What tire am I looking for?

I'd just like to put in my .02... I work at a tire shop so this is my personal experience with these tires. I would suggest against the Falken Rocky Mountain ATs, they don't have full depth sipes, which means once u get about half way thru the life of the tire the wet weather traction goes to crap. The Cooper ST Maxx tires are badass and I've heard nothing bad about them, but they are a fairly expensive tire. If you have a budget you might wanna steer clear of the ST Maxxs. Nitto Terra grapplers, from what i have seen, chunk out pretty bad if you drive in really rocky areas. I've heard nothing but good things about Duratracs and Toyo open country AT2s, and from personal experience on an old truck of mine, BFG ATs are a fantastic tire but are garbage in the snow.

 

Thanks for the info. The st maxx are expensive. What are the front of tire mud flaps for? Im taking off the stock flaps and putting shorter rockblokz flaps on but still want to run flaps because I drive a fair amount of dirt roads and rocks and gravel litter my commute. Anyone drive the st maxx with mudflaps on stock?
Thanks

 

I got my 265/75/16 ST Maxx's for 844 installed. That's the cheapest I could find them. I dunno about the 17's. I'm not stock height, but I have seen a few people running the 265s stock with out rubbing. There is a thread in this section talking about the ST Maxx, that may be where I saw it.

 

It might be due to the difference in moisture content in the snow that you get out in the Sierras but I would disagree with this from my personal experience. I drive daily in both packed and loose snow for about 6 months of the year and BFGs have performed as well as any other tire I have run previously including studded tires.

 

I believe BFG A/T's lost their snowflake symbol. The sipping on the tire depends on the size and load but I believe for 265, no more sipping so wet/ice traction sucks.

 

I have always found the BFG AT KO to be crap on wet pavement and slippery-snow conditions.

 

I have them sipped at the shop that installs them for extra traction in addition to the tire design, I can't speak to the 265s in BFG ATs but the 245s do well for me and do still have the snowflake symbol on the sidewall. I have had 265 goodyears on my old truck and the rugged fails on my taco and neither were good for wet or snowy conditions. I have always heard that 265s are not snow tires because they are too wide to be effective in the snow but the right rubber composition and design would of course make a difference.

 

So I ended up getting the bfg at ko in a 265 75 16. Only one tire shop in my town and he was very helpful. He priced out the st maxx, Duratracs, bfg and his suggestion the Dick Cepek fun countrys. All where within 50 dollars of each other. Was not familiar with the fun country's(look very nice). I asked him which he would get of the three and he first asked if I was going for a studded snow in the winter(if no then the Duratraks). I am going to run a winter tire. So he suggested either the Dura's or the BFG. He liked the st maxx but thought the quality was not as good as the other two. Should pick them up on monday! he also gave me 350 in trade for the rugged trails with 3k on them.