Interesting. The tire guy at local Lexus dealership made it seem like Michelin still made the M/S2. He said they don't even stock the defender because it doesn't meet Lexus' spec for the GX. The M/S2 has an "H" speed rating per the manual but the defender only has a "T" rating, so they don't carry it. I guess that makes sense, but can't see any folks exceeding 120mph in their GX lol
BFG KO3 vs DEFENDER LTX M/S2 on RW (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Reckless
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bloc
SILVER Star
Costco wouldn’t put defender LTX M/Ss on my cruiser for the same reason. The stock tires are apparently V rated, which means 149mph.. on what planet is that necessary? (It’s not, that just happens to be the rating of the stock tire and some company’s legal departments will interpret that as being a design requirement)
I can’t see myself exceeding the 130mph limit of LTX M/Ss, let alone at the load limit of the tire, during summer in Death Valley, while driving over scattered debris. All of which are included in those speed ratings.
I stand corrected. Thanks
The Defender LTX M/S2 is still available but now in only 6 sizes. Per the Tire Rack, All but the 20” are E rated LT tires with a S speed rating. The 20” is an XL with a H speed rating. The Defender LTX M/S is available in 60 sizes. Some of those, including the Land Cruiser 200 stock size, have an H speed rating. I think the Tire guy at your local Lexus dealer has no clue about tires
Wow. It's interesting to me that they beefed up the sidewall. I personally liked the tame look of the originals, but these look great as well.
The Defender LTX M/S2 is a brand new tire model.
Only us tire nerds would really notice in the real world. For reference, the sidewall looks more like the Michelin LTX A/T2, but the tread looks the same as the previous Defender tread.
I wonder what is now different since the Defender name was added? Thanks for the info.
Seems like new tire like you said…..but so limited in sizes! And was released with zero fanfare! What kind of launch when you have only a few tire sizes that you can count on one hand?! It makes no sense to me. No public announcement. In 2015 (?), the original Defender came out in many sizes and tons of advertisements and magazines were invited to test them out.
So strange. I guess this is the same for BFG KO3…just a few sizes. I guess maybe production issues limit their intro…and maybe bigger intro later this year?
Just to summarize, LTX M/S —> LTX M/S2 —> LTX Defender M/S —>LTX Defender M/S2. The latter is brand new and at this point only available in a few sizes. I didn’t see any announcements about this new tire.
Michelin has been pretty confusing in their naming of this tire.
Michelin has been pretty confusing in their naming of this tire.
I like the look of these, no to bland at all. I just look at sizes though, no 275/70/18. That sucks.
I sure hope that they keep the 285/60/18 XL size. I want to keep stock suspension ride and performance. Having XL is like having cake and eat it too. A little tougher than P-metric but lighter than LT...yet still lightweight.
