TireRack AT tire comparison (2 Viewers)

[Madtiger]

https://m.tirerack.com/tires/tests/testDisplay.jsp?ttid=275&sc_src=email_1574612&sc_lid=136664001&sc_uid=L1v0OfYaZx&sc_llid=110078&sc_eh=3dc7802e99f8f5db1&cid=R6380397&em_id=1574612&em_lid=Main+Test%3A+Link%3A+Here%27s+what+we+learned

Tested: Cooper Discoverer AT3 LT, Firestone Destination X/T, General Grabber A/TX, and the Toyo Open Country A/T III.

Load Range E. BFG AT KO2 not tested though.

Cooper Discoverer AT3 LT(On-/Off-Road All-Terrain, LT265/70R17 E 121/118S)

• What We Liked: Confident traction in the wet, test-leading dry traction, and reasonable noise comfort.
• What We'd Improve: The ride is very firm, and the steering is just acceptable.
• Conclusion: A solid all-around option that performs where it counts.

Firestone Destination X/T(On-/Off-Road All-Terrain, LT265/70R17 E 121/118S)

• What We Liked: Test-leading ride quality and decent dry traction.
• What We'd Improve: It could use a small bump in wet traction.
• Conclusion: Well-rounded and on-point for an On-/Off-Road A/T tire.

General Grabber A/TX(On-/Off-Road All-Terrain, LT265/70R17 E 121/118S)

• What We Liked: Best in test on-road manners and wet traction.
• What We'd Improve: It's tough to think we could ask for more without beginning to sacrifice off-road capability.
• Conclusion: We're impressed.

Toyo Open Country A/T III(On-/Off-Road All-Terrain, LT265/70R17 E 121/118S)

• What We Liked: The steering feels natural.
• What We'd Improve: It's loud on the road and needs a substantial increase in wet traction.
• Conclusion: We're looking forward to testing it in the snow.

 

[1world1love]

Interesting. The Destination doesn't seem to get much mention around here. Can't say I'm surprised about the General Grabber though. Everybody that has them seem to like them a lot.

 

[WCDAVE]

I always feel like TIreRack reviews allow you to justify purchasing any of the tires - they never are a hard pass on any of them - they do try to sell them after all, I suppose. When considering a tire, I focus more on YouTube reviews as they tend to develop consensus about a certain tire if you watch enough of them and filter out the sponsored and soft-sponsored ones. I do think that among premium manufacturers, nobody really makes an awful tire. It's more about availability these days than anything else - still waiting 3 months later on my KM3 order with no ETA available.

 

[Madtiger]

I always feel like TIreRack reviews allow you to justify purchasing any of the tires - they never are a hard pass on any of them - they do try to sell them after all, I suppose. When considering a tire, I focus more on YouTube reviews as they tend to develop consensus about a certain tire if you watch enough of them and filter out the sponsored and soft-sponsored ones. I do think that among premium manufacturers, nobody really makes an awful tire. It's more about availability these days than anything else - still waiting 3 months later on my KM3 order with no ETA available.

I actually like the TireRack actual reviews! They are great because they compare the tires (in any one test) under the same conditions and parameters. Obviously, you cannot compare tires across different TireRack reviews.

I thought that THIS review was quite informative. They came to hard conclusions on each. Obviously there Is no horrible tire in the group but they made clear what the weaknesses are compared to the others.

Youtube reviews are like TireRack CONSUMER Reviews. They are based on honeymoon period...comparing new to really old tires that they just replace. In addition, you don’t have any idea the background of the reviewer nor his/her biases.

 

[thammer62]

Toyo Open Country A/T III(On-/Off-Road All-Terrain, LT265/70R17 E 121/118S)

• What We Liked: The steering feels natural.
• What We'd Improve: It's loud on the road and needs a substantial increase in wet traction.
• Conclusion: We're looking forward to testing it in the snow.

That ATIII “needs a substantial increase in wet traction” sounds concerning. Has anyone experienced this feeling personally? I rarely read anything “poor” on this tire outside of some are sort of loud.

 

[Madtiger]

That ATIII “needs a substantial increase in wet traction” sounds concerning. Has anyone experienced this feeling personally? I rarely read anything “poor” on this tire outside of some are sort of loud.

Maybe Toyo needs to fire Joe Bacal?

 

[NYC570]

That ATIII “needs a substantial increase in wet traction” sounds concerning. Has anyone experienced this feeling personally? I rarely read anything “poor” on this tire outside of some are sort of loud.

I haven't had any problems with mine on heavy downpours. Granted, mine are the passenger version so they have more siping and silica.

 

[prwillard2]

Haven't tested my Toyo AT3s in a heavy downpour. But I definitely disagree that they're loud. I cannot hear them, and they drone far less than the Toyo AT2s

 

[AnyMal]

I have the P version OC A/T III as well (big mistake IMO, read about it in my history) and they are very good in the wet.
I wouldn't call them quiet though. I can def hear them about 40-45 MPH but its not bad at all.

 

[hankinid]

Haven't tested my Toyo AT3s in a heavy downpour. But I definitely disagree that they're loud. I cannot hear them, and they drone far less than the Toyo AT2s

That's been my experience too.

 

[linuxgod]

For durability, nothing beats the Nitto Ridge Grapplers. Nothing. My wife recently drove over an anchor bolt set in concrete which was pointing STRAIGHT UP and was a good 4"+ tall. The tire is fine. I was sure when she told me that there was going to be a hole the size of my finger in the tread but nope, it's good.

The Nitto Ridge Grapplers have tremendous traction. TireRack doesn't sell them though so they don't show up. They're heavy and mileage sucks, but they seem to grip everything.

I used to rely on TireRack for crowd-sourced ratings but I feel like people are biased based on what they run and some tires which aren't amazing get better ratings than they should IMO.

If I was looking for a review I'd rely more on CR than TireRack. Tire Ratings & Reviews - Consumer Reports - https://www.consumerreports.org/products/tires/ratings/?type=all-terrain-truck-tire.

 

[Madtiger]

For durability, nothing beats the Nitto Ridge Grapplers. Nothing. My wife recently drove over an anchor bolt set in concrete which was pointing STRAIGHT UP and was a good 4"+ tall. The tire is fine. I was sure when she told me that there was going to be a hole the size of my finger in the tread but nope, it's good.

The Nitto Ridge Grapplers have tremendous traction. TireRack doesn't sell them though so they don't show up. They're heavy and mileage sucks, but they seem to grip everything.

I used to rely on TireRack for crowd-sourced ratings but I feel like people are biased based on what they run and some tires which aren't amazing get better ratings than they should IMO.

If I was looking for a review I'd rely more on CR than TireRack. Tire Ratings & Reviews - Consumer Reports - https://www.consumerreports.org/products/tires/ratings/?type=all-terrain-truck-tire.

Oh no, i am NEVER gonna use CR for tires ever again! I picked their #1 tire for highway tires for my minivan. General AT-43 or something like that. It was a total POS! Sure, it was good for about 5000 miles (or less). Noisy as hell. Even my kids compared my minivan to a school bus. Rain traction was OK, certainly not as great as CR says it was. And then about 20k miles In, it developed sidewall bulge. Went to Yokohama next…and everything has been so dreamy since.

For me, i am bias against small companies. I just don’t think that they have the R&D budget as the big boys do. I rather pay more than pay less to get a good deal but then compromise on safety/durability.

 

[linuxgod]

Oh no, i am NEVER gonna use CR for tires ever again! I picked their #1 tire for highway tires for my minivan. General AT-43 or something like that. It was a total POS! Sure, it was good for about 5000 miles (or less). Noisy as hell. Even my kids compared my minivan to a school bus. Rain traction was OK, certainly not as great as CR says it was. And then about 20k miles In, it developed sidewall bulge. Went to Yokohama next…and everything has been so dreamy since.

For me, i am bias against small companies. I just don’t think that they have the R&D budget as the big boys do. I rather pay more than pay less to get a good deal but then compromise on safety/durability.

Fair enough. Substitute "CR" for whatever your reliable, unbiased tester/reviewer is. I've had good luck with CR - I don't always agree with their rankings but in my experience they're generally "directionally correct". Tire are of course a bit of a challenge since performance can vary a lot over 50k miles of use, and sometimes they are designed to perform very well early on but suck once you wear them down 10-20k miles.

 

[SpenserAK]

Interesting to hear these reviews where there are “complaints” about the AT3 in wet weather. Trust me, I spend a lot of time in it up here, and not once have I ever had anything but good to say, including in the winter weather I described. Must be due to the “math” of it all - vehicle, tire size, driver/previous experience, driver preference, exact location and conditions, etc. I’m just not getting any sort of lacking feeling in any of the various very wet conditions I drive on a regular basis. To be clear, I don’t care if anyone chooses that tire, just seems odd given my experience.

 

[bloc]

To be fair they are just saying toyo AT3s leave something on the table compared to the others, not overall. Or at least that’s how I took it.


I have LT-metric toyo AT3s on my build, and agree they are quieter than my p-metric at2s, and work great in the rain, so far. But I don’t have the other tires to compare to side by side.

 

[linuxgod]

Must be due to the “math” of it all - vehicle, tire size, driver/previous experience, driver preference, exact location and conditions, etc.

I think the math has a lot to do with it. You can break the laws on the highways, but you can't break the laws of physics...

• Tire noise, particularly after some wear, can be due in part to road conditions (washboard and gravel vs a lot of pristine pavement), wear due to alignment settings (camber, toe), etc. Tire pressure can play a role too
• Comfort can be due to C vs E load, correct tire pressures on different rim sizes, etc
• Tire sizes probably affect performance as well. Larger diameter tires have a larger circumference and so there's more tread than a smaller tire, for instance. Also larger tires will affect comfort and handling (depending in part on rim sizes)
• Vehicle weight and bias can affect handling quite a bit. 48 front/52 rear will handle differently than 52 front/48 rear. A heavy vehicle will need more traction in a turn.
• Engine size and drivetrain will affect traction. A 5.7 2WD Tundra will be far more likely to spin the rear wheels than a 4.7L 2WD Tundra or even a 5.7L full-time 4WD LC/LX. Add in different gear ratios and diffs to the mix.

 

[1world1love]

....But I don’t have the other tires to compare to side by side.

I think this is the problem with individual tire reviews generally (and consumer reviews especially). We all think our tires are great (or terrible) at this and that, but we generally have no frame of reference. We are not driving the same exact vehicle on 3 other tires in exactly the same conditions back to back.

It is very hard to take the subjectivity out of it and there are few possible empirical measurements that can be made. You can probably measure noise in a controlled experiment, and maybe reasonably test stopping distance. But even for stopping, you would need to have identical vehicles with identically worn brake pads and somehow ensure that the same braking force was applied. And with minimal atmospheric variance between tests.

 

[Madtiger]

I think this is the problem with individual tire reviews generally (and consumer reviews especially). We all think our tires are great (or terrible) at this and that, but we generally have no frame of reference. We are not driving the same exact vehicle on 3 other tires in exactly the same conditions back to back.

It is very hard to take the subjectivity out of it and there are few possible empirical measurements that can be made. You can probably measure noise in a controlled experiment, and maybe reasonably test stopping distance. But even for stopping, you would need to have identical vehicles with identically worn brake pads and somehow ensure that the same braking force was applied. And with minimal atmospheric variance between tests.

And this is why I love these TireRack comparisons. Same time. Same vehicle. Same road conditions. Same track. Same driver. Same equipment.

I think that TR is seeing the need for this or maybe more demand from consumers. They have new tests coming out every few weeks. It used to be many months before we see one.

 

[1world1love]

And this is why I love these TireRack comparisons. Same time. Same vehicle. Same road conditions. Same track. Same driver. Same equipment.

I think that TR is seeing the need for this or maybe more demand from consumers. They have new tests coming out every few weeks. It used to be many months before we see one.

I agree. While I’m sure they want to sell all the tires they carry, they have a vested interest in making sure their customers are educated. Otherwise the lose customers and spend more on support and service.

 

[WCDAVE]

The average consumer is only going to buy one tire and be non-the-wiser about the how well another tire is relative to the one they went with. If the tire craters after 15,000 miles or is noisier than a tank tread, you might think about a different tire choice next time. In the end, in today's market, the only one in stock at Tire Rack in a 275/70/18E is the Grabber ATX - so glad they're impressed, because that's the only one you can buy. I'm going to wait on my tire of choice based on my own personal experience with them (KM3s), but buying tires is like buying cars right now, the pickins are slim and the waits are long.