Bad luck or bad tires?

My truck is still pretty new got it last July and only has 5800 miles on it. Well, I decided to explore some back roads on the way up to the mountains. The road was a very well-maintained packed dirt and gravel road with little to no washboard. Somehow I managed to puncture the tire and it was a bad leak. I called my trip a little early so I could bring the tire to Toyota since for the first time ever I got the road hazard protection. They could not repair it the tech said it looked like a rock punctured the tire right in the first grove towards the outside of the wheel. When I first looked at the factory tires it did kinda look like a weakness in the design of it. Since the tread depth is not very tall on those tires I can see this happening again.

I am thinking about ditching the tires early for something a little better built. I just can't decide on size 265/75/16 seem to have the best selection and there is the new Mikey Thompson https://www.mickeythompsontires.com/light-truck-tires/baja-boss-a-t that looks nice. I am pretty sure it would fit without rubbing has anyone gotten these bad boys yet?

 

Those Baja ats are a great tire.
Also, when cruising forest roads it doesnt hurt to air down to the mid/low 20s, just to avoid rock punctures like this.

 

I didn't air down it was technically a real road so way better than any forest road or service road I've been on kind of thought they would do just fine was only doing maybe 30 mph or so. Pretty lame in my opinion maybe just bad luck on my part.

 

I'm going to go with bad luck here. I have a cabin up in north Georgia and I drive on the exact kind of roads you are describing all the time with no issues using the OEM tires. Having said that, upgrading to a true AT tire should be on your upgrade list. I recently swapped my OEM tires with some BFG KO2's.

 

Awe man - calling a trip early really sucks. Good thing you did have the road hazard for a replacement. Those stock Kevlar's aren't bad per-se, just not "as good" as others. You're spot-on about the tread depth. There's not enough clearance for sharp objects to not puncture or wiggle loose if you do smash one.

Have you watched any of the Expedition Overland series on YouTube? The early years of the show were really great, before they became just an advertisement for whatever sponsors they had. Anyway - these guys almost exclusively use the General Grabbers and have had great luck. In one of their videos, they claim to have had zero issues in 36K miles of pretty severe off-roading. Here's a link to one of their sponsor-plugs about the tires. I've watched the whole series (9years' worth) up to a few years ago, and only recall the one puncture. For me, they've worked GREAT. We put a few thousand miles of off-road use on ours every year and (knock on wood) zero issues. I've also had the BFG's and Falkens...for my use these have been the best. Just my $.05 worth.

https://youtu.be/itFrwNXQETY

 

I haven't had any issues with a set of goodyear adventure tires, nor heard anyone complaining of flats due to bad tires. Only real amount of gravel or sharp edge rocks that get used here are for filling in deep muddy areas on these dirt roads where i am.
On another note i had general a/t2 grabbers on a tundra....best deep snow tire i ever had.

 

The factory tires are hot garbage. They’re notoriously easy to puncture despite being “Kevlar reinforced”

 

I guess it depends where your located. I find them pretty good on all the roads here...from woods roads, unimproved dirt roads to improved dirt, and asphalt.

 

Swapped my stocks at 25000 for UltraTerrains. Zero road noise and they look great. Baja trip in 13 days so should have some miles of sand to try them out. Oh, Discount Tire paid me $160 for my stock tires which was cool. Just had to ask!

 

Stock tires were not enough for me. 4 punctures within 10k miles just driving in Tijuana (very bad roads), with that in mind I didn’t want to risk it.

Went with KO2s (E-Load), and I’ve had zero punctures taking them through gnarly shit in Baja. My main concern was reducing the chance of blowing up a tire or getting a flat while out there (really don’t care mpg).

Got my second set at 55k and just got them through a round trip Tj-Cabo chasing a friend that raced the NORRA 1000, we had some fun in the trails getting to some hidden spots, no issues with banging on those sharp rocks.

There are many options for an A/T, choose wisely and just go have fun.

 

I'll echo what others have said, the stock tires are not that great. When I bought my Taco I was going to wait until the tire needed to be replaced to get rid of them but now I'm thinking about ditching them before my next weekend of four wheeling.

My chief complaints with these GY's are easy to puncture (see pic posted below), the tires seem to be wearing faster then I think they should and I have one tire (not the one which was punctured and replaced with a new one) which looses about 5 PSI a week when my truck is parked.

I'm running E-Range BFG A/T's on my Silverado Tow Rig (on my second set in 100K+ miles). That truck rarely see's anything more then graded dirt and gravel roads (sometimes for 10 miles or more) but they have held-up well. If I were going to put new tires on my Taco today the BFG's would be an easy choice for me.

 

Whatever punctured your tire might have punctured a heavier duty tire too. It's hard to say since you don't know what the object actually was.

Having said that, there are certainly more robust tires out there, some of which have already been mentioned.

 

I wonder if they would do that for me hmm... tempting to dump these now before my big move with 2 days of towing.

I am also tempted by the pizza cutter 255/85/16 but is kind of expensive and from what I hear the Cooper ST Max is the way to go.

 

This is a concern of mine as well. I'd love to venture off to some forest roads but don't want to do it alone, would be better
with another rider and/or better yet 2 of us in 2 trucks.

 

I am assuming your OEM tires were the Goodyear with Kevlars. I just replaced mine at 58K miles on them. Had two punctures caused by screws/nails that I repaired with plugs. My only complaint is I didn't realize how noisy they were until my replacement BF Goodrich Ultra Terrains made me hear my stereo. They performed well enough in all terrain short of real rock climbing. IMHO, you just had bad luck.

 

I ditched the all season firestones on my sr5 for a set of those goodyear adventure tires i had already bought for my tundra. They look like their wearing well. I kind of wished i kept the firestones on after be surprised how much better this truck gets traction vs my old tundra.

 

Oem wranglers are pure garbage. I had to replace a passenger side rear tire because the sidewall got punctured by a piece of branch non repairable. This twig cost me 283 in replacement cost. Truck still has only 727 mi I will drive it with wranglers for another year and will change this crap for michelins

 

Yikes that is pretty lame

 

I agree this is lame
I've never bought Good Years before this and this is the first and last good year product. It is garbage I don't know where they put Kevlar in , but a short side of that twig penetrated a sidewall. I've been running michilens on my other suv and never had an issue. Good year can kiss my u know what.

 

Check these out, I just ordered a set because of the price, reviews all look really great and everybody loves their mud terrain. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Milestar-Patagonia-X-T-LT265-75R16-123Q-Light-Truck-CUV-SUV-LT-All-Terrain-All-Terrain-Tire/801537661