The good/bad/ugly of the General Grabber Red letters

I've been running the general red letters for a little over a year on my 2002 4runner. 285/75/16





For all intensive purposes I liked them a lot. They were great for their intended purpose, hauling ass through the desert. They balanced well (little weight) and rode as expected on the street (little noisy but not obnoxious.) in 12000 miles it had wore down 3/32 worth of tread (started out at 18/32, ended at 15/32). You may wonder why I say "ended". Well it seems as though General Tire seriously over advertised their tire or seriously under produced it. On Sunday I went on a little jaunt through the desert and apparently introduced a sharp stick through the sidewall of my left rear tire. No problem I thought as I had perchased the replacement warranty through discount tire. Well apparently there are "0" zilch, nada tires in the complete store inventory. Call to General tire...... They have "0" zilch nada tires and are unsure when production will start up again, could be 6 months, could be a year. I not going to drive on my spare for that long so ended up selling the tires back to general and getting a different tire.



In a nutshell:
Good:
Awesome desert performance
Tough as nails (though driving over a stick at 65/70 will puncture anything)
look cool

Bad:
Heavy
Not great in rocky terrain (duh)
Little noisy (duh)

Ugly:
Expensive
If you need a replacement you will not get one for a while

Hope this helps in a decision for or Against these tires

 

Oh so you were doing a desert run behind the SAC I see

 

Those were the tires I had originally wanted, but they're waayy to pricey for me, went with Hankook and haven't looked back. I only wanted the General red letter for the letters, since they'll match my truck just nice :

Not sure if you hang out with these guys

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/texas/127163-el-paso-taco-stop-94.html

 

What tires did you get as a replacement for the Generals?

 

Kenpachi; Actually I was cruising from el paso to las Cruses along the train tracks out by kilburns hole. Yup on the guys from ept actually went with them to Cruses a couple weeks back. Had a great time. I'm on the Facebook too.

Tacomaboss: I went with the Yokohama ATS in the LT 265/75/16. So far so good. Real quiet on road. Balanced out well and we'll see about the Offroad.

 

Surprised you couldn't get one, these tires pass though the shop I work at all the time.

 

I've been looking at these. I have a Sears gift card and was going to use it for new tires. The red letter Grabbers are actually cheaper than most AT tires on their website. Cheaper than BFG AT's, Duratracs and even General grabber AT's. I assume that they're more in demand out west as I've only seen a few trucks running these here in PA.

 

OK, well just checked again and said they were out of stock. They would have been $780 for 265/75 16's.

 

Wow they actually make the 265s now? I remember before they only had/made 285s, but they were like 280 a piece!! That's the only reason I didn't get them.

 

I'm looking forward to a similar review of the Yoko's in the future as thats the exact same tire and size I put on about a month ago. I did not find too much info on them here on TW when I did my research. You will definitely put them through their paces unlike me, so If they pass in your book, I'm good to go.