295/75r16 & 295/70r17 PHOTO THREAD.

Kind of sucks that the AT3 XLT is not snowflake rated, so if I go to the mountain during the winter I'd have to chain up, its the main reason for not considering them. Not sure why they're not either, they have a good amount of sipes and the lug blocks are far enough apart to move snow. They'd probably do better than my ridge grapplers given then siping.

 

I hear ya. Though I've had them in snow a couple times, I don't drive in snow all that often so the no snowflake rating wasn't a deal breaker for me. For the little snow they've seen they have done well. The RG's are not good in snow? How are they on wet pavement?

 

RGs are fine in the snow, great on wet pavement. My two main gripes with the K02s are that theyve been stiffer than any other tire I've ran, load rating and pressure being the same, theyve always felt stiff. The other is that I can always get the traction light to come on in the rain when I ran K02s. Only issue with the RGs I had was expected, I was heading up HWY 26 to Mt Hood, near government camp and people werent getting off to chain up. Lots of stuck cars chaining up in the middle of the highway with about 2" of snow on the ground. So lots of stop and go. Since it had a reasonable incline I would slip a bit each time I started moving again. It was stressful because for some reason people would follow so close, but Im in a manual OR so yeah. My buddy was in his AT OR, no issues at all. Basically siping helps a bit with low amounts of snow and slush, and being in a MT truck slipping the clutch can cause extra wheel spin. I ultimately fixed the issue using the parking brake method. Other than that, Ive never hydroplaned or had traction loss in the rain with the RG. I already said it, with all things considered, theyre the best tire Ive ran.

 

Cool. I'll be curious to see how much they weigh but may run the RG's next regardless. I like the XLT's but wouldn't mind running a different tire just to change things up.

 

Yup, I change tires like my wife changes shoes. Dont judge me. My FNs arrive today. If theres no delay on the RG in 295 Ill be at discount tire making my decision within the next couple weeks.

 

Sweet! Which FN's did you go with?

 

Looks like the 285/75r16 RG is around 62lbs and the 285/70r17 RG is around the same weight, despite the misprint on their site that says the E load weighs the same as the C load. The 295/70r17 is 64-65lbs, so that seams reasonable for the 16". Just a guess, but I doubt it'd be more.

 

16" FX pro in dark gun metal. Ill try to get pics up today. I need to start a build thread.

 

If so they'd be about 5lbs heavier (per tire) than the XLT's. Not a deal breaker.

 

Stoked to see the pics.

 

THats not what the mountain snowflake rating means. "M + S" is the marker for whether you need chains or not at checkpoints. These are defenitey M+S rated. The mountain snowflake is a rating that's given to a tire that goes through the severe weather testing and passes. The manufacturer has to pay for this test and the rating. So it may not actually reflect a tires performance if it doesn't have that rating. That being said, if it's got that rating, you know it'll perform well in severe weather.

All this is subjective to many variables though. Tire size - namely width, rating relative to the weight of the vehicle, load distribution, rubber compound, tire pressure, etc, etc.

@ryan05Taco , can you attest to snow wheeling?

 

Thanks. I dont doubt the Coopers will work for me, I just dont want to risk a ticket or have to chain up when I know I can safely manage the weather conditions without chains.

 

From what I read the coopers don’t even have M+S rating. TBH I doubt you would get turned around at chain control but it could theoretically happen. I’ve never had them ask about tires, just if I have 4wd.

 

See this pic. This is what chain control or highway patrol would look for. Many, many tires have this designation and is all that is required with 4wd when going through chain control checkpoints. You still have to carry chains, but no one ever checks for that.

Here's the mountain 3-peak rating explained, which the xlt lacks: https://m.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=125


Just don't want anyone getting bad information.

 

Nice. Thank you for clearing that up.

 

Thanks for clarifying that. I swear I read somewhere on their website that it didn't have M+S but that must have been a different tire... or I made it all up in my head.

Anyway, I personally haven't had anyone look for any snow rating, at least on the way to Tahoe. But I also wouldn't buy a tire without it.

Funnily enough, a good friend of mine got turned around w/4wd and snow tires because he didn't have chains. They actually asked to see them.

 

Must have been crazy bad weather. That's never happened to me in possibly over a thousand chain control checkpoints in my life. And I love driving in the worst possible weather.

 

Got the FNs, look almost black in low light, and nice and sparkly in day light. They'll replace my matte gun metal FNs.

 

Those look great!

 

Never happened to me either. He grew up in SLT and lives in Truckee so he definitely gets more shots on goal than most. I have always carried chains anyway, especially now with the electronic 4wd. Chains can save your ass.

Okay sufficiently off topic. Back to dreaming about new tires.