Done with the Duratracs....

Even though I actually really liked these tires, after a second sidewall incident, it was time to make a change. The incident was a blowout on I-85 while pulling my camper with the wife and kids in the car. I'm not sure why the sidewall blew - it could very well have been already cut on the rocks and the extra tongue weight of the trailer just gave it the final push. But even if it was that, it just made me realize the Duratrac's 2 ply sidewall is just not enough for what I do with the truck.

So out with the old.....



And in with the new........



Well - in with the new next week anyway. I've done a ton of research, and the Cooper Discoverer STT seems to be a very good aggressive tire with good road manners, and a nice strong 3-ply sidewall. Best of all, Discount Tire bought back my Duratracs for about $250 more than I could have probably sold them for privately. Love that place!

 

You have the coopers installed yet? Tire crawler sells them cheap, under 1k shipped to your front door.

 

MadToy, glad to hear we were able to get you fixed up.

Thanks for your business.

 

Typical Goodyear.

 

A buddy has STTs on his Heep and they're done after 25K miles of highway commuting. not sure if his experience is unique or relevant to Tacoma tire sizes, but he's going to another brand. Sounds like your driving trends toward the offroad, so they may work very well for you. My truck is a daily driver, so the STTs are a little aggressive for me. Keep us up to date on how they drive and wear!

 

I would have been pissed

 

Hope noone got hurt. I have duratracs on my grand cherokee and my f350 work truck. They're good for what they are, an aggressive all terrain... but they are in no way comparable to a real MT. The sidewalls are thin providing a good ride and better mileage, but if run at the wrong psi or cuts in the sidewalls from the trails, they're done. I got Mickey Thompson MTZs for my tacoma.

 

I also had a set of stt's on a daily driver. They were toast at 20,000 miles with rotating at 5,000, along with two alignments. They are really soft rubber compound. Great grip in all season's. Look else where. Have had Nitto Terra grappers on three trucks and will be on evey truck from here out...

 

The Duratrac is definitely a great tire for what it was meant for. They ride smooth and quiet, and are fantastic in heavy rains and standing puddles. They took me through every trail off road that I put them on. They just weren't meant for heavy/sharp rock crawling, which is part of the trails I ride most. They performed well on them, but suffered the scars.

If I get 20k out of the Coopers, I'll be very happy. I don't mind putting new tires on every year and a half to two years.

Oh - and I got the tires for just under 1k at Discount Tire also. Their prices are as good as anywhere - and they usually price match if you find them lower. Well worth it for the service you get with the purchase - which includes free rotations.

 

The fact that you knew you were going to be pulling a fully loaded camper should have told you to go with something with a higher load rating in the first place. Just sayin.

 

Huh? The Duratracs are Load E tires. Do you know what you are talking about?

Just askin'

 

After the first incident I think I would of given the tires a good inspection before hauling my family around

 

I just got a amazing deal on 3 uses Druatrac tires with studs. But just looked and found out there 10 ply not the 6ply tires.

My other option is to buy 4 6ply ones and just it's the 10 ply as a spare tire one.

So does anyone have any experiences with 10 ply tires on their Toyota Tacoma. Will the 10 ply tire make the truck ride very very rough?

 

Hmm that sucks. I'm on my second set of Duratracs. I'd estimate they have around 30k miles on them so far. Rotated every 5k miles. They still have some decent life left in them so I'll probably look into replacing them after the first of the year. I'm currently running 285/70/17 D load range.

My last set, I sold when they had about 27k miles on them and they still had a lot of life left. I saw the guy who bought them from me a few months ago and he was still running them. They were 265/75/16 C load range.

I'm thinking about changing to a different tire though, The duratracs have gotten so damn expensive with their popularity. I paid $1250 installed for my current set, and that was with a "friends and family" discount.

 

Well played sir

 

I did. It blew on the inside, which made it tougher to spot if there was anything wrong- although I do regularly go under and look after a day of wheeling. There were no signs of rock rash on the tire. I just find it hard to believe that the sidewall could blow like that unless there was something else influencing it.

 

I have been told that the 10 ply duratrac is a lot stinger side walls so for your next set it might be worth looking into that.

Any one running 10ply tires on here and if so... How's the ride with them?

 

He was running load range E so they should have been the '10 ply' version.

Lots of people are running 10 ply tires and you'll get a lot of different opinions on the ride quality. My personal opinion is, unless you need the thicker sidewall for off roading, it's way overkill for what you need on a Tacoma. And regardless of what anyone tells you, a 10 ply tire will ride rougher than a P rated or C rated tire.

 

I'm pretty sure the load range E duratrac is the 10 ply... and the OP says he was running the 10 ply when it blew. But I could be wrong, so someone correct me if that's the case.

 

^^ This.

I would have preferred a C or D, but the Duratrac only comes in E for the 285. The ride wasn't all that bad though. Not nearly as rough as I would have expected.

Coopers going on as I type, so we'll see how that goes. They are also E's......