Tire Wear...

[JMyerz]

I am buying 35s and I am stuck between MT/Rs and BFGS MT KM.

I know MTRs are superior off road, but I'm going to be a student and will be doing a great deal of driving on the road and hopefully a good amount on the trails.

I have no idea what the trails are like down in Santa Barbara or places near and I would also like to hear MTR reports for how they are wearing.

Thanks!

Justin

[Scott Hill]

MTR's with warrenty and play hard and get them replaced.


Scott

[JMyerz]

Where can I get a warranty? Americas Tire?

[Scott Hill]

you got it. if you are here in SOCAL it is easy to toast a tire belive me I have been through a set every year.



Scott

[TDW]

JM,

I have 35" BFG muds for street and 37" MTRs for trail. Since I put the MTRs on I haven't even bothered to put the BFGs back on. The MTRs seem to be wearing great. My vote is for the MTR.

[TObject]

I just measured my tires, and here is something interesting:
Two of the tires have been on the road for 29260 highway/off road miles (corrected), other tires have less miles on them.

The thread depth on the front tires:

Left: 13.1 mm --- Right: 9.6 mm

Rear Tires:

Left: 11.0 mm --- Right: 13.7 mm

Spare: 13.0 mm (not new)

How weird is that? Does it look like one of the rotations was done half ass, or is it my jeep riding sideways and wear the tires across.

I am gonna do the rotation and balance on Friday. The spare and Front Left tire will be switching places, since the Front Left wheel rim is missing a chunk; there is only one tenth of a millimeter difference in thread depth between these two tires.

Now, do you think I should rearrange the tires so that the closest thread depth tires fall on the same axle, or keep them kris-crossed in that aspect?

[JeepKat]

I have the GY 35" MTR's with 10K miles on them. It is my daily driver and they are wearing great. Keep them balanced and rotate them front to back only, never side to side. I run mine at 23lbs on road and 7.5 off road. Buy 6 if you can afford it and rotate the spare and the new one to the front, the front to the back and store the rears, and then repeat the cycle. Check the tire pressure every time you fill up with gas.

[JeepKat]

Originally posted by TObject
I just measured my tires, and here is something interesting:

OK, think back a few weeks when we did the axle swap?..remember now??

Could this be the reason? Tire pressure? Your tires did not wear properly because you forgot to check the tire pressure and ran them under inflated, each tire at a different pressure for a few weeks. I noticed that they were low because of the way odd way they were wearing.

[Jeff Weston]

I'd say go with the MTR's!

If it helps your decision, I've heard that the BFG's are pretty much all on backorder and there is quite a wait.

[TObject]

Somebody please tell me tread depth of a new 35? MT/R tire.

[TJRON]

Measured at the center on a brand new 35" tire: .65" or close there abouts. I can get measurements from .61" to .69". ????

[TObject]

Yes. The measurement at the center is what I needed. .65? is about 16.5 mm.

So, after almost 30 thousand miles the tire that is worn the most still has about 58% of the thread left.

I guess it shows very good wear characteristics. One thing that concerns me: is worn tire as sticky as a new one?

[Jerry Bransford]

JeepKat, why do you say MT/R tires should not be cross-rotated? Are MT/R tires unidirectional?

Unless tires are unidirectional, I'm a firm believer in 5-way cross-rotations and have been for many years. Because of this, my tires have always worn well with above normal tread life. My current BFG MTs have over 55K miles on them and they're wearing perfectly with a lot of tread left.

[William]

Originally posted by Jerry Bransford
My current BFG MTs have over 55K miles on them and they're wearing perfectly with a lot of tread left.

How much is "alot"?

[Jerry Bransford]

Originally posted by William


How much is "alot"?

Enough so my wife keeps telling me I can't buy my new 35" MT/R tires until the BFGs get worn down "a lot" more. They really do have a lot of tread left, I'm amazed. I guess I should measure the tread tonight and reply to this with a few measurements.

[Paradiddle]

I put about 20K on a set of MT/R on my grand. When I sold them they had a lot of tread left.

MT/Rs ride very well on the street and they aren't noisy compared to some other tire designs.

Jeff

[mrblaine]

Originally posted by Jerry Bransford
JeepKat, why do you say MT/R tires should not be cross-rotated? Are MT/R tires unidirectional?

Unless tires are unidirectional, I'm a firm believer in 5-way cross-rotations and have been for many years. Because of this, my tires have always worn well with above normal tread life. My current BFG MTs have over 55K miles on them and they're wearing perfectly with a lot of tread left.

It seems to be more of an issue with the larger tires. I ruined a set of 35" BFG MT's by doing a cross rotation on them. I didn't actually do it, but rather America's Tire did.

Less than 6000 miles on them and they replaced 4 of the 5 because they could balance them but couldn't get the hop out of them.

I told them I didn't really care how they rotated them, but to pick a way that would make them happy and slow down the replacing of tires.

They recommended the front to back and leave the spare out of it. That's when I went to a 6 tire rotation with swapping out pairs front to rear.

I also don't like the noise freshly flipped tires make when they are wearing off the "feathers" at the edges of the tread blocks.

Of course most of this applies to the more daily driven rigs. Mostly offroad rigs get the tires flipped around pretty often to wear the edges more evenly. They get rounded off after a couple of trips and have to turned around to grip better.

[William]

Originally posted by Jerry Bransford


Enough so my wife keeps telling me I can't buy my new 35" MT/R tires until the BFGs get worn down "a lot" more. They really do have a lot of tread left, I'm amazed. I guess I should measure the tread tonight and reply to this with a few measurements.

A few well timed lock skids will take good care of that.

Also of note: there is a deal floating around on MTR's.

[Jerry Bransford]

Originally posted by William


A few well timed lock skids will take good care of that. I'm about to do something to accelerate the process, probably something like 1" of toe-in ought to fix them right up.

Also of note: there is a deal floating around on MTR's. There is? tell me more!

Blaine, that makes sense, thanks. I've never had tires bigger than 33" so I'm still learning here.

[Art Welch]

I've got to tell you guys that life is alot easier with swampers, you just don't have to make these kinds of decisions. They are just as rough when balanced as when not so I don't even try and they wear so quickly that I don't have to worry about rotating them

[TObject]

Art, you get a "+".

[William]

Originally posted by Art Welch
I've got to tell you guys that life is alot easier with swampers, you just don't have to make these kinds of decisions. They are just as rough when balanced as when not so I don't even try and they wear so quickly that I don't have to worry about rotating them

Solve a lot of problems with that, don't you Art!!!

[Tim]

i kind of find it funny when someone says they got say 50 k on their tires when they rotate on the 5 tire schedule on time.

should they deduct 20% off their milage if one is high and dry for that amount of time since each one gets equal amount of rest? sounds to me like they really have 40k.

i went round and round with a guy at work about this. he honestly believed he was getting 10k more out of each tire with the 5 tire rotation.

i was trying to tell him he wasn't getting more miles out of each tire. he was substituting another tire while the tire was up on the spare mount racking up 0 miles and wear while waiting for the next rotation.

i couldn't get anywhere...

[Jerry Bransford]

Originally posted by T.Dome
i kind of find it funny when someone says they got say 50 k on their tires when they rotate on the 5 tire schedule on time.

should they deduct 20% off their milage if one is high and dry for that amount of time since each one gets equal amount of rest? sounds to me like they really have 40k.

How about if I say I installed my BFG MTs when my odometer had around 50K miles less on it than it does now.

[Tim]

i was thinking about your tire situation jerry.

you gotta get that full width spare off the back and save some on the departure angle.

sell the spare,get a skinny one and do the 4 tire rotation.

this will advance you to 35 inchers more rapidly. you are way-wayway to good at that 5 tire rotation

[Jerry Bransford]

Originally posted by T.Dome
you gotta get that full width spare off the back and save some on the departure angle.

sell the spare,get a skinny one and do the 4 tire rotation.

this will advance you to 35 inchers more rapidly. you are way-wayway to good at that 5 tire rotation

Not a bad idea, my rear departure angle now almost sucks after installing the jerry-can holder version of the ORF tire carrier. I'm not sure if BFG or Goodyear make skinny 35" MT tires but I'll keep that idea in mind when the guardian of my checkbook blesses buying my new tires.

[Tim]

bfg tire sizes follow link on page
[URL]

mtr tires

no 35" 9.5s