What can I do to not get stuck again in my Tacoma Sport? Mild offroading

I have not been impressed with the ko2s in snow. On my sprinter, they packed with snow and became slicks. The wildpeaks I replaced them with seem to be much better.

 

Make sure you have all your traction control off. In snow it'll always kill your throttle before you can get necessary momentum.

I've also had terrible time with ko2 in all snow conditions, if you're going to be in the snow a lot, duratracs are one of the best if not the best at tires in snow.

 

If you plan on going into the snow real chains are a must they don't have to be some fancy barbed chains or cables. Once you start spinning tires in snow you pack it down and smooth it out and it becomes super slick, think of making a snowball and then rubbing it smooth it becomes an ice ball, and that's what your doing with your tires when start spinning them. Chains will break up the ice at the bottom getting ride of the smooth surface and bam! You have traction.

 

Be aware if you have tires that rub in anyway and you slap chains on them you will have issues with the chains beating the living crap out of everything nearby.

 

Buy a Wrangler

 

The biggest problem is those k02s! All they ever do in snow or mud is pack full and become a racing slick, they don'thave any real siping and seem to be engineered to plug up and not shed mud/snow/ice. Best bet is to grab tire chains if you plan on doing a lot of winter wheeling and get a set of real tires once you wear out those KBRO2s.

 

How wide are your tires anyway?

 

I need more information. What do you mean your axles don’t move in 4hi or 4lo? 33” KO2s and 4X4 on a Tacoma should take you way beyond “mild”. In my experience there is nothing that will keep you from getting stuck besides staying on the pavement. The bigger the build the bigger the stuff you do. I think the first mod should be a winch, that is the one thing that can get you out of a bad situation.

 

This is very true. I’m always finding that they cake up and become slicks with both mud and snow. You’d have to wash them down with some water to bring the tread back to life.

285/70/17

 

As others have mentioned, lockers wouldnt have really helped in this scenario, snow is all about traction and its a whole nother animal. I will say the one year I ran KO2s on my 17 OR I ditched them the following spring. Terrible snow / rain tire IMHO.

 

Simple get an offroad and never get stuck!

Kidding. But really tire chains are definitely on your future if you snow wheel.

 

That's part of it. Wider tires give you less ground pressure, which is a thing that is important when it comes to snow/ice. Some places even recommend minus sizing to get better snow traction.

https://info.kaltire.com/what-is-minus-sizing/

 

1) Good tires that are designed for the surface you’re going to be on.
2) momentum
3) traction boards I.e. maxtrax

4) use your engine in the highest torque band. So that’s around 4,000rpm for us right? Keep it in a gear in 4Hi or 4Lo that stays in that rev range.

 

Momentum = poor man's diff lock

 

If I got narrow pizza cutter tires, would they be just as great in mud/dirt as in snow?

Very true. But I love my hood scoop. I heard a lot about the e-lockers on ORs blowing up. So I figured it'd be better to install an actual aftermarket diff locker.

 

Respectfully, learn to drive. It's been proven time and time again that offroad, it's 90% driver and 10% vehicle.

 

I never use my rear locker in snow unless it's a crawling/rock climbing kind of trail. Spent the better part of the day in the snow today up in the local mountain fire roads and was in 4lo most of the time but never locked. A locked rear in the snow on that kind of terrain and at 15 - 20mph speeds is a good way to slide the back end out from behind you. Which can be fun in the right setting but not on a trail with steep drop offs to the sides.

Good tires are key, if you're navigating snowy trails in street tires you're not going to fare well

 

Your tires are too worn out for snow, and your cheapest remedy is snow chains.

To elaborate: 30k miles is worn out for an all-terrain tire in the snow. Sure, you could probably still get thousands of highway miles out of them in the summer. But it's winter, and you've already worn through the siping, and what little tread remains is too shallow and too hard for snow driving.

I just got a new set of KO2s on a snowy day last week, and can confirm, there was a night-and-day difference between the traction I got with brand-new tires and their 1/2"-deep, soft, siped treads, vs. my old tires with 3/16"-deep rounded-off age-hardened treads. Take note, that's still 3x the legal minimum tread depth!

Depending on how frequently you plan to encounter snow, you might want to consider the Duratracs or a even a dedicated snow tire, which will almost certainly outperform the KO2s. But if you want to careen across the desert or go rock climbing next summer, then you will be facing another trade-off that might favor the KO2s again.

The bottom line is that the more you expect from your tires, the more frequently you will need to replace them, regardless of which tire you buy. Your other options are to run two sets of tires for winter and summer, or to rely on chains for extreme winter traction.

Here's how I deal with snow in my truck, and what I recommend for others whose trucks mostly see sand and rocks, but sometimes need to get through formidable amounts of snow in the winter: Buy a full set of snow chains, and know when and how to use them. I got my snow cables for $100/pair on craigslist. In deep snow, regular ol' 4x4 with chains can outcrawl nearly any combination of snow tires and lockers. The tradeoff is that they're a god damned nightmare to install and remove, and are a terrible option for daily use. But for $200, nothing will get you further in the snow than having chains or cables on all drive wheels.

 

My STOCK SR5 long bed, with LT General Grabber winter tires, goes everywhere I want it to go 20 mpg on the highway too...