All terrain tyres

[slowworm]

I have a tatty 2003 Ford Maverick that'll spend some of it's time down woodland tracks, muddy and sandy car parks and in the snow. I don't plan to go into deep mud or anything so some AT tyres would seem ideal. It will spend much of it's time on road.

Due to the size (225/70 R15) the choice of brands is a bit limited and after a bit research I'm considering some General Grabber AT2s.

However, I'll need to do some motorway driving in them and wonder if they'll be up to the job. I can stick to 60 and can cope with the noise, but I don't want them to affect the steering, braking too much. I won't be doing too many miles so wear shouldn't be too much of an issue.

My other option would be General's HTS tyres which seem to be ideal for road and snow but I don't know if they'll cope with light muddy tracks etc.

Does anyone have either tyre and have any comments, or use a similar AT tyre on the road much?

 

[Andy2112]

I have a tatty 2003 Ford Maverick that'll spend some of it's time down woodland tracks, muddy and sandy car parks and in the snow. I don't plan to go into deep mud or anything so some AT tyres would seem ideal. It will spend much of it's time on road.

Due to the size (225/70 R15) the choice of brands is a bit limited and after a bit research I'm considering some General Grabber AT2s.

However, I'll need to do some motorway driving in them and wonder if they'll be up to the job. I can stick to 60 and can cope with the noise, but I don't want them to affect the steering, braking too much. I won't be doing too many miles so wear shouldn't be too much of an issue.

My other option would be General's HTS tyres which seem to be ideal for road and snow but I don't know if they'll cope with light muddy tracks etc.

Does anyone have either tyre and have any comments, or use a similar AT tyre on the road much?

Hi mate, I've got some AT2's on my 4x4, had them on since late last year, cracking tyres, coped with the snow this year brilliantly, fine in mud too. I travel to work and back on the motorway every day and have never had a problem speed wise or noise tbh. Good all round tyre imo.

 

[Retired Member southey]

Hi chap, i don't know if it's any good to you but i've had some firestone dueller 673's on my jeep for the last three years, great tyre,quite on the motorway, great in the snow and ice,and offroad, they haven't really had and effect on my mpg,(which is pretty bad as is). they were £67 a tyre from black circle.

 

[Barn Owl]

AT2's for me too.No complaints whatsover.

I've got them on the Freelander and will put them on my shogun when the time comes.

 

[EdS]

AT2 are the dogs danglies.

I changed form BFG MT to AT2 and not looked back. Good on road, good off road and good in the wet and snow.

Probably about hte best general purpose tyres readily available

 

[Chris the Cat]

I have Grabber 2's on my Landy 110 and they have been great, lasted realy well and not atall too noisy on the motorway
( 65mph max for me most of the time.)
One of the better AT's I would say.
I shall be replacing mine with the same again.
Cheers.
Chris.

 

[ged]

What sort of mileage do you guys get out of all terrain tyres? I've been thinking about getting some but I'm not sure that they'd be right for me. I have a Jeep Grand Cherokee (4.7V8) which has had Good Year road tyres on it since new. They've done about 70,000 miles now and are starting to get a bit close to the wear bars. Probably I'll get another five or ten thousand out of them. Most of my car driving is on motorways but I have to negotiate the odd leafy lane. Then the tyres squirm about something shocking but do I get there and I'm happy enough with that. Would I get a lot less miles out of AT tyres? For me it isn't so much the cost as the inconvenience of having to change the tyres a long way from home if I do a long journey (a few thousand miles). I do that sort of thing on motorcycles, and bike tyres don't last anything like as long as car tyres, so I have to plan tyre changes very carefully. I wouldn't want to have to start doing that in the Jeep. If I fit another set of Good Year I can probably forget about them for the rest of my driving career!

 

[naefearjustbeer]

Blooming eck how do you manage 70,000 miles from a set of tyres in a V8 engined jeep.

 

[vizsla]

i put some wrangler AT's on a ranger and they were as good on the road as the road tyres i took off, and would go way past 60 without a problem, think i paid bout £55 PER CORNER...

 

[ged]

Blooming eck how do you manage 70,000 miles from a set of tyres in a V8 engined jeep.

People also ask me how I get 5,000 miles out of a back tyre on a Hayabusa. At first I was a bit disappointed with that as I normally used to get around ten to fifteen thousand on a 1200 Bandit so I got in touch with Bridgestone and asked them about it. They said "you must be carrying your corner speed" whatever that means and told me that I was getting around twice the mileage that most people get and I wasn't going to do a lot better. To be fair to them I have friends who've destroyed back tyres on the same bike in under 900 miles, so they may have had a point. Anyway most of the time I drive for economy and low maintenance. It's a constant challenge that I set for myself. It doesn't necessarily mean going especially slowly, but smooth acceleration, reading the road well ahead and planning how to negotiate things like junctions with minimum loss of momentum are all very important. There are people who can do a lot better than I do, they have rallies for it. I'm just a novice. To be honest, for me in the Jeep it's mostly to alleviate the boredom. I reckon on averaging about 27 mpg on a long trip. I think less than 30 sucks but my dealer never even used to believe that. Then one day I took a test drive in the new RX300. We bimbled around Nottingham and did a short stretch out in the sticks. When we got back the salesman pressed a few buttons on the computer on the dashboard and said "Blimey! 28.5 mpg around town!". Unbeknown to me, he'd set it up to measure my fuel consumption for the demo! I told him if I'd known that I could have done a lot better even though it wasn't run in yet. That was a couple of years ago. When he told me how much he was going to offer me for the Jeep I said to him I'll keep it, the upholstery is worth more than that.

So can I take it that I'm not going to do a lot better with all-terrain tyres?

 

[naefearjustbeer]

I put a back tyre on my 600 bandit every 1200 miles and have never had more than 20000 miles on any car/truck tyre fitted to the drive wheels. I dont drive fast top speed but must I must admit to enjoying the acceleration even if I dont stretch to the top speeds available. I had the 2.5 td Cherokee for a while and it averaged 25 mpg no mater how I drove it.

 

[Retired Member southey]

Crazy driver naefearjustbeer, I've got bridgestone 673, mud tyre, on my 4.0l wrangler, 27000 miles so far and i rekon there's at least 10000 left in em, and thats with off roading and (ahem) playing in liddles car park in the winter just gone(i am grown up, i am), do you rotate your wheels regulaly?

 

[naefearjustbeer]

No I am afraid I leave my wheels where they are so that I only ever have to replace 2 tyres at a time instead of 4. However I am beginning to think I could (should) be getting a much better mileage out of my rubber before replacing them. I must say however the wife has a Suzuki Jimny and the tyres on it have hardly worn in the past year. I put that down to it being a slow and fairly lightweight vehicle.

 

[Barn Owl]

Going off topic a wee bit guys..But

What do you think of big mud tyres on the actual road?

Compared to ATs that is.

 

[Retired Member southey]

I do notice the noise, handling wise no problems at all, and my mpg is pump with either.

 

[EdS]

Going off topic a wee bit guys..But

What do you think of big mud tyres on the actual road?

Compared to ATs that is.

Intersting to awful.

I've has a fair selection. BFG MT where ok but could be a bit twitchy on wet roads.

If by big MT you mean very aggressive tyres (more than MT) - iffy at best. I had Bronco Grizzly Claws on the 90, awsome in mud but made lif intresting on wet roads. Just glad it was 2.5td rather than a TDi s doing over 55mph wasn't an issue.

 

[Barn Owl]

I'm never much above 55 mph in the shogun, might try muds on it.

 

[EdS]

MT are ok at road speed, but do wear quicker than ATs. The mega mud tyres are the ones to watch at speed

 

[slowworm]

Thanks for all the replies. Looks like the AT2s will be fine then, some of the negative comments I've seen suggest they might not be the best at speeds when it's very wet but I suppose a multi-purpose tyre can't be the best at everything. I'm also a little concerned that the steeper shoulders might tramline a bit more on the ruts you get around here on the motorways, but I hope not to be around here for much longer so it shouldn't be an issue.

Anyone else who's interested I've found quite a few reviews here, note as they're a very popular tyre with loads of reviews there's the odd very negative comment that I suspect all tyres will suffer with.

Can I ask where people get these fitted? I could buy them cheaper online but I'd rather buy them from the place I get them fitted so if there's any problems I just have one place to deal with. Would somewhere like Kwikfit do them?

Thanks again!

 

[ged]

I put a back tyre on my 600 bandit every 1200 miles ...

:yikes:

... I must admit to enjoying the acceleration ...

That would explain it.