[NA]Auto tire ratings and selection[NA]

Let'sgoflying!

Let'sgoflying!

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Feb 23, 2005
Messages
21,872
Location
west Texas
Display Name
Dave Taylor
Home Airfield
KMRF
Where to research this?
What tires have worked well for you?
I have an SUV that mainly does short trips in town with some highway stuff, nails & mesquite thorns are pretty bad. Traction is rarely an issue as precip is rare. Temps 80-90 in summer, 40-50 in winter. Ride and noise not as important as tread life.
P265 70R16
Can you still get nylon?
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Where to research this?
What tires have worked well for you?
I have an SUV that mainly does short trips in town with some highway stuff, nails & mesquite thorns are pretty bad. Traction is rarely an issue as precip is rare. Temps 80-90 in summer, 40-50 in winter. Ride and noise not as important as tread life.
P265 70R16
Can you still get nylon?
Click to expand...
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/TireSearchResults.jsp?width=265/&ratio=70&diameter=16

You're requirements are much different than my own, so I modified the search without off-road or winter tires. Generally speaking, All-Season tires usually have the best tread life and work well for those rare precip events you speak of. I'm not familiar with mesquite thorns, but nails are common on the farm here, so I upgraded to D or E load ranges since they have more ply layers that help (not cure) many potential punctures.
Tire Rack is reliable IME, some folks don't like them, but the site at least lets you compare different makes and people leave comments/ratings that help decide what ya want. Hope this helps.
 
I have hit that "old man" stage where I buy one brand of tire and one brand of underwear 'cause they work.

BF Goodrich All-Terrain TA KO's, or BFG Long Trails... Depending on if I need to go off-road or not. Have yet to be disappointed by either in tread life or traction/control issues.

Friends who operate fleet pickup trucks that have to do USFS roads in the backcountry use 'em too after trying multiple brands.

My wife put some crap tires on her VW Jetta wagon a while back and I had to find her some decent Yokohamas after she wore the crudders out in 30K miles.
 
Goodyear Silent Armor
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires...WLXL&tireModel=Wrangler+SilentArmor&code=yes&

I use them on my Emergency Management SUV, on wildfires, in sand, dirt, mud, rocks, in blizzards, and about 30k miles a year on highway. They have great grip in every environment I have been able to throw at them, they have low road noise, and almost indestructible.

I was a BFG T/A guy for decades, but these tires are phenomenal and give lots of tread life.
 
Last edited:
I had SA's also. I actually liked the wrangler at/s they replaced a little more. Now I run DuraTrac, which hold up better to the uses and abuses I put my truck through. Anything from hauling/towing to pushing snow, and they last well. Not the quietest tire, though.
 
Cooper's on the wife's old Escape. Personally, watch out only looking at tread life. The problem, with just looking at that, is you ignore other factors. The biggest difference, grip. Softer tires grip better but wear quicker. Long tread life tires have harder rubber so they wear slower, but grip less. Just an FYI.
 
OK, I have corrected the link, here it is:
Alenza
650$ for the tires but installed 800 at experttire.

Yes, I have learned that we are balancing grip vs longevity. Our roads are 99.5% dry so I am going for longevity.
 
Some people don't like 'em, but *in general* I've had better luck with Michelin than with Goodyear or BFG for a general around-town-highway-dirt-mountain road tire. I had Michelin LTX on the Pathfinder that I recently sold. The new pickup came with BFG Long Trails - jury is still out but I'm not overly impressed so far.
 
denverpilot said:
BF Goodrich All-Terrain TA KO's, or BFG Long Trails... Depending on if I need to go off-road or not. Have yet to be disappointed by either in tread life or traction/control issues.
Click to expand...

I've had a set of BFG Long Trails on my truck (my brother has it now) for over 60k miles and they are still doing well. Costco frequently has $60-70 coupons for a set of them.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
OK, I have corrected the link, here it is:
Alenza
650$ for the tires but installed 800 at experttire.

Yes, I have learned that we are balancing grip vs longevity. Our roads are 99.5% dry so I am going for longevity.
Click to expand...

They're good tires, but did you read the review? Someone warns about them lasting 60k miles. Michelin latitudes I think may have better tread life...
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Where to research this?
What tires have worked well for you?
I have an SUV that mainly does short trips in town with some highway stuff, nails & mesquite thorns are pretty bad. Traction is rarely an issue as precip is rare. Temps 80-90 in summer, 40-50 in winter. Ride and noise not as important as tread life.
P265 70R16
Can you still get nylon?
Click to expand...


There's a purple goo that you can get for tractor tires that was the only thing I found effective with regards to mesquite, so I put it in my truck tires as well. When I put it in, I immediately went for a 7.5 hr drive to work and then had them rebalanced when I got there. There was barely a difference.

As far as tires in general, I needed H rated 10 ply tires for the load. I went through many various sets of tires including top of the line from Michelin, Goodyear and Goodrich, and the only ones I wore out were a set of Daytons. All the rest came apart with more than half the tread still viable, maybe 20k miles if I was lucky. Other than those Daytons, I always had tread separation/destruction issues where I replaced a pair far too early. You aren't 10 ply though.

Can you still get nylon? I would bet you can, but it will have the same issues that nylon has always had, flat spots. Now if your vehicle never sits parked for any duration, no problem really, plus the spots do drive out. There are better aramid fibers available now though. It sounds like you want a pretty hard compound tire to deal with the heat, so pay attention to the traction & temperature ratings. Under the conditions you describe, a set of B Traction & A Temperature ratings will last you the longest. Problem is, you probably can't buy that tire. So, if you spend most of your time driving down paved and gravel roads doing 65mph+, you want to buy a "V" or "ZR" rated tire. It's going to wear out a little faster because it's a higher traction "soft" compound, but it will stand up to much greater stresses and loads than a "P" or "LT" rated tire. The carcass on the V and ZR tire should at least hold up till you wear the rubber off. I used to use on my hotrods and they took serious abuse. It will also have the advantage of providing you with the superior road tire. You can put the purple goo in them, but you can probably buy puncture seal tires from the factory in that rating.
 
I saw the reviews and have to say that I take reviews with a grain of salt anymore after having experiences completely contrary to what I have seen written. Not saying I dismissed what was written; I did file it. But they do not sway my opinion much.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top