Best All Terrain Tire - KO2 vs ST Maxx vs ???

I believe the Coopers shine in this particular area. This is why I initially started looking into these tires.

 

Ko2 are a great tire for rocks and dirt and pretty good in sand. and hold up well. I have had mine for about 10k miles and they do great.. Not wonderful on snow or ice though. being from Arizona, I do not expect to run in to much snow. however, I don't know how they compare to other tires and dropping gas mileage.. But when I run at 32 psi I get like 15mpg if not less. I'm running at 40 now so we will see.

Also, they are good on road. They do not produce a ton of road noise.

 

Glued. I've yet to find a condition where my ST Maxx didn't do well. Mind you I drive 10+ vehicles a day through the week. So I get the chance to try a lot of tires when the weather is bad

 

My tires speak for themselves.

 

...What tires are you running with?

 

They look like Goodyear Duratracs.

 

His truck description says Duratracs.

 

I have also been looking at the Cooper AT3. Seems to be a decent weight savings between the AT3 and the ST Maxx of about 6 lbs or so per tire. Plus they are about $40 cheaper per tire over the Maxx. I just love the more aggressive looks of the Maxx and the KO2 over tires like the AT3.

And I couldn't agree more on your assessment of other's opinions. Thanks for the response.

 

@RC84

I can tell you that all of your impressions of the previous BFGs are pretty accurate. I've had BFG AT, the MT and the MT KM2s. L

They were dangerous tires in wet , icy conditions unless you governed it. Strictly speaking they were meant to be off road mostly and had "acceptable" road manners IMO. For on street performance manners I think just about everyone at least matched , if not outperformed.

However - I can tell you that they did their homework for the KO2 , specifically in the compound technology. The winter rating "snow/mountain " logo is no BS.
They also enhanced the sypping technology for water evacuation, rock evac, and mud evac. Compare the treads and you'll see how and why the design makes sense.
Their traction in icy conditions is comparable to that of a winter tire. Comparable - not same but comparable. Which is a massive leap forward when we are talking KO1.

I use to drive about 50-100km a day going from site to site in my company vehicle with BFG Winter Slaloms and when i got back into my truck with the KO2s there was almost as much grip.

If you do go BFG - check their site out for the spec list. Depending on size you can get a C rated tire.

My .02.

 

New guy here to both Tacomaworld and to offroading so I don't know how much weight my voice carries here compared to some of you guys. I have both a 2wd ranger with ko2 and the Tacoma of coarse. I'm in Long Beach so we don't get any snow but, we are having the slightest rain fall. While driving the ranger , no more than 35 mph, I tried to come to a stop and I slid for a couple a feet. Nothing out of the ordinary when it came to breaking and I did not expect that with a new tire. And now , my Tacoma's tires are bald as hell and need a new set. And this was the deciding factor between the ko2 and coopers. I'm going for the coopers.

 

ST Maxx are amazing. Work well in every situation I put them in. Sold my 265/75-16's this morning and ordered some 255/80-17's

 

Thanks for this thread, I've been thinking about the same exact situation ever since I ordered my truck... Still waiting on that to show up...

Anyways, thanks to this threads info and the price points of the various recommendations I've gone ahead and ordered Wrangler Duratrac's, total in CAD after taxes and and levies for just the tires was $1059 from 1010tires.com who have a $50 spring discount going on right now! I can't believe I just spent a grand on a bunch of rubber!!

 

If you get a chance, will you snap some pics of the 255/80/17 on your truck? I am considering the same or 255/75/17.

 

I got the typical size that fits stock without rubbing 265/70r17

 

Yup tunnel vision is a good way of putting it.
After all, with most sets costing close to 1000 +/- who's going to swap back and forth to find the best. It's not like it's a pair of jeans. Lol. We just deal with whatever short comings the tire has until it's time to replace.

I'll admit I'm BFG biased as that's the only tires I've ran, but I have plenty bad to say about the BFG AT KO1, MT and MT2s as well.
That said though I haven't been able to say any of the same for the KO2s.

 

The Grabber AT2's seem to have the lightest E rated tire at 51 lbs for the LT285/70/17...would love to stick with a C rated tire but theres just not that many options for 275+...

Kumho AT51
Cooper AT3

Those look to be the only C rated options.

Talk me into expanding my options and getting an E rated tire!

 

I recently came from the Cooper AT3 Load Range C 275/70R17 to the Cooper ST Maxx Load Range E 255/80R17, and I don't regret it. Did my gas mileage suffer a bit? Yeah, maaaaaybe 1-2 mpg (around town driving; highway mileage is still pretty good. And who knows how much of that is weight vs going from a 32" to a 33"), but I got a tougher, taller and skinnier tire with even better traction. There's always a trade-off, and I too was desperately trying to avoid going to a load range E tire on a small truck, but options are scarce so I ended up taking the plunge. Even held on to the AT3's just in case I couldn't deal with the new tires, but I sold them with no remorse after only a couple months.

Got a skinny 33" (on a 17" rim; uncommon), more aggressive tread and a tougher construction, and sacrificed a little mileage for it. YMMV, but I'm happy with the decision.

 

I'm seriously thinking about going to the KO2 next time because they are severe winter rated ( snowflake ) and you legally need to run those here in winter

 

I just got the Goodyear Wrangler Duratrac's, they are mountain+snowflake as well, and so far I'm very pleased with them. I was also considering the ko2's but decided to save a bit of money and got the duratrac's.

 

I've hydroplaned on most tires I've own. California highways don't clear water very well. I haven't tried Coopers, but I've run Yokohama, Nitto, Toyo, BFG, Goodyear, and General. Only ones that didn't hydro were only driven in dry conditions. We got rained on extremely hard shortly after I bought the Tacoma and with less than 2k miles on the tires the stock Goodyears hydroplaned worse than anything I've driven.

The BFGs and Yokohama tires had the best off road performance by far. The Yokohama tires felt like the sidewall flexed way more and the truck felt like it rolled and swayed more than with other tires. I fortunately didn't run into the BFG tread separation issue some have.

The Toyo, General AT2 and Nittos felt average all around.

The stock Goodyears seem like a decent street tire but I haven't been able to truly off road with them.