New Duratracs for the Truck

Recently I went on a drive through Redington Pass leading north east out of Tucson then going south on San Pedro River Road. Its was all going fine until the turn onto San Pedro River Road when the tire pressure sensor when off. Got out to take look and sure enough the sidewall was blown out. After spending a few minutes changing out the tire I was back on the road.



Now these tires had about 12,000 miles on them. I put 50 miles on the full size spare to get it back to Tucson. The next day I went to get a tire priced out and there is a safety rule that most places won’t sell you a new tire by itself unless they are within 2/32nd of an inch of the rest of the tires. My plan was to have them switch the other to the spare and put a new tire on in its place, thinking the new tire would be the same size and the barley used spare… wrong. The spare measured at a 10, the others at an 8 and the new tire what at a 14. That means my tires had worn to about 60% tread in 12,000 miles and my spare had somehow worn to 70% in 50 miles. I have yet to find and explanation on why my spare had less tread than a new tire but the wear on the other tires was not normal. After doing some research and reading through reviews I found that the stock tires that are put on the Tacoma are pretty sub-par and in some cases dangerous. In my case I’m glad nothing more serious happened.



I ended up getting four Duratrac tires with an amazing sale price from Discount Tire here in Tucson and got the tires a little bit bigger (265/75 R17). The did increase road noise slightly but not much. The next weekend I got to test them out on a power line road during a search and rescue callout. They preformed great and they ride beautifully and the little bit of added clearance worked out great.

 

Good luck with the Duratracs, they are known for sidewall blowouts. Especially here in AZ, with the type of rocks we have on our trails.