Any opinions on these tires?

[Phx99Cruiser]

Well, I got all five new Geolander A/T-S tires (LT285x75Rx16) put on Thursday morning at Discount Tire. The manager (not the salesguy I was working with) started giving me grief about matching TireRack because they're mail-order - short story I was able to get the TireRack price. They gave me $50 trade-in on the old spares - they were 4.5 year old Dunlop Rovers P265x70x16 from the previous owner. They were showing cracking/drying and giving me alignment problems.

With just the first 100 miles or on them now, I really like them. My alignment is now dead-on, smooth and quiet. The LC handles and looks great now - I didn't realize how badly those old tires were past their time!

The spare barely fit underneath (I have the tow hitch), I really doubt a 295x75 would fit up under there.

They had a Hunter force-load balancer, but insisted on charging me $30 more to use that. I just let them balance without and that seems fine - absolutely no wobble, etc. (yet).

Later.

 

[Tinkerer]

the Nitto TGs came out on top in Consumer Reports

Last time I looked at CR tire ratings, I asked CR (via their "tire experts" forum) to provide data behind their relative rankings - e.g., ice, wet braking, etc.

They would not provide actual data. They gave excuses about testing being not exactly apples-to-apples with other vehicles, etc., and not wanting to confuse readers.

BS. They could provide data with a disclaimer about limitations of interpretation etc, to address that issue, but they won't provide data. Why? I suspect the reason is that it would open up a discourse questioning their testing methods, ratings assignments, and relative rankings, which might cause their "tire experts" to lose face if found to be off-base.

Why does it matter? Here's why: For all you know, the difference between a CR tire ranking "excellent" and a tire ranking "good" in, say, wet braking, might be a matter of only a couple percent difference in mininum stopping distance. Or it might be more significant, say, 10 or 20% difference. I want to know the numbers, because I consider only a few percent difference to be insignificant, given likely testing errors/noise, and given my personal driving style/skill and risk tolerance.

CR never would provide the numbers to me, despite my repeated requests. So, imo, their dumbed-down ranking system is nearly useless, without further supporting data.

(If a CR rep or insider reads this, feedback would be appreciated.)

In any case, I'm mostly interested in minimal tire vibration at high speeds, and CR doesn't even touch this aspect of tire performance (Force Variation and dimensional uniformity). Why not? Ask them...

 

[SWUtah]

Last time I looked at CR tire ratings, I asked CR (via their "tire experts" forum) to provide data behind their relative rankings - e.g., ice, wet braking, etc.

They would not provide actual data. They gave excuses about testing being not exactly apples-to-apples with other vehicles, etc., and not wanting to confuse readers.

BS. They could provide data with a disclaimer about limitations of interpretation etc, to address that issue, but they won't provide data. Why? I suspect the reason is that it would open up a discourse questioning their testing methods, ratings assignments, and relative rankings, which might cause their "tire experts" to lose face if found to be off-base.

Why does it matter? Here's why: For all you know, the difference between a CR tire ranking "excellent" and a tire ranking "good" in, say, wet braking, might be a matter of only a couple percent difference in mininum stopping distance. Or it might be more significant, say, 10 or 20% difference. I want to know the numbers, because I consider only a few percent difference to be insignificant, given likely testing errors/noise, and given my personal driving style/skill and risk tolerance.

CR never would provide the numbers to me, despite my repeated requests. So, imo, their dumbed-down ranking system is nearly useless, without further supporting data.

(If a CR rep or insider reads this, feedback would be appreciated.)

In any case, I'm mostly interested in minimal tire vibration at high speeds, and CR doesn't even touch this aspect of tire performance (Force Variation and dimensional uniformity). Why not? Ask them...

I agree, also the right tire for one vehicle could be different for another. I'm finding my OEM Michelin Pilot LTX M&S tires that are 1/2 used up are rock solid in our current ice/sleet snow event. I worry about the other guys on the road, like the dumbass drivng past me in the fast lane in the 350Z with the low profile summer tires and not a chance in hell of stopping without taking me and everyone around him out when he hits a slick spot.

 

[TroutBear]

Good choice. We have Geolander AT 265-75-16 on the '94 80; about 9K on these and very happy w/ them - just browsing, we had a couple of 100s join the Cottonland club recently.