AT or winter tires for truck in snow??

[R-Audi]

My summer set of tires are Cooper AT3 XLTs and ran them for one winter... seemed decent but certainly not great on ice. Worth mentioning for this tire, for some reason some sizes are snowflake, where my 285/65/18s were just MS. Now using a set of 265/70/17 Toyo GSi-6 in the winter and its a huge difference.

[tirebob]

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Stock Tacomas now come with Wrangler territory AT with Kevlar. I believe these are made only for Tacoma’s and not sold by shops - but you would know that better than me!

They performed well in the snow the last two days. They are only ok on icy highways. My Michelin X-ice on my old Ridgeline felt significantly better on ice. But being a different vehicle it’s not apples to apples comparison. I just have to decide what’s better to upgrade first - dedicated winters or better AT tires for summer.

Trying to see if there are any downsides to winters - like performing worse in deep snow.

Yeah the Territory is not that aggressive for deeper snow for sure. Thing is, you will never get a tire that does every aspect of driving at the top levels. You have to give something up to improve something else, and if it is 'just okay' at everything's it will never be good at anything. Just how it is.

You will get tons of disagreeing experiences with tires too. Not everyone drives the same or experiences it the same. Even within the same tire there are variables that people do not account for (LRE/10ply heavy duty versus standard P rated will perform radically differently even in the same tire m model for example). The types of vehicles will react differently, the drivers driving styles will respond better to different models. Whether it is -5 degrees versus -25 degrees will have a large effect on a rubber compounds performance on many tires. All kinds of shit will make something work for you or not work for you.

Feel free to get hold of me if you want to break some aspects down around your specific needs and I can try and help walk you through the variables...

[vengie]

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I wasn’t a fan of these, they only lasted 35000km on my truck.

Weird.
Our entire field service fleet is running these.
We have one unit with 60,000km+ and is hauling 800+lbs of payload regularly while running oilfield roads.
They've been fantastic.

[S-FLY]

In my comparison, I was running Toyo Open Country A/Ts on my FJ Cruiser and switched to studded Nokian Hakkapeliitta LT3's. From a stop, in 2wd I find the traction to get going is marginally better on packed snow and ice.
The dedicated studded winters REALLY shine in those holy shit moments trying to stop on ice.

[CLiVE]

I run studded Nokian's in the winter and KO2s in the summer on my F150.

Nokians are far superior in the winter for most conditions (stopping, ice, etc), but I hate the Nokians in really deep snow.

There are a few times in heavy / wet snow conditions where I threw the KO2s on and noticed an improvement due to the deeper / aggressive tread. As soon as the snow is packed down, would rather have the Nokians back on.

No perfect set of tires for everything...but overall would choose my Nokians 90% of the time over the KO2s.

[BavarianBeast]

Winter tires dominate the snow over any AT. 2” or 20”, no issues.

[B20EF]

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I run studded Nokian's in the winter and KO2s in the summer on my F150.

Nokians are far superior in the winter for most conditions (stopping, ice, etc), but I hate the Nokians in really deep snow.

There are a few times in heavy / wet snow conditions where I threw the KO2s on and noticed an improvement due to the deeper / aggressive tread. As soon as the snow is packed down, would rather have the Nokians back on.

No perfect set of tires for everything...but overall would choose my Nokians 90% of the time over the KO2s.

That seems like a good setup - I might copy it.

[ThePenIsMightier]

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I wasn’t a fan of these, they only lasted 35000km on my truck.

Although you are cool, aren't you also some sort of weirdo who drives 234,000 km/year?

[Twin_Cam_Turbo]

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Although you are cool, aren't you also some sort of weirdo who drives 234,000 km/year?

Yes, 100-120k a year.

[littledan]

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Although you are cool, aren't you also some sort of weirdo who drives 234,000 km/year?

Are you even an albertan if you dont?

[killramos]

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are you even an edmontonian if you dont?

ftfy…

[dubhead]

My Canyon came with the kevlar wranglers and never cared for them in the bit of shoulder season snow they saw. Run blizzaks and will never go back truck is a full on billy goat with them on. Driven through some real shit on this set up on handful of trips to Jackson Hole, plenty of trips to Revy, and far more miles on QE2 than any one should have to endure and they've always been confidence inspiring.

Edit. Wrangles are finally dead now I get to decide what summer tires I actually want. Leaning towards quite because the Canyon interior is fairly loud

[bjstare]

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My Canyon came with the kevlar wranglers and never cared for them in the bit of shoulder season snow they saw. Run blizzaks and will never go back truck is a full on billy goat with them on. Driven through some real shit on this set up on handful of trips to Jackson Hole, plenty of trips to Revy, and far more miles on QE2 than any one should have to endure and they've always been confidence inspiring.

Edit. Wrangles are finally dead now I get to decide what summer tires I actually want. Leaning towards quite because the Canyon interior is fairly loud

If you don't offroad a lot with it, Michelin LTX are fantastic summer/all season for ride quality and noise.

[haggis88]

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If you don't offroad a lot with it, Michelin LTX are fantastic summer/all season for ride quality and noise.

There's an off brand tire that looks friggin IDENTICAL to the Michelin LTX, but I can't for the life of me remember its name...i get the feeling they bought the old moulds for a previous iteration of the LTX

There's also a Nexen tire that's a spitting image of the GY Wrangler SR-A, comes stock on the Ram Limited which is shocking for a top of the line truck

[tirebob]

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There's an off brand tire that looks friggin IDENTICAL to the Michelin LTX, but I can't for the life of me remember its name...i get the feeling they bought the old moulds for a previous iteration of the LTX

There's also a Nexen tire that's a spitting image of the GY Wrangler SR-A, comes stock on the Ram Limited which is shocking for a top of the line truck

@haggis88 There is a few but I think the one maybe you are thinking of is a Kumho Crugen HT51? Not identical but certainly very close. Absolutely not the old molds of Michelin though.

[haggis88]

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@haggis88 There is a few but I think the one maybe you are thinking of is a Kumho Crugen HT51? Not identical but certainly very close. Absolutely not the old molds of Michelin though.

Nah it looked closer than that, even down to the different directions in the middle treadblocks

[ThePenIsMightier]

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Winter tires dominate the snow over any AT. 2” or 20”, no issues.

The best advertisements for tires are those which show them failing. That is - going completely sideways and/or skidding to the extent that a fire is a legitimate possibility.

In another 20 years, we will have become so desensitized to watching tire failure commercials that new commercials for tires may actually show them exploding and killing innocent bystanders with shrapnel, or delaminating in catastrophic manner, flipping their battery-powered rectangles over and triggering a lithium fire that takes 4 billion gallons of water to extinguish.

Mark your calendars.

[Brent.ff]

Did TPIM just go full Zenops on us?

[ExtraSlow]

Let's be honest, he's been on that path for a while now.

[ThePenIsMightier]

I haven't seen a ZenOps post since I learned about the ignore button.
Seriously, it's not like I'm wrong. Do people realize that a tire's job is to NOT let you go sideways? And provide enough traction that you DON'T set one them on fire leaving a traffic light?
I agree that watching Hoonigan videos is fun but making your tire buying decisions based on those videos is... Special.