315/75/16 Duratracs in the Eastern Snow

[Corbet]

Narrower will be better for winter driving on road. But the difference between a 285 and 315 would be petty hard to measure by the seat of your pants. Buy the lift and 315's if you want that look.

I've been running 315 Duratracs for 8? winters. Mine are studded. I've been happy with them. I see plenty of sloppy slushy crap out here in the SW. As well as the arctic cold snows. I'd buy them again and probably will as the list of studable 315's is pretty short.

 

[decoco]

I live in eastern Oregon and I run both 315 75 16 Toyo ATII Extreme & 255 85 16 Toyo M55 siped on my '94. In the winter, I much prefer the siped M55s. They are much more stable at speed on snow packed/ice. I have the 2.5" OME lift and for looks and the other 3 seasons, the 315s are fine, but for winter performance the siped M55s outshine the 315s.

this sounds like an apple to oranges comparison due to the siped 255. siped is a different story.

 

[sxp]

Size shouldn't be an issue due to your rig's weight. My M715 runs 36" bias ply Super Swampers without issue. That said, I currently have 33" KO2's on my LX450, and I find them to be a better winter tire than the Duracraps. I also run dedicated snow tires in the winter now which provide way better results. I am using 33" Yokohama Geolandar I/T's when it gets cold out.

I visit the North East Kingdom often, and had Duratracs on my LX450 last winter. They were awful. The blocks are too flat to give solid traction on hard surface roads with packed snow. They work fine in powder, but that is about it. Depending on where you live, I'd actually get a set of studded snows if you travel a lot of VT's dirt roads due to the large amounts of ice that build up under the snow. If you are staying to the paved stuff, any modern snow tire is a worth while investment.

 

[White Stripe]

I would recommend Nokian Hakkepelitta 44s. Should get you down the road if it gets a bit snowy or icy. May have to do some fender trimming.

 

[Barry Lampke]

Size shouldn't be an issue due to your rig's weight. My M715 runs 36" bias ply Super Swampers without issue. That said, I currently have 33" KO2's on my LX450, and I find them to be a better winter tire than the Duracraps. I also run dedicated snow tires in the winter now which provide way better results. I am using 33" Yokohama Geolandar I/T's when it gets cold out.

I visit the North East Kingdom often, and had Duratracs on my LX450 last winter. They were awful. The blocks are too flat to give solid traction on hard surface roads with packed snow. They work fine in powder, but that is about it. Depending on where you live, I'd actually get a set of studded snows if you travel a lot of VT's dirt roads due to the large amounts of ice that build up under the snow. If you are staying to the paved stuff, any modern snow tire is a worth while investment.

Ha! Duracraps - I love it. You are the first person I’ve seen online to diss these tires. I hear you on getting a dedicated winter tire, though. Likely next year.

 

[sxp]

Ha! Duracraps - I love it. You are the first person I’ve seen online to diss these tires. I hear you on getting a dedicated winter tire, though. Likely next year.

If you search hard enough, there are a handful of us that don't like them for winter driving. I think it comes down to people who have actually used other tires to compare them too. I live in Maine, I'm from NH, and VT will soon be my second home so I am quite versed in northern New England snow driving .

 

[80t0ylc]

this sounds like an apple to oranges comparison due to the siped 255. siped is a different story.

Exactly. The M55 is mainly an AT tread that a lot of service fleets use, do to it's rugged, "wears like iron" construction. Without the siping, the M55 is just an AT tire, with AT performance - with the exception that they last forever. But....when they're siped, the winter performance improves dramatically. I have another set of M55s that I run on an Ford F350 4x4 crew cab pickup that are not siped. Not my 1st choice for driving on snow packed roads.

Both tires that I run on my 80 are AT treads. One downfall that I've seen with running the 315s in the snow is the width makes them squirrely running in unplowed snow compared to the M55s. A couple years back, I had headed from Oregon to Baja in December and January. Usually I'd have put the M55s on by then, but I wanted the extra width and size for Baja. Well, while I was gone, Oregon and Idaho just got dumped on - kinda like Nor-Easter conditions with sub-zero F temps. The cold snap & snow went all the way down to Flagstaff, AZ which is where I ran into it, on my way home. I had snow, ice, single digit and sub-zero temps all the rest of the way home. Over a thousand miles from home. I was used to the performance of the M55s and I really missed them on that trip. At one point, about 100 miles from home, I was fighting 8"+ snow on unplowed US Highway 26, I had pulled over to clear the ice from my wipers, again, and a snowplow passed me. At 1st I thought - great, now I'll be going even slower! But, when I pulled back on and got going again, not having to fight the snow was such a relief, I stayed behind the plow for as far as he went. YMMV, but after that trip, I am a believer in skinnys in the snow.

 

[SmokingRocks]

KO2's are not as good in the packed snow as duratrac's. Especially as they age, the compound of the duratrac's remains soft through the entire tread block, the KO2's (just like the KO's) are super for the first 10k miles but then harden up and become ice skates.

 

[sxp]

KO2's are not as good in the packed snow as duratrac's. Especially as they age, the compound of the duratrac's remains soft through the entire tread block, the KO2's (just like the KO's) are super for the first 10k miles but then harden up and become ice skates.

I would counter this argument with the fact that the Duratracs lose their sipping as they age losing any grip that they have.

 

[clx16]

The OP is asking about Duratracs specifically. I think there are other threads where people argue their favorite brands.

I've only had one set of Duratracs and have been happy with them in both slush and powder. Mine weren't studded so they were ok on ice but nothing special.

If i knew most of my time was on snow then i would get a skinny tire, but if i needed the large footprint and snow was not the majority of my time then i would just get the tire i want and modify my driving and air pressure to adjust when snow becomes an issue.

 

[Lumpskie]

I would counter this argument with the fact that the Duratracs lose their sipping as they age losing any grip that they have.

I ran my last set down to about 30% tread and never had a traction issue. I daily drive my 80 and put 30,000 miles on it over the last year and a half. I've run the same set of Duratracs through 2 winters, including all the storms. I have a cabin up north in NH and drive there and back without an issue. I had a similar experience running Duratracs on my last rig, a '96 Tacoma. I ran 33x12.5 r 15s on that rig. It was much lighter than the cruiser and didn't have any issues. I could break traction if I wasn't careful but they were a great winter tire both when I lived in Colorado and when I moved to New Hampshire.

 

[Heckraiser]

Ha! Duracraps - I love it. You are the first person I’ve seen online to diss these tires. I hear you on getting a dedicated winter tire, though. Likely next year.

I diss them frequently for their weak sidewalls and propensity to go flat on the trail They look nice and I've mostly read they're good in winter though

 

[sxp]

Regardless of what you buy, I like KO2's over Duratracs. KO2's aren't even my preferred tire but 285/75r16 are easy to get a hold of, and they work well enough on the fire roads and class 4 roads that I hit up. I am a believer in dedicated snows for on road performance. You'll never see a snow tire with blocks/lugs as big as the Duratracs .