Cheap Tires Assessment|General 4x4 Discussion|Forum|Gold Hills Posse 4x4

BKGM Jeepers said
For those of you not at PC this past weekend, I installed some new tires and was trying them out.

Background:

I was saving for a lift to install, had a good sale and unexpectedly purchased it.  Fine, so I was going to plan an install party, and save for tires.  Well, I was putting on a front end part not related to the lift and ended up taking the front end apart for that work so it made sense to just dig into the the lift.  As a result I was short funds to get some tires.  Enter the cheap tires project.

Tires:

I ended up with 1/2 the budget for tires.  this left me with a couple of options. Drive small tires for a while and continue to save, build debt and get brand name stuff, or buy cheaper (either used or off brand or second hand new).

I chose to search for cheaper tires.  What I found was an off Brand - Predator which sold a hybrid MT/AT tire.  The cost installed was right at 300/tire.  My brand name alternatives were right at 500/tire installed.

These particular tires were Predator New Mutant RST tires. 37x12/50-17s.  

Pros - 

Tires came with a 50K wear warranty

Tires came with a 1 year road hazard warranty

Tires were cheap enough to serve as a bridge tire until I could save for something better and sell them used in the future.

Tires are studable if interested and the stud size needed is listed on the sidewall.

Tires are D Load range.  Good balance of durability and flex.

 

Cons - 

There is more road noise than I expected, and it is a different/weird sound.

Tires do not offer a built in rim guard, so your wheel is more exposed.

While the tires are only a little short of the true 37" height, they are narrower than a 12.50.

 

Conclusions:

After running the tires at PC to check things out, I was quite impressed with how well they grabbed various terrains.  Dirt/clay, rocks, and concrete.

I aired down to about 16 psi, and could have dropped further without concern.  This would have further improved the tires performance.

The tires did a good job of clearing the smaller rocks. The voids are large enough that you don't throw rocks once you are back on pavement driving home.

I scraped my rock rings, as expected because of the lack of rim protection on the tires.  But rock rings are replaceable. 

I did not test these tires yet in Mud or snow or on wet rocks, so this are only initial observations.

These seem like a good value for the money if you don't mind some road noise.

  

That’s a great write up and I’m sure will be very helpful for many posse members, including myself as I will be looking for tires probably next year so this may be an option for me too