This thread keeps veering gayward. Here's some more new tires Kennith:
http://www.bfgoodrichtires.com/tire...f-road-tires/all-terrain-t-a-ko2/tire-details
My neighbor got some. They look great in person and good on paper.
That's an interesting development. Their sidewall cut test rig looks brutal.
They are using a "new" compound, and quite a bit more rubber. There wasn't really anything
wrong with the carcass before, aside from quality control and that rotting compound.
What they are using now appears to be derived from their Baja tires. Can it really take the years of exposure these will endure? It will be interesting to see.
BFG tires did chunk and chip on occasion, not to any unreasonable degree in my mind. They had more of an issue with wear patterns. This will have to be addressed by compound. Most important is what they've got
under that tread section to handle heat, and whether or not the pattern is helping out.
The tread pattern has some brains behind it, but it's perfectly possible to get solid shoulders without all that wrapping around. This eliminates one of my previous gripes about the tire, though, which was it's overly sharp shoulder. It wasn't actually helping anything, so why not give it some shape to help out in the bends?
If they want to make side lugs out of the idea, whatever.
One concern of mine would be, yet again, quality control. BFG couldn't manage to make a circle out of the rubber they had. Can they now make one with even
more rubber at play?
On the bright side, this tire means new molds. New molds, if dramatic enough, might mean a few new machine parts. In either event, they've got a chance to really do a better job now, and they've no excuse not to. I really hope they pull it off.
Their tires didn't need much. There's only so much performance you can get out of something that will be used on a street by an average person. You can't compete with Interco in the street performance category, because they don't care. You're not after the same customer; at least, not on the same day.
Know the limitations, and build the best quality off pavement tire you can for people who are actually going to buy the damned things. So many working vehicles run around with these things, and you could line all the plumbing in ancient Rome with the lead hanging off the damned wheels.
Maybe BFG got their shit together.
Cheers,
Kennith