Weight vs Aggressiveness and MPGs

Tried searching but using those keywords here takes me from 300 pages to about 200 pages haha. While realistically I would like to run any tire I want and not care about my mileage that isn't the case anymore or I would have kept my Jeep on 37"s.

My question though is what do y'all think affects MPG and handling more. The aggressiveness of the tread or the weight of the tire; assuming they are exactly the same height?

I am looking at 2 tires, one is more aggressive but comes in a "C" rated tire and is about 12lbs lighter than the other tire.

 

Weight and rolling resistance are your 2 biggest enemies.
I personally would have a little more weight than higher rolling resistance.

 

Higher weight will effect the amount of gas used to start moving, but more aggressive tread will cause the tire to want to slow down once rolling.

What are the tires you are looking at?

 

I was equating aggressive to rolling resistance. Coming from the jeep world unsprung weight was good. Game has changed now that I'm driving >160 miles/day.

 

The less aggressive with a little more weight will get better MPG.

 

Goodyear Duratrac 265/75r16C

BFG AT KO2 265/75r16E

Edit: looking at a different site it looks like this is only about 8lbs difference.

 

Weight...

Think of a tire as a ball on a string...the heavier it is at the end of the string the harder to start, continue moving & stop.

But I'm no mad scientist doing polar moment of inertia calculations....I still say weight.

 

Well shoot, that's not as bad as I was thinking, I was thinking KO2 vs toyo MT's or something similar.
Of those 2 I'd go with the duratracs, unless you wheel in rocks or other places your sidewall would be likely to be cut.

 

The KO2s definitely suck for stop n go traffic, but Id trade that away again in a heartbeat for the excellent road manners they have on the highway. No noticeable change in highway mpgs from stock, and quiet compared to the duratrac. The only thing that would swing me towards a duratrac would be winter driving capabilities. They are better on snow and ice than the BFG.

 

Where ya at in Bama?

 

I had the jeep for the rocks

I'm sticking with fire roads and remote camping for now.

Guntersville if you have any idea where that is.

 

Oh hell yes, I do a river trip on my cork every so often from Pickwick to Guntersville on the Tenneessee River. I overnight at Wheeler going and coming and spend a night in Guntersville at one of the hotels that has dockage (under the low bridge...can't think of its name but it has a red roof).

 

hahaha. That explains it. If you know where guntersville is you are either from the area, a boater, a bird watcher, or a bass fisherman.

 

In my experience aggressiveness is a bigger factor of the two, I used to run Nitto Trail Grapplers in a 265/70/17, a mud terrain tire with large and aggressive tread lugs, they weighed about 64 pounds or so, eventually I switched to Cooper ST Maxx in 285/75/16, they had less aggressive tread and weigh about the same and i get much better milage now. Just my experience though, I know those are two different heights but the weights were nearly the same (even with a wheel mounted) and my milage improved with the larger tire, same weight about, but less aggressive tread

 

Not much of an ornithologist, really only like deep sea/off shore fishing so boating is the reason. I have seen the massive amount of bass fishing & some dudes I work with do some competitive fishing over that direction but, I didn't have a clue there were birds of particular interest there...

 

Lake Guntersville State Park, Bucks Pocket State Park, and Murphy Hill Wildlife Refuge are on the North American Birding trail or something like that.