New Tires For Big Blue

[Gary Lewis]

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.

 

Brandon and I had a conversation via text that I want to include here, but first I want to state my belief: Basically there are two sets of information regarding anything, and especially tires - personal experience and results from "laboratory tests". Personal experiences are real, but they almost always derive from uncontrolled environments. Laboratory tests hopefully will be conducted in reasonably-controlled environments.Personal experiences with tires are easily influenced by other factors, such as the alignment of the vehicle, the other noises created by the vehicle, the inflation pressure of the tires, the width of the wheels, and the conditions in which it was used - to name just a few. I remember getting Rusty and not realizing how noisy the tires were due to the noise created by the exhaust system - until I replaced the flatulent Flowmaster with a larger Magnaflow and then the tires were awful. And as said previously, our Citation was all over the road until I found the right tire pressure - which was NOT the pressure GM recommended, in spite of the car being brand new with their tires and wheels on it.Which brings me to what Brandon said about Jason's Falkens having a balance problem. In our text messages he said "Jason said before he got his leveling kit put on he had a set of Wildpeaks that wore great and he put over 70K on them. After the leveling kit and bigger tire not so much. The uneven wear was causing a lot of balance issues." So I asked if Jason had an alignment problem and Brandon said "He does with the leveling kit." And right there the "uncontrolled environment" raised its ugly head. Did the alignment problem cause the balance issues? I don't know, but I suspect that it did by causing flat-spotting or cupping on the tires.So while I'm trying to hear/see as many personal experiences as possible, I know that each of them happened in an un-controlled environment. And that explains why I put more stock in "lab tests". Hopefully Tire Rack is doing their best to keep things common across the tires they test. However, I can see that some variables have been introduced as they used three different vehicles in their tests - a 2019 F150, then a 2020 F150, then a 2021 F150. Yes, I understand that it would be difficult to maintain the same vehicle for a decade in order to keep the vehicle constant, so that change is reasonable. But still, there are differences in even their tests. In fact, they explain that while they always use the same route that the temps, barometric pressures and winds change. In addition, I suspect that the road itself changes over time.I say all of that to say that I'm still investigating so please keep those cards and letters coming in. But when I make my decision it is inevitably going to fly in the face of some of the input I've gotten and I hope it doesn't cause someone a problem.

[Bruno2]

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."

So they're comparing two all terrain tires vs the Firestone Mud Terrain?

[Dorsai]

Brandon and I had a conversation via text that I want to include here, but first I want to state my belief: Basically there are two sets of information regarding anything, and especially tires - personal experience and results from "laboratory tests". Personal experiences are real, but they almost always derive from uncontrolled environments. Laboratory tests hopefully will be conducted in reasonably-controlled environments.

Personal experiences with tires are easily influenced by other factors, such as the alignment of the vehicle, the other noises created by the vehicle, the inflation pressure of the tires, the width of the wheels, and the conditions in which it was used - to name just a few. I remember getting Rusty and not realizing how noisy the tires were due to the noise created by the exhaust system - until I replaced the flatulent Flowmaster with a larger Magnaflow and then the tires were awful. And as said previously, our Citation was all over the road until I found the right tire pressure - which was NOT the pressure GM recommended, in spite of the car being brand new with their tires and wheels on it.

Which brings me to what Brandon said about Jason's Falkens having a balance problem. In our text messages he said "Jason said before he got his leveling kit put on he had a set of Wildpeaks that wore great and he put over 70K on them. After the leveling kit and bigger tire not so much. The uneven wear was causing a lot of balance issues." So I asked if Jason had an alignment problem and Brandon said "He does with the leveling kit." And right there the "uncontrolled environment" raised its ugly head. Did the alignment problem cause the balance issues? I don't know, but I suspect that it did by causing flat-spotting or cupping on the tires.

So while I'm trying to hear/see as many personal experiences as possible, I know that each of them happened in an un-controlled environment. And that explains why I put more stock in "lab tests". Hopefully Tire Rack is doing their best to keep things common across the tires they test. However, I can see that some variables have been introduced as they used three different vehicles in their tests - a 2019 F150, then a 2020 F150, then a 2021 F150. Yes, I understand that it would be difficult to maintain the same vehicle for a decade in order to keep the vehicle constant, so that change is reasonable. But still, there are differences in even their tests. In fact, they explain that while they always use the same route that the temps, barometric pressures and winds change. In addition, I suspect that the road itself changes over time.

I say all of that to say that I'm still investigating so please keep those cards and letters coming in. But when I make my decision it is inevitably going to fly in the face of some of the input I've gotten and I hope it doesn't cause someone a problem.

Oddly enough, I have the Geolandar G015s on my truck now. Our use cases are entirely different as are our trucks, but I can say I've been pleased with them - I haven't had noise problems at all.

On the off chance the 8-page microanalysis isn't complete by September, those tires will be on my truck when I get there - you'll be welcome to poke, prod, or drive them around as you like.

[Gary Lewis]

Oddly enough, I have the Geolandar G015s on my truck now. Our use cases are entirely different as are our trucks, but I can say I've been pleased with them - I haven't had noise problems at all.

On the off chance the 8-page microanalysis isn't complete by September, those tires will be on my truck when I get there - you'll be welcome to poke, prod, or drive them around as you like.

Brandon - No, they aren't. I am. I'm the one that chose those three tires to compare. And the reason I'm doing it is because there are no specifications on what an all-terrain tire is or a mud-terrain tire. Each manufacturer determines what they want to call their tires. So I can't rely on their ratings.

Take Matthew's Geolander G015, on the left, vs the K02 on the right. The G015 is clearly closer to a street tire than the K02, but both are rated by their manufacturers as A/T tires. And if you go to the s/s above you'll see that the G015 is better on the street than the K02, although I'd be willing to bet that the K02 is better off-road.

Similarly there are differences between M/T tires. So I'm trying to figure out how much "street" I want and how much "dirt" I want.

Matthew - Thanks, but although we have 5 pages to go before getting "there", I suspect I'll make a decision before Sept. Janey and I want to take some trips with the truck prior to that and I want new tires on it for at least one of those trips - Red Rock Canyon. That's 360 miles round trip with essentially all of it on the super slab, so I don't want to be listening to these Coopers and worrying that they'll come apart.

So I just called the local tire shop, Tate Boys, and got a quote: K02's are $1434 out the door, mounted and balanced, and Wildpeak A/T3W's are a whole $2 more. Like John/Machspeed was relating about his experience with Michelins and his tire shop, I'm sure that they'll work with me if there are problems down the road. And they'll check the alignment for me for free as they did it in the first place.

[1986F150Six]

Brandon - No, they aren't. I am. I'm the one that chose those three tires to compare. And the reason I'm doing it is because there are no specifications on what an all-terrain tire is or a mud-terrain tire. Each manufacturer determines what they want to call their tires. So I can't rely on their ratings.

Take Matthew's Geolander G015, on the left, vs the K02 on the right. The G015 is clearly closer to a street tire than the K02, but both are rated by their manufacturers as A/T tires. And if you go to the s/s above you'll see that the G015 is better on the street than the K02, although I'd be willing to bet that the K02 is better off-road.

Similarly there are differences between M/T tires. So I'm trying to figure out how much "street" I want and how much "dirt" I want.

Matthew - Thanks, but although we have 5 pages to go before getting "there", I suspect I'll make a decision before Sept. Janey and I want to take some trips with the truck prior to that and I want new tires on it for at least one of those trips - Red Rock Canyon. That's 360 miles round trip with essentially all of it on the super slab, so I don't want to be listening to these Coopers and worrying that they'll come apart.

So I just called the local tire shop, Tate Boys, and got a quote: K02's are $1434 out the door, mounted and balanced, and Wildpeak A/T3W's are a whole $2 more. Like John/Machspeed was relating about his experience with Michelins and his tire shop, I'm sure that they'll work with me if there are problems down the road. And they'll check the alignment for me for free as they did it in the first place.

Gary, hmmmmm?

If the tires currently on Big Blue are still road worthy [I believe they must be as you have taken trips with Janey in the truck] and you have proven that they provide off road grip and can take a beating, why not consider finding another set of rims and mount new tires which are more geared for gas mileage, comfort, long life as well as quietness when driven on the road. Just mount the current ones when you go overlanding.

[Gary Lewis]

Gary, hmmmmm?If the tires currently on Big Blue are still road worthy [I believe they must be as you have taken trips with Janey in the truck] and you have proven that they provide off road grip and can take a beating, why not consider finding another set of rims and mount new tires which are more geared for gas mileage, comfort, long life as well as quietness when driven on the road. Just mount the current ones when you go overlanding.

The ones on there are marginally road worthy. I've taken the worst one off and replaced it with the spare as I didn't trust it at all. While I'm ok running around "locally" as we have and are with these, I don't want to put them on the turnpike for that 360 mile run down & back to Red Rock state park. Much less the 1500 mile round trip to Santa Fe we are planning for October - not including the running around we'll do nor the 227 miles of the Carson - Santa Fe Backcountry Discovery Trail we are planning.

 

So they really need to be replaced. And I want to have a set of tires that will do everything we want to do with the truck. Obviously one set won't do everything "the best" when you combine on and off-roading, but it does appear that there are tires that will do both adequately.

[Gary Lewis]

The ones on there are marginally road worthy. I've taken the worst one off and replaced it with the spare as I didn't trust it at all. While I'm ok running around "locally" as we have and are with these, I don't want to put them on the turnpike for that 360 mile run down & back to Red Rock state park. Much less the 1500 mile round trip to Santa Fe we are planning for October - not including the running around we'll do nor the 227 miles of the Carson - Santa Fe Backcountry Discovery Trail we are planning.

 

So they really need to be replaced. And I want to have a set of tires that will do everything we want to do with the truck. Obviously one set won't do everything "the best" when you combine on and off-roading, but it does appear that there are tires that will do both adequately.

David - To give you a bit more of an idea about the tires, here's the left front. It was the worst of them for cracking, but not the worst for having chunks taken out by the rocks.I think the issue is that the tires are 10 years old and are hard. So when we aired them down to 15 psi for running the trails they had to flex a lot and they just weren't up for that and cracked. And then when the hard rubber edges of the tread came in contact with the rocks on the trail chunks were torn out.As said, I don't want to drive all that far and fast on them. I've been ok with day trips as we could get home on the spare. But I don't want to take off for multiple days and have problems on Day 1 and wind up ruining the trip.

[Rusty_S85]

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.

On my KO2s I had to drop the some 70 PSI that discount put the tires at and reduce it to OE pressures cause my rear tires were pizza cutters with only the center 3" of tire contacting the pavement due to the tires having such a higher weight rating than the OE tires. So I ran mine down to OE pressures and I saw no reduction in fuel economy was still getting 12 mpg city, but I did see the lower pressure resulted in the truck riding so much smoother.

[Rusty_S85]

Brandon - No, they aren't. I am. I'm the one that chose those three tires to compare. And the reason I'm doing it is because there are no specifications on what an all-terrain tire is or a mud-terrain tire. Each manufacturer determines what they want to call their tires. So I can't rely on their ratings.

Take Matthew's Geolander G015, on the left, vs the K02 on the right. The G015 is clearly closer to a street tire than the K02, but both are rated by their manufacturers as A/T tires. And if you go to the s/s above you'll see that the G015 is better on the street than the K02, although I'd be willing to bet that the K02 is better off-road.

Similarly there are differences between M/T tires. So I'm trying to figure out how much "street" I want and how much "dirt" I want.

Matthew - Thanks, but although we have 5 pages to go before getting "there", I suspect I'll make a decision before Sept. Janey and I want to take some trips with the truck prior to that and I want new tires on it for at least one of those trips - Red Rock Canyon. That's 360 miles round trip with essentially all of it on the super slab, so I don't want to be listening to these Coopers and worrying that they'll come apart.

So I just called the local tire shop, Tate Boys, and got a quote: K02's are $1434 out the door, mounted and balanced, and Wildpeak A/T3W's are a whole $2 more. Like John/Machspeed was relating about his experience with Michelins and his tire shop, I'm sure that they'll work with me if there are problems down the road. And they'll check the alignment for me for free as they did it in the first place.

https://forum.garysgaragemahal.com/file/n121554/bfg_allterrain_ta_ko2_rwl_full.jpghttps://forum.garysgaragemahal.com/file/n121554/GEOLANDAR-A-T-G015-LT-3QL-Web.png

How many KO2s are you getting at $1434 out the door? At Discount I got all four KO2s with two low miliage KO1s since they were discontinued for a pro rated store credit (only had 5,000 miles on the tires) and the set of four was $500 before the store credit. There was also a $200 rebate for better or higher rated tires if you get 4 of them for July 4th weekend so I got all four of mine for $200 when all said and done. I hate to see what they are now seeing as I got mine about 6 years ago.

[Gary Lewis]

Brandon - No, they aren't. I am. I'm the one that chose those three tires to compare. And the reason I'm doing it is because there are no specifications on what an all-terrain tire is or a mud-terrain tire. Each manufacturer determines what they want to call their tires. So I can't rely on their ratings.

Take Matthew's Geolander G015, on the left, vs the K02 on the right. The G015 is clearly closer to a street tire than the K02, but both are rated by their manufacturers as A/T tires. And if you go to the s/s above you'll see that the G015 is better on the street than the K02, although I'd be willing to bet that the K02 is better off-road.

Similarly there are differences between M/T tires. So I'm trying to figure out how much "street" I want and how much "dirt" I want.

Matthew - Thanks, but although we have 5 pages to go before getting "there", I suspect I'll make a decision before Sept. Janey and I want to take some trips with the truck prior to that and I want new tires on it for at least one of those trips - Red Rock Canyon. That's 360 miles round trip with essentially all of it on the super slab, so I don't want to be listening to these Coopers and worrying that they'll come apart.

So I just called the local tire shop, Tate Boys, and got a quote: K02's are $1434 out the door, mounted and balanced, and Wildpeak A/T3W's are a whole $2 more. Like John/Machspeed was relating about his experience with Michelins and his tire shop, I'm sure that they'll work with me if there are problems down the road. And they'll check the alignment for me for free as they did it in the first place.

https://forum.garysgaragemahal.com/file/n121554/bfg_allterrain_ta_ko2_rwl_full.jpghttps://forum.garysgaragemahal.com/file/n121554/GEOLANDAR-A-T-G015-LT-3QL-Web.png

How many KO2s are you getting at $1434 out the door? At Discount I got all four KO2s with two low miliage KO1s since they were discontinued for a pro rated store credit (only had 5,000 miles on the tires) and the set of four was $500 before the store credit. There was also a $200 rebate for better or higher rated tires if you get 4 of them for July 4th weekend so I got all four of mine for $200 when all said and done. I hate to see what they are now seeing as I got mine about 6 years ago.

Four of the K02's for the $1434, and that's $291.99/tire or $1167.96 for four. Tire Rack would get me a set to the house for $1167.96, obviously not including mounting, balancing and tax. So that's the $266 difference.

I'll be price checking 'cause they told me they'll match prices. But since the alignment was done at Tate Boys and they will redo it for free so the difference will have to be significant to make me want to change.