firestone is clearly thought to be the better tire off-road. However, it doesn't get as high of marks for noise, and remember that in these #'s higher is better/less noise.So what I really want to do is to compare actual test data. And Tire Rack has done a test on the Firestone, so I need to put it in my spreadsheet so we can see their results compared to the others I'm thinking of. I'll do that and post it here again. But one thing that they said in their overview about the Firestone is "What We'd Improve: It could use a significant noise reduction."

Actually, I already had the Firestone in the s/s, as shown below. And according to Tire Rack it got a 4.13 in Noise, with the K02's getting a 7.05 and the Falken's a 6.75. In addition, the Firestone trailed the other two in several other categories.

 

HOWEVER, Tire Rack's ratings are for on-road only. In fact, they state "While we're not able to test loose surface capabilities, our team embarked to find out which Off-Road Maximum Traction tires from a group of well-respected, off-road competitors can satisfy on the road." So the #'s in the s/s are on-road only, and from the consumer ratings we know the Firestone excels at off-roading.