Kuhmo Road Venture KL71 review (1 Viewer)

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I will try and keep this thread updated over the life of these tires. Just put these on yesterday, specs are:

Brand: Kuhmo
Model: Road Venture MT
Size: 315 75/r16
Load Rating: E
Plies: 10 (3 in the sidewall)
Weight: 72lbs ea
Cost: $249 ea
Date Installed: Aug 1st, 2015
Mileage @ Install: 193,840

Initial impressions : A seriously meaty tire that replaced a very aged set of BF Goodrich KO's in the same size. Road noise is up a little. The BF's couldn't even be heard on the highway, these have a noticeable hum to them but its not enough to be irritating or require the radio. In fact I was surprised at how quiet they are for being such an aggressive looking tire. The tread blocks on these are very thick with wide spacing between a directional pattern. The tire itself has a lot of heft to it at 72lbs, definitely overbuilt. Ride quality is very good. They seem to run smooth at any speed and have actually softened the ride up some. Hoping to get them into some rock and mud here in the next few months and will report back with my findings.
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The tires did admirably on the trip to CO this week. Aired down to 15-12psi on several of the passes. You could probably take them down to 10psi no problem. Lots of sharp nasty rocks on the trails, no damage whatsoever. These things hook up very well. I had a small amount of wheel slip going up the very steepest part of Red Cone. After locking the CDL I didn't have any further issues. I still need to get these into some mud, but so far i'm super impressed and the price was fantastic at $249 each. Here's a shot from the bottom of the descent at Red Cone.
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Close to 5k miles on these now and they've finally started to hum a little out on the highway. I noticed it the other morning but its not bad enough to be annoying. We did however get some pretty good rain and sleet over the holiday. The tires did great at highway speed shedding water and not hydroplaning. The old BFG KO's could get pretty scary when you hit a puddle of water.
 
Came out of the store the other day and noticed the PS rear was sitting under 20lbs. Since these have the lifetime road hazard warranty I decided to just swing by Discount Tire the next morning and get it looked at for free. Looks like a roofing nail found its way between the tread blocks. The guy who patched it said it had just barely made it through.
 
I now have a set in 35x12,5r15 , new to me.
They've been on two weeks of trails on a mini, so not even broke in, but fully siped for better snow performance.
Will mount them up on my wheels and see how they do in the snow in a few weeks :p

How do you like them in cold weather and snow/ice?
 
I now have a set in 35x12,5r15 , new to me.
They've been on two weeks of trails on a mini, so not even broke in, but fully siped for better snow performance.
Will mount them up on my wheels and see how they do in the snow in a few weeks :p

How do you like them in cold weather and snow/ice?

They don't do quite as well as the wife's Duratracs, but those are winter rated. They work pretty good though. Do you have pictures of yours siped ?
 
Update: just measured tread depth on DS rear at 9/16" or 18/32. Pretty good considering they start life at 18.5/32". Not much wear for nearly 12k miles (currently sitting at 206,000). They have become a little nosier out on the highway but not annoying by any means. They hum just enough to let you know you aren't sporting AT's. There is very little if any visible wear on the tires, no chunking, no gouges.

At the early part of this month we went down to Arkansas and ran the high water mark. The tires performed admirably as has become the norm for them. At one point I did drive off into a sinkhole that swallowed me almost to the DS window in muddy water (see pic below). I thought for sure we were hosed so I punched it in 2nd low and it clawed its way up and out. The opposite bank was steep enough that I completely lost sight of my buddies 80 but we never lost forward momentum and eventually came up. It was one of those "oh s***" moments where you're either super happy with the equipment you picked, or super disappointed because your stuck and the interior of your vehicle is filling with water.
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A couple of river crossings later ^. There was enough water flow to clean the headlights and a majority of the mud and muck off !
 
@half k cruiser Thanks for keeping the thread updated. I gave these tires some serious thought last year before redirecting myself to all terrains. I've run two sets of Kuhmo's on passenger cars and have been impressed (can't recall the models and those cars have been sold).
 
@half k cruiser Thanks for keeping the thread updated. I gave these tires some serious thought last year before redirecting myself to all terrains. I've run two sets of Kuhmo's on passenger cars and have been impressed (can't recall the models and those cars have been sold).

You are welcome. I found a tread depth gauge on amazon yesterday so I should be able to get some better results soon.
 
Update: I got my tread depth gauge in the mail yesterday and was eager to get some actual measurements. I measured from 4 different spots on each tire and averaged them. There were no large disparities on any single tire or of the set as a whole.

PS front just under 17/32''
PS rear right at 17/32''
DS front just under 18/32''
DS rear just over 17/32''

So we had a starting mileage of 193,840 a current mileage of 206,855 uncorrected, and a starting tread depth of 18.5/32''. That's a difference of less than 2/32'' over the course of 13,015 miles or 14,316 factoring 10% correction. This is largely highway miles with maybe 700-800 miles of off road and maybe 200 or so over what I would call difficult terrain (unimproved to no roads). So far I am nothing but impressed with these shoes. The only thing I see as a drawback is the fact that I may need to swap sides to keep the wear even on all 4. This of course means a trip to the tire shop as you can't cross rotate a directional. Other than that they have performed admirably both on and off road and definitely saved me from some expensive and time consuming interior cleaning on the Arkansas trip.
 
Current mileage 209,025

Looks like I didn't update this thread after the Colorado trip this year. We beat on the Kuhmos for 3 days of hard wheeling including, Hanckock pass, Tomichi pass, Halfmoon Gulch, and finally Wheeler Lake. I aired down each morning to 10-12psi depending on the trail. The tires were outstanding and I crawled over everything including some fairly gnarly stuff at the Gulch and especially Wheeler Lake. Still no tire failures but I do finally have a small hole in the sidewall. I think this happened on Wheeler Lake as some of those rocks looked lethal. The hole is small and only penetrates a few mm, not enough that it will ever be a concern. Some of the tread blocks do have small pieces of rubber missing on the outer portion of the block. This is to be expected with rough wheeling, the rocks pull off pieces every now and then. Still performance is excellent and they haven't gotten any louder on the highway. I will get the tread gauge on them next update.
 
i run these tires on my tow rig, there were the only tire with proper load rating i could get at the time. After 2.5 years of use i really have had nothing but luck with them vs. the BFG at's i had before or the Goodyear wranglers even further back. these are 35x12.5r17

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i have had great luck towing during summer and winters over the Rockies, aired down in the desert and evening ran them on a drylake maxing out the truck. one major difference (in a good way) over any other tire i have ran is that these don't pick up rocks and throw them nearly as much.

i had the older version of of the Kuhmo Road Venture MT my 77 fj40 (33x12.5r15) and also liked them but not as much as the updated design. ..... i believe i have a set of the older version of Kuhmo Road Venture MT tires as rollers on a 72 fj20 out in the shop (32x11.5r15) that have never been road driven just used moving fj's while being restored.
 
Another 2500 miles of adventure put onto these tires. Ran the Kokopellis, White Rim, Potash road, and the Moab area in general with not a single issue. I am now sitting at just under 20k miles on this set and they have well over half the tread remaining.
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Here they are making Rose Garden Hill look easy at 12psi....
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The only downside to these tires is that being directional, they can only be cross rotated by a shop. This actually hasn't been an issue for me since Discount Tire does it at no extra charge. So once a year I stop by and have them take care of it. Halfway through the year I just rotate front to back.
 
Current mileage 213,424

The tires are noticeably louder now right at the 20k mile mark. That's not really uncommon. Lots of people will tell you about how quiet their new MT's are, but new is the key word there. I just went out and took tread depth measurements and was between 13/32 and 16/32 average on all 4 tires. They are difficult to measure due to the tread configuration. I'm also certain I waited too long to cross rotate these. I can definitely tell one of the front tires has been taking the lions share of the workload. If I had to do it over again I would definitely buy these tires when I did. I have a feeling the new MT51's will make them less popular though as soon as they come out in 315/75/16.
 
I noticed in one of your above pictures the spotters off to the side. They look like a fabulous bunch that no doubt worked in conjunction with those tires to navigate the gnarliest sections of the Kokopelli.
 
I noticed in one of your above pictures the spotters off to the side. They look like a fabulous bunch that no doubt worked in conjunction with those tires to navigate the gnarliest sections of the Kokopelli.

The fashionable one in the green fatigues and bright blue shirt drinking PBR was my co-driver. We lowered the admission standards this year.....
 

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