MT/R w/ Kevlar Review

Well just thought I would start a new thread on the MT/R w/ Kevlar since there really isn't much on here as far as reviews in first person. Just alot of I heard, I read, my buddy stuff. So now we will be able to give my opinion on them on a Tacoma for those that are interested.

I am removing (5) 285/70R17 BFG KM2's and putting on (5) 285/70R17 MT/R's w/ Kevlar. First I want to say that I have really like my KM2's but I have a chance to the GoodYears and have always wanted to since they changed the design. The old GoodYears are by far my favorite tire up to this point with the KM2 coming in second and the trXus in third. So we will see where the new MT/R's come in at. Right now is a great time to test them too since they all have done great wheeling and normal around town and highway use. It is the packed snow and ice traction that the aggressive tires loose out. Oh and none have been tested in any real mud, cause mud sucks! The only mud I go through is if it is in the trail and need to go through it to proceed, but do not go out to drive in it intentially. I will update as I put miles on them. This weekend I am headed out across the Idaho desert so there should be some good snow and maybe some mud on the trails if it warms up some. And the interstate coming to work this morning was a solid sheet of ice. It snowed, then rained and polished the ice, then started to snow again....

 

Here they are....... just as I thought OWL look like poo!





But the tires look mean!




And my first impression is that they are great. They are quieter than the KM2's on the road and are very smooth. Going out tomorrow across the desert with my local club so we will see how they are aired down and in the snow. The tire shop said they hated mounting them cause the sidewalls are really really stiff so we will see how low I need to go to get them to lay a good footprint on the snow.

 

Mounted and on the truck they come in at 32.5". I can tell that they are taller than the BFG's are. The tranny downshifts even more than it did before. Gears are needed just a bit more now. I was going to get the 305/70R17's but they are on backorder so I decided this was good enough until I get my gears. So after I do get my gears, then I will go bigger.

 

WOW I am really really impressed with this tire. It has way better ice/snow pack traction than I thought it would and is even better than the old MT/R was. And in the snow, aired down, it did great. I only aired down to 15, which didn't let it bulge too much, but it did help some. There wasn't as much snow out there as we were hoping for and we had a few rigs with us that were not wheelers so we didn't get to carried away about really airing low and seeing just how far we could get. In fact Big Rich was breaking trail and I was behind him and we both were on 285/70R17's. Once we had a hard time, we turned around. No one else wanted to break trail. The other thing that really impressed me was the lateral stability of the tire. So, so far, I love them! I will link some pics once they are up on the local site.

 

To bad they have white wall.

 

I fixed that with a permanent marker but after the snow wheeling it looks like it is starting to fade.... They look really good being black. Thinking about taking a sander or grinder to them and sanding the raised white painted letters off. Not completely, just enough to get the paint off. The paint is only on the top, not down the sides of the raised letters.

 

This is where we turned around snow wheeling this weekend. Big Rich in the white ZJ has 285/70R17 BFG A/T's, then me with new 285/70R17 MT/R's, and then Matt in the black ZJ has 35x12.50R15 MT Baja Claws.

 

Looks like they go through snow pretty good.

 

Thanks.

I was very impressed. And I only aired down to 15psi. Big Rich is at 12psi up front and 10psi out back. Matt was at 15psi also.