255/85 R16 Owners Experience

Heavy wet snow they work great. Ice they suck. Powder snow they work ok as long as you dont spin and create ice patches.

 

I had that problem in some snow that was icing up when my tires packed it down (that kind of snow sucks regardless of tire. Haha) but once I aired down to 20 it did much better in it. Not great but better. I still managed to get up the hill at street psi though. I just spun a lot! Haha

 

I was runnin 32psi on road and 20 off road.

 

I just ordered a set of 255/85-16 KM2's. I can't wait to see how they run......oh yeah, also ordered 4.88 gears and front and rear ARB lockers hehehehhe

 

All the time or just in snow ?

 

Do you really need a locker on Maui?

 

More of a "reassurance". Have some fishing spots that you pretty much have to make your own road to get to, was kinda rough with open diffs.

 

You know

 

Like a goat

 

No visibility issues. Clears the rear window completely

 

I vary my tire pressure up on road. I'll go a month or two at 32 psi, then I'll bump up to 42 psi and right now I've up to 50 psi. Offroad I almost always run 20 psi if not for the extra traction then to smooth up the ride.

 

32 psi year round on road.

 

Thanks

 

Really do disagree with you on the tire rotation. I check the manufacturer website for every set of tires I've owned and all of them state you rotate the drive tires straight forward, criss cross the fronts to the opposite location in the rear. I know this debate got started in another thread also and a lot of the tire guys all say front to back, keep them running the same direction but I really have a hard time believing that if it was that much of a safety issue or had a significant impact on how quickly the tire wore out, the tire manufacturers wouldn't stand behind it, especially for the 70k mile tires.

I used to go just front to back but I couldn't get my tires to wear evenly. Since I switched to the other method, tires haave worn perfectly and I'm getting great life out of them.

As far as buying used tires, I check the tread and sidewalls for signs of chunking and dryrot, check the inside for plugs and patches and then check the DOT printed manufacturing date to make sure they're not really really old.

 

If your tires are not wearing good front to back your alignment is bad.

Once you blow a grand on tires and ruin them criss crossing like I did you will believe.

Also ask any highly experienceed tire guy and my bet is they will agree with not crossing them.

I learned from my mistakes and the guy who aligns half the trucks in NJ and NY.

If it worke for you that's great, but if your tires ever fail because of it ill be laughing at you.

 

I hear you, and I have asked a lot of tire guys. Most of them say they rotate front to back but if you ask them if you can criss cross, they'll kind of hem and haw and not give you a straight answer. I just have a hard time believing that if it was soo horrible, the people who made the tire wouldn't stand behind it because they're on the hook for replacement if they fail before they reach the designated treadlife mileage.

My wear issues is a problem with tires cupping. Rotating front to back wouldn't even out the cupping. Criss crossing them evened them out and kept them running smooth. As far as what's causing the cupping, I have no idea, alignment is spot on, suspension is in good shape, all other components look great with no play so who knows.

It's ok, if my tires fail, I'll just buy another used set for a couple hundred bucks

 

Cupping is typically associated with the front. Am I right?

I would assume you have a bad tie rod or wheel bearing and the play is causing the tire to move slightly from side to side or your alignment guy cheated the numbers which is very easy to do.

 

Cupping is actually on the front and back. When I was rotating front to back, the cupping just kept getting worse and worse, the tires wouldn't even out in any location. That's actually the reason I went to the rotation method that I'm using now.

I went through my front end several times rooting for the problem. Tie rods have 0 play, same with wheel bearings. I've been through 6 alignments within the last year (not all because of this), bushings are new, ball joints are tight. The rear drums threw their weights so I'm wondering if that's impacting the rear and causing my cupping issue back there. Shocks in the rear are 5100's but have a few years on them, I might replace them because they're starting to ride a bit stiffer as they age.

 

I agree with you dude. As I stated a few pages back I haven't heard that through TIA or any other means. Cupping could be early signs of under inflation, lack of rotations (and potentially not cross-rotating them ) , misalignment or suspension/component issues. I would start with the cheap stuff and go from there. If you do a lot of city driving, rotate your tires closer to 5k intervals, mixed highway-city 6k and highway closer to the 7500 mark.

 

You guys can read all you want on the web, but reading doesn't = years of real life experience. There is a reason all of the tire guys you spoke to were reluctant to tell you to criss/cross the tires. They have dealt with the issues first hand.

It is impossible for a truck to have proper alignment and constantly cup tires. There is an underlying issue. I beat the crap out of my truck and I got over 50k out of my OE tires by going front/back and I have a set of Duratracs with 30k on them and they look brand new. I also have a set of KM2's with 15k on them and they also look brand new. Tires rotated front/back every 5-10k will last very long with zero cupping on a properly aligned truck unless the tires are crap.

Steel belted radials "set" in their direction of rotation after a time. Instead of the belts being in a straight spiral from the center like spokes of a bike are, over time they shift to a more slanted orientation due to the stresses of rotation. If you switch the sides of the car, the belts shift into the other direction.

In the past, this could cause a radial to lose structural integrity and possibly blow out. I think with modern construction practices this is less of a concern however other things can happen like the tire wearing more quickly or going out of balance. Besides the steel you can also easily see on tires with smaller tighter packed lugs that they start to deflect away from the front of the truck. This happened with my OE tires. If I were to switch their direction I'm sure I would of had balance issues.

A wave like depression in the sidewall of a tire that has just been rotated to the opposite side of the car is one of the typical signs that shifting of the belt has taken place and you just ruined your tires (LOL).

Many of my friends think I'm some kind of tire guru (which I'm not), because when they tell me they just started having vibration issues and I spot the classic sidewall deformity. I say, "You just had your tires rotated recently, didn't you"? And they say, "How did you know"? Unfortunately, if the vibration is due to belt shifting, re-balancing won't help much and your SOL. You can try and get your money back for your warranty but I was not able to on my Goodyears 15 years ago when I listened to my trucks manual.

Solely based on the number of times I've seen this phenomenon occur (including many times within the last five years), I personally will not rotate tires in a manner which changes their direction of rotation. Regardless of whether or not the tire or auto manufacturer states that such a practice is ok.

If it's not broken I'm not trying to fix it and I'm sure you can say the same for criss-crossing until one day you ruin all four tires