Truck Gurus - advice on choosing truck tires!

[Obsidian_Fire]

I am getting ready to replace my factory tires and frankly I can’t afford the Goodyears.

My tire size is: 275/70/R18. It’s a 3500 diesel. So big tires, and they are expensive.

At this point, my options are:

Goodyear Wranglers, $1300; Nokian $1200; Cooper AT3 $1100; Les Schwab brands Open Country, Back Country, Wild Country at the same price levels.
OR, Cooper made brands Hercules, Mastercraft.

And, to top it off, I can buy the Cooper AT3 at a local discount tire shop (been in business forever) for $880 as opposed to the $1100+ at the “name brand” stores. (so why the nearly $300 difference?? are the tires "seconds??)

This truck is 1) my daily driver, and 2) I pull my horse trailer and haul hay and whatever else I need with it. So my tires, they need to be dependable.

Does anybody have a preference, an experience with any of the above brands (I have ran Goodyear and Nokian on my car but not a truck)??

I read some Cooper reviews people were having trouble with blowouts and the tires wearing out in 10,000 miles… :eek: now that would really suck.

Could just use some help making a sound decision.

Thanks.

[ryansgirl]

I won’t touch Goodyear or Cooper. I had to replace two Goodyear - each had less than 8K miles on them due to picking up a screw/nail on the highway and two other tires had to be patched in no time at all. Absolute junk. I tried Coopers for my truck and they wore out ridiculously fast despite rotations, etc. Never again

Michelins are my choice. I have those on my truck now. Not cheap (about $1200-1300) but we’ll worth it. I always get more miles out of that brand then any other. I won’t waste money buying any other brand.

I have no experience with the others you listed.

[Where_sMyWhite]

I always liked the Bridgestone Revo’s on my F250. Wore well, drove nice in snowy road conditions, minimal road noise.

Had one set of Coopers and really didn’t like them.

[TheJenners]

I’m buying tires soon, and I’m looking at the Open Country or Back Country from Les Schwab v BFGoodrich AT2. My truck is not a daily driver, I drive it about five times a month in a normal month to keep things happy, and to haul my horse trailer, dump trailer, etc. I want something with life (tho not a deal breaker because it doesn’t get a ton of mileage) but mostly dependable and some off road traction because I dump my dump trailer full of poop in a friend’s field and will also be using it on my property for this n that. So out of your options, the Les Schwab Open County tires, they are more daily-driver friendly. They had awesome reviews, and you get service for the life of the tire if anything goes amiss (nail, slow leak, throws a weight).

[Obsidian_Fire]

I am considering the BF Goodrich Rugged Terrain… not to be confused with the KO2.

??? but I don’t know yet.

[csaper58]

Michelin tires. Always. They are worth every penny and usually on sale somewhere.

Sam’s usually has the best price here, but check around where you live for X-Mas deals.

Keep your best old tire for the spare if you can’t find a buy 4 get 1 free deal.

[Heinz_57]

This is an off the wall suggestion, but DH buys our tires on Amazon. And before anybody gets their panties in a bunch, he’s an educated, certified, and gainfully employed mechanic, so I trust his opinion. :lol:

You might check there. You would still need to pay a shop to mount and balance them, so it may not be cheaper, but it’s worth doing a little math if it saves you a few hundred. Most of them ship for free, believe it or not.

As far as the reviews…some people forget to do basic things, like rotate the tires on a semi-regular basis, have them aligned properly and filled to the proper PSI which can cause them to “wear out” from user error after 10k. Although like TheJenners said, the free stuff you get with buying tires from Les Schwab can be a huge plus, if you trust your local shop.

[Unfforgettable]

Add my vote for Michelin. And check out Tirerack.com…here are the Michelins they carry in your size: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/TireSearchResults.jsp?zip-code=&width=275/&ratio=70&diameter=18&rearWidth=255/&rearRatio=40&rearDiameter=17

[Mango20]

I was also going to suggest tirerack.com, at least for comparison shopping and reading reviews from users.

[fanfayre]

My absolute favourite are the Yokohama Geolanders. Don’t know what they would cost you if they are even stocked near you, but I found they were worth every single penny (and I think they were actually cheaper than BF and Michelins!)

[Beentheredonethat]

My friend and her husband own about five tire stores, and this is her advice. Buy the cheap ones and rotate them regularly. They are all made in China no matter what they say at the same places. The expensive ones just have their name put on it.

[stb]

Michelins. Always. Painful to pay for but definitely worth it.

[DiamondJubilee]

I dont know much about the brands of tires, so I can’t help you there, but as for the price difference in tires, do be careful!

We were able to find the same sort of deal, where one tire shop was several hundred dollars cheaper and went with them. They lasted on 2 years, which was crazy.

We recently met a “tire” guy, who only installs tires, and he took a look at them and stated that they were 7 years old. The date will be stamped on the tire, he showed my husband where the date was, and he couldnt believe they would sell him 5 year old tires! So they were sitting around outside for 5 years before they were ever installed and were cracked right from the get go.

Our tire guy said this is fairly common and to always check the date before buying. Dont buy anything older than one year old.

[atlatl]

Another vote for Michelins. I could not believe the difference when DH put them on our truck. It’s all we buy now with the exception of the muscle car and OHV.

[TheJenners]

For those who suggest Michelins, my only caveat is if you drive on gravel a lot… IME they are rock throwing SOBs. And that is a personal pet peeve of mine. YMMV :yes:.

And yes, I meant KO2s, was being too lazy to look up the name. Sorry for that!! What do you like about the other BFGs above the KO2s?

[Obsidian_Fire]

LOL I can’t remember now I have to look them up again. The BFG Terrains were/are a newer version that are getting really good reviews. But, I don’t see them listed anywhere that carries BFG’s.

As for Michelins, the only ones I can find in my size are the Defender LTX M/S, and looking at them I’m not sure that’s really what I want.

Apparently when you have an R18, your options get very, very limited. Much more availability in the 16’s.

[DiamondJubilee]

I have BFG Terrains on my truck and my husband has the K02s. He loves the K02 as they have white lettering and he loves to shine them up lol!

They are a more aggressive tread and seem to do better in the snow than my Terrains. They are a bit louder on a dry road as well.

He is very upset as the K02s have just changed their tread a bit this year and he wanted to buy 2 tires to put on the front of his truck, but now they wont match.

[DiamondJubilee]

Meant to add my Terrians are on a F-150 and my husbands K02’s are 17’s and are on his 3500 dually. Both are expensive tires up here, but are well worth it. I have no other experience with other brands really, as my husband changes tires to BFG’s as soon as we purchase the trucks.

[Obsidian_Fire]

Do you like your Terrains? what kind of driving, or roads, do you do? I am primarily on pavement, occasionally in the grassy fields but generally not when they are muddy!

Honestly we don’t get enough snow, long enough, to justify an aggressive tire. Mostly it rains and we deal with a lot of wet. So I need a tire that is good with that but has just enough bite to deal with the bad stuff when it comes along.

[DiamondJubilee]

I do like my Terrains! I live in Ontario and drive on mostly paved roads, lots of snow in the winter and the tires have been great (we got 12" of snow last night and they had no problem in our un plowed driveway).

I do tow a 2 horse trailer and have gone on gravel/muddy farm driveways and have not had any problems. They are great tires! I had to buy 20" and they were about $400/tire, but they were worth it. I have driven about 100,000km on them the past 3 years and they are still holding up really well. I will be getting new tires for it in the spring, but my husband will be taking the truck over and will be putting K02s on it.