Yo Kennith,
Can we get an update on these "Red Letters"? I need to buy tires this week and am strongly considering the 265/75r/16's.
I've had the AT2 Grabbers on mine (245/75) for a little over five years now and like them as a good overall choice.
I really like them in most conditions. They are fine in rain, light mud, dirt, sand, and certainly on the road. They
damned sure enough corner majestically.
Ice is a no-go for most people, and slushy roads aren't too much fun. If you're good, you can mange them, but you'll feel it. Conventional MT tires are better in those conditions, and obviously an AT would be superior.
I would avoid driving too close to any
other vehicle wearing these tires on icy or snowy roads.:rofl:
On proper snow and ice off-pavement, however, they are just as good as anything else. That's not really very surprising. They won't bury you. That's a bit like deep South-Eastern mud, though; everything sucks equally until you move to a dedicated, purpose-built tire that's rubbish everywhere else.
It's pretty much just the road that kills these in the winter.
They aren't all-season tires, and I wouldn't call them properly all-terrain, either. It's hard not to love them, though, for their road, sand, and dirt performance.
If you spend, say, more than two weeks a year in snow and ice, live in mountainous terrain (any snow or ice on switch-backs could be incredibly dangerous), or most of your play time is in really nasty mud, I'd say go for a different tire. There are
far better choices.
If you want a tough as nails, well-made tire that gets it's rocks off in every
other environment, though, these are going to be hard to beat; and if you spend a lot of time at the beach, they are certainly the obvious choice.
These things are built like tanks, and weigh about as much. If durability is a concern, there are only a few other tires that have this level of solidity. They will sap a bit of power, though, and you might see a slight mileage hit.
So far as your drive-line is concerned, you'll have to consider these a couple of sizes up, simply due to their mass. They run true to size, but that weight is not a small factor. It's the penalty for the properly constructed three ply carcass, though. There's no way around that.
Those who drive their Rovers regularly on long trips or even around town will really get a kick out of them. They are tight at speed, and as I've noted, handle very well. They aren't quiet, but the noise is different than anything else I've run, and it doesn't bother me.
It's hard to say what they'll be like in that snotty mud that turns most tires into racing slicks, but I don't expect great performance. I haven't had a chance to get them out in such places, because I've been building the miles for a while until I'm sure nothing else is going to break after this thing sat for so long.
They won't be mud tires, though, but neither are half the mud tires on the market.
You've just got to sit down and
really think about what you do with your vehicle to determine what you need out of a tire. If you do most of your wheeling over a few weekends a year, and end up in hundreds of feet of nasty mud every time, or lots of snow and ice, the performance in other environments won't matter. You won't be having fun when you really want to.
That's all I can really offer at the moment. I haven't had a chance to get a complete picture of their capabilities. Maybe this DII has just enough juice left in it to get them in some slop after all this ice and rain.
If I can, I'll see what it takes to confuse them. I just have to think of a place nearby in which it's okay to churn up the ground. I've got places to go, but they are farther away than I want to drive the vehicle in it's current condition.
In 265/75R16 they are cheap for some reason, so it's not an end of the world event if you don't like them. They would also be easy to sell. I get offers every now and again, and I've never had that before.
Also note that those red letters are eventually going to come off. They put a lot of effort into figuring out how to get them to stay on there, but there's no way it's going to be permanent. General just wanted to do something cool with that, because racing tires look fun. There is a reason nobody else does that, though.
That said, until you get into stupid sizes, these are actually the
same tires they race. There's no difference at all, which is kind of fun to think about on the road, and gives you a picture of the solidity you bought.
Get these buggers in the rocks, though, and a nice side-wall scrape may well tear them off.
One more thing:
It should be noted, if you aren't already aware, that my off-pavement priorities involve
avoiding becoming stuck at nearly any cost, and closing distances as quickly as reasonably possible. I will thus avoid any terrain I can that will make becoming stuck overly likely. My vehicle is out-classed by those who spend lots of fun-time on trails.
That being the case, keep in mind my perspective. What I find acceptable and what others find acceptable can be two very different things. I may concern myself with attention to detail, but I might not consider noting certain things. I know the technology, but not all of it is important enough to me to remember it might be important to others.
I'll test them in nasty stuff as soon as I can. I'll try to do it this week, but the vehicle might not cooperate.
Cheers,
Kennith
