Best All terrain tire? Best value? Best performance?

[vanisle89surf]

Thought I would start a tire thread to see what tires people are using.

My BF Goodrich AT’s are getting to the end of their life. They have been great tires and I’m strongly considering another set.

I’ve determined that my priorities in terms of performance are: tread life, rain, snow and then mud. I drive 90% of the time on road and almost half of that is in the rain. Offroading is usually just logging roads for camping in the summer and snow on the road up to our local mountain in the winter.

Considering that mix I’m borderline as to whether I actually can justify having all terrains. I know all seasons would save me money on the tires and on fuel.

The other all terrains I’m looking at are the Pro Comps. They seem pretty similar to the BFG’s tread pattern and have a 50,000mile warranty. A friend of mine has them on a Dodge 2500 w/Cummins TD. He swears by them for performance and tread life.

[zoochy]

Well that is good news! I just picked up a used set of 4 x BF Goodrich – Trail Maker Plus, on rims the other day for a really good deal. They have aftermarket (?) studs too so they should be sweet in the winter. Is this the same as the AT you are referring too?

[DanS]

I've got 80,000 miles on my BFGoodrich ATs. I could probably run them for another 20-30K. I'm going to replace them soon, mostly because I want to inspect my wheels for rust (no, I'm not kidding).

Every truck in the family (my faux-Hilux, my sister's pickup, my Dad's Taco, my Mom's ranger, my brother's Nissan...) are on the same tires. They are all doing very, very well. They are wearing real well, and none of us has ever had a problem with traction (from New Mexico to Alaska, and everywhere in between).

For me, there's just no other choice. For some reason, they really do well with the 3rd generation Toyotas. I don't want to mess with success.

Dan

[vanisle89surf]

Zoochy:

Those tires (Trailmaker plus) are dedicated snow tires that come with studs. AT just means all terrain. They are different tires. But similar idea, just designed for snow.

Did you get those off craigslist Vancouver? When I did a quick search for those tires that ad came up right away. $100 for 4 is a sweet deal. They might be hard to align because you don't know whether the previous owner had them properly aligned. If they have been warn unevenly they may pull to one side.

Dan:

I'm with you. Tried, tested and true. Good off road performance and nice and quiet on the road. I got my surf with these tires and they were not in that great of shape at all (fronts had about 50%, rears 80%) but I have put 50,000kms on theme with no problem. They would have gone even longer if I had rotated them but there was a little too much difference in tread. Didn't want the truck to spin like a lawn dart if the rears locked up.

[mhooper]

I love BFG ATs, decent offroad traction (not too good in mud, but it's a good compromise) quiet, last very well.

[CoastRange]

It's been snowing for a couple days on our mountain and last night we got to really try out the BFG ATs on our 93 4Runner. Normally we put more mud oriented tires on our trucks but the BFGs came with the 4Runner. There was about 6-8 inches of wet sloppy snow on the road surface and the 94 std cab pickup I was driving couldn't make it up the apex of the hill but my wife came along behind me in the 4Runner and boogied right through. Then we used it to tow the pickup through the worst of the slop. We're very pleased with the BFGs, I'm putting a set on our LandCruiser next week.

[ToyotaDiesel]

I just put a set of Hankooks on my F350. Really aggressive and super quiet. Cheap too.

[lizard]

I used the recycle/retread tires available here, there a uniroyal like allseason , they worked great in mud & snow ,I think it was 400 for a set of 31's

Using BF muds now , not to impressed not good at all in snow or ice on my hilux , plus a noisy ride

[CoastRange]

The BFG ATs I put on the HJ are working well, even in all the snow we've been getting. They have met their match when the snow gets over the diff's on the uphill. Just not enough aggressiveness to the tread to dig thru and get purchase plus the diff's are open. They have handled the ice we've had very nicely. And that's all the news that's fit to print.

[vanisle89surf]

I agree about the Mud Terrains. They are good for one thing, mud. If your not driving through mud all the time then I think they aren't worth the money. They have a high ratio of void space to tread block (lots of space in between the tread blocks) so mud can easily be cleared by the centrifugal force of the wheel spinning. This keeps the rubber on whatever is under the mud vs other treads that get caked in mud so the tread doesn't contact anything solid, just spins with a layer of mud. This design translates into noise and more wear on road.