Definitely time to upgrade...

I thought I'd share (or rant) about my recent experience in which the stock Rugged Fails actually lived to its reputation and did not perform as I needed it to.

I'm gonna try and make a long story short since I know that people don't read posts when people write a book on here.

Anyway, my family rented a cabin in West Virginia a few weeks for the weekend, which was awesome. We all drove separately (I live in MD for school while my family was coming from NC) and when we arrived we got snow unexpectedly. The following day I intended to make a simple drive down the driveway to check out something and return to the cabin. So I drive up the driveway to make a turn as this was the only way back down the mountain (the snow was maybe 2 inches deep max so I had no problem driving this with my 2WD). As I was making my turn, I underestimated where the driveway was as it was covered in snow and hit a wall of dirt no higher than a curbside (which I can and do get over all the time in parking lots when I am too lazy to back up ). Immediately, my rear tires starts spinning and I am not getting nowhere. I put it in low and turn on the locker, does not help at all as the RF's were slick as shit. Fortunately, the cabin had plenty of wood nearby so we basically grabbed as much as we could and were able to create a descent traction for the tires to allow me to make enough movement to get out.

Before you go any further, I know this thread is worthless without pictures so I am working on that and I know you all will be telling me I should have gotten a 4x4 (believe me I did wish I had a 4x4 at the given moment,but it would have taken the fun away making it too easy ).

An upgrade is definitely in order. Perhaps a set of BF-AT 265-75-16 will be coming in the near future.

 

You can see where I attempted to make the turn here.



This is where my rugged fails came to a stop.



The aftermath on Sunday (our last day at the cabin). The left side got it bad, the right wasn't too bad, but the "damage" was symmetric.



At least I got a pretty cool pic outta of this experience.

 

I feel your pain..took mine in some nice red clay mud & they caked up so bad they looked like 40" tires.

 

I have been there with the same tires they came stock on my tundra less than 20k miles and in 4lo I was stuck in 6" of snow just spinning the tread just packed in with snow. After that when I bought my Tacoma I replaced the tires right away.

 

I bet they are better than the plain old Coopers I got on this thing. I'm worried about the winter with these things and I have no choice but to "ride it out" as they say.

 

I used to run some of the most basic old coopers on my jeep in high school cause they were cheap they build way better tires than these damn rugged trails

 

^ What he said.

 

Atrac could have avoided all this. You could have bear steel rims and Atrac would still let you climb a glass wall covered in goose shit like spider man.

 

What Coopers do you have? As long as they have decent tread left you should be fine. They have a pretty good reputation for having great wet/snow traction. I'm running Discoverer AT3's and am not even remotely worried about winter.

David K would be so proud of you.

 

I hear the 2013 Atrac will let it climb inverted surfaces.

Take that lockers!!!

 

Once you dig a hole like that with a 2wd you're done. Had you backed up and engaged the locker and taken a run at it you probably would have been fine. A 2 wheel drive pickup is about the worst thing you can drive in the snow. There is no weight over the drive wheels unless you have a load in the bed.Chalk it up to a learning experience. I'm not crazy about the rugged trails either. They wear out too fast and they aren't the greatest in the snow. But my truck had a new set when I bought it so I'm wearing them out. Then it's back to General Grabber at2's again like my old truck. Those were good in the snow.

 

Fwd car>2wd truck

 

X2..and that red clay will stick to the paint and stain it for good.

 

It was a learning experience alright. I couldn't back up even if I could. The way the driveway was set up and the way I was going I was facing downhill. So basically I was shit outta luck at that point.

 

You might have a chance with these:



But anything you can drive on the street is gonna be *fucked*.