Hello everyone,
I've had my 2009 Bright Silver Unlimited Rubicon for about a year now and have been slowly upgrading my Jeep to the point where I am able to install 35" tires. I live in Colorado and experience a fairly wide variety of terrain depending on the season. I've been really pleased with the BFG Mud Terrains that came with the vehicle when it comes to offroad performance in the summer months. I do a fair amount of rock crawling and will occasionally hit a pocket of mud; and so far I haven't really had any issues in terms of getting stuck.

The only real drawback of these tires that I have noticed is that they seem to slip really really bad on pavement covered with a thin sheet of black ice.

After installing a 3" Teraflex Flexarm kit, I was planning on installing a set of 35" tires (and rear tire carrier but that's another issue). I was initially leaning towards the BFG M/T KM2's until having a few sliding out of control incidents this past winter. It seems as if the Toyo Open Country M/T's are pretty popular on this site, along with the Nitto Mud Grapplers. I had also taken a look at some of the Interco products such as the IROK, as well at the Goodyear MTR's.

My question is this: Are there any other folks in my situation? Do you find yourself needing an aggressive Mud Terrain in the summer months but also something with some additional siping for the icy winter months? Is it possible to get the best of both worlds? If so, what would you guys recommend?

Thanks!!

 

Tires that have good traction on ice have low to moderately low void ratios and lot of siping to provide a high density of tread edges that provide most of the traction.

M/T's by definition have a higher than desired void ratio for ice. Some of the MTs do have siping and some do not like the KM2s.

I suggest you start by reading numerous treads on "Winter Tires" that popped up last Fall when many running MTs over the summer experienced problems when Winter arrived. The threads contain a lot of good discussion on this topic.

 

I honestly don't think you'll have traction with any tire over ice. You have such a small coefficient of friction on ice, I don't think anything except studding a tire will give you what you're looking for.

 

Out of the box, the Toyo MTs perform better than other MTs on the show and ice. Black ice is going to be a challenge for any tire, including snow tires and the only real solution is a studded tire. A siped tire will perform better on ice than a tire that has the typical large lugs and voids of an MT. On both my JK and my truck I have Toyo MTs that have had siping applied and the net results make them as good as any AT tire, although I've been contemplating getting some new snow tires (the ones I have now just look a little silly on either vehicle).

Last thing, and probably a little bit counter intuitive, is that in the winter you should increase your tire pressure. It's not the flotation area that gives you traction, but the edges of sipes and lugs. In on road snow, you want to get your tires down to the firmly packed stuff and that will give you better traction than trying to float over the loose stuff.

 

The factory MT's (BFG) do as well as anything on ice. Since we don't have much ice here, I have never had a problem with any weather conditions here or in the mountains where I spend half my time. If you're concerend have them siped and studded. Otherwise, as stated above, the construction of "ice" tires and all weather tires and MT tires is completely different. If you are concerened about ice, I would get a second set of winter/ice tires on a cheap set of steelies and put them on in October. Everything slides on ice especially black ice that you didn't see coming.

 

If you don't want to run two sets, you might look at some of the more aggressive AT's or less aggressive MT's with the snowflake symbol. Something like the Goodyear DuraTrac or Dunlop Rover MT Max Traction, maybe?

 

These.... Size 315/70-17 (34.8")



Mud/Terrains with severe snow service rating. I bought a set just for winter.

Dunlop M/T Maxx Traction from Discount Tire Direct


My regards,

Widewing

 

I did well this past winter on both snow and ice with my 35" GY MT/R Kevlar tires. I can't compare any of the other tires you mentioned, but traction has been great on road, on the trail and in snow/ice so far.

 

Thanks for all of the great replies guys. I'm in a tough spot because I'd -like- to just buy one set of tires but I'm not sure I'm going to be able to fully satisfy all of my needs with the one set.

It seems that the amount of siping and lack of voids is the major difference between a tire that gets a decent rating on snow and ice and one that doesn't.

In my experience over the course of this past season, the factory BFG MT's do really well when digging through the deep snow but can be quite dangerous when on smooth ice. (The ice I am referring to is that ice that forms when it's raining initially and then starts to freeze on the road, prior to it actually snowing). I ran into a handful of instances last winter were I was literally sliding downhill with no hope of stopping whatsoever. The large flat lugs on the BFG MT's had zero grip on the smooth stuff. Once the snow started to fall it was worlds apart in terms of performance, but that first layer of ice proved to be a bit scary.

After doing a bit more research I found a few more MT's that claim to do reasonably well on ice but haven't found any that bear the Snowflake symbol (BFG AT's, and the Dunlops that you had mentioned) . I found a handful of AT's like you said--that have the Snowflake symbol but didn't seem to fair well in the mud or while climbing rocks. So again, I am wondering if I may end up better with two sets, or if getting a less aggressive MT and supplementing with some additional siping as Jpop recommended might be the way to go.

Wow, these might just work. The lugs here are siped quite a bit. These look to be along the same lines as the Interco TrXus MT's which claim to "have more siping than any other mud terrain on the market; which has proven to be almost magical in icy snowy conditions." (their marketing words, not mine).

On a ratings site I was surprised to see the new Nitto Trail Grappler MT's as having a high snow/ice rating. They seem to be a less aggressive MT but still maintaining some of the mud/rock performance of their Mud Grappler.

At any rate, thanks for all of the great feedback. I'm going to take a closer look at Jpop's Toyo MT's, as well as the Dunlop Max Tractions that Widewing and nthinuf recommended.

 

Have you looked at the Goodyear Duratrac? It's not a MT, but does have the snowflake symbol.

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