What if...Old School Bias Ply Tires???

Dunlop did offer the Radial Rover RT ain the USA at one time. I ran some 215/85R16 on an FJ40, they also had a 235/85R16.

 

back in the 80's, my dad had a 1974 Ford F250 4x4, used pretty much only for hunting, so we only drove it maybe 3 - 4 times a year. My dad always hated radial tires, he was convinced the treads came off too easily, as every freeway in the Los Angeles area was constantly littered with the re-caps of big rig tires. I don't recall what brand tires he had on this truck, they were 12.50 x 16.5", in bias ply tires.

Because we only drove that truck in fall/winter for hunting, those tires would flat spot so bad, for the first 20 miles of driving, it felt like they were square, until they heated up enough to "round out".

The other thing I will never forget about those tires, after about 6 or 7 years, they started throwing huge chunks of tread, maybe 3 x 4" wide patches, all the way down to the nylon threads. When one of those chunks would break loose, it would fly up and hit the fender wells, and sound like we'd been hit by a torpedo. BANG!!! After, I believe, the third of those tires lost big chunks of tread, he finally replaced them with radials.

Oh, and like someone else said above, that truck was horrendously bad at taking random wobbles and dives across the traffic lanes, especially on highway 15 going through the desert where all the big rigs had sunk in the pavement in the slow lane. And that truck didn't have power steering. I learned how to drive in that truck. Oh, what fond memories