Salties replied:

Sorry it was 115km that I had achieved on the coopers

Nav 8 replied:

Last year I had four Goodyear Wrangler RT/S fitted to my Navara STR. Since then I have had 5 wheel balances and about to book in for number 6 before a trtip to Darwin. Maybe I have copped a dud set but have had nothing but balance trouble since day one and have never had this trouble with any other brand before. This is just my experience with the brand, it will be the last set of goodyear tyres I buy.,,,Nav.

120scruiser (NSW) replied:

Hi Saltie
I can't comment on the silent armour but I run the MTR on my 120 in 265/75 x 16 and have had a great run. No balance trouble, no punctures and good wear rate. For a 120 prado thats good as they wear bad. They are a little chipped from the roads around innamincka but any tyre would do that.
I am currently getting quotes for a set of 17 inch MTR's. Love the tyre.
120scruiser

Members-Neil & Margie-Cairns replied:

2 1/2 days on the car on the blacktop , wife sliced a sidewall ,, still have no idea what on ,, but will never have them again !!

Neil ..

Member - Phil G (SA) replied:

Salties,
theres only a couple on this forum with Silent Armours. Mine are 265/75R16, done just over 10,000k including two Simpson Desert trips, one included a fair bit of the Madigan Line. They have been fine - no discernable wear, no chipping on the outback roads. Good AT tyre.

I had taken out the Beaurepaires $16 a tyre puncture guarantee, as I knew I would be using them on a couple of rough trips. I staked one on the Madigan Line, and plugged it. Took it to Beaurepaires who took one look at it, and replaced it with a new tyre, free of charge. The $16 guarantee is good value if you're planning on doing some rough trips. You need to take them back after 5000k and then every 10,000k for a rebalance and alignment check (Cost of $32 for the 10k checks)

You won't get as good fuel consumption as you get on grandtreks, but I've found consumption to be better than it was with the more aggressive MTRs.

Salties replied:

Phil G,

Thanks for your reply.

The $16 is not a bad idea and in your intention of knowingly doing some major trips is great the part that I can't believe is the exclusion for of road use is crazy especially with the picture chosen for the front of the brochure.

Have you previously had Cooper ST or BFG and how would you rate the silent armours over all compared to these if so, unfortunately I still do a large amount of kms on tar and at this stage prefer to only have one set of tyres.

I had travelled to the Kimberly through the Oodnadatta, Tanami and the Gibb and as mentioned I had only had one tyre on the copper rear passenger while I was towing a Jayco out back that had seemed to cop the most punishment. if I had kept on going on this particular tyre it would have let go nevertheless still reasonably happy. I'm not sure what the rolling resistance is compared to the Coopers but going up hills towing is something I would like to have a little like it used to be. Unfortunately there are not that many tyres in 70 series with the same construction as the 75 I know that the BFG are available but after being on trips with others with BFG A/T I'm not so sure, the wear rate seemed excessive but this is one of those topics like Nissan vs Toyota's, Engel's vs Waecos etc.

friar replied:

I was going with the silent armour for my new prado , but changed my mind because of balance problems, my local tyre rep has had a problem with balancing on a set he sold, at this stage going with Cooper ATR lite truck 265/70/17, got till the 23 to change my mind again as this is the delivery date. I have had S/T & BFG on my hilux looking for something a little less noisy on this vehicle, Friar.

RovingOz (QLD) replied:

I fitted the silent armour because I just couldn't bring myself to fit MTR's.

I've seen plenty on 79 cruisers that get half way through the wear cycle with MTR's and they're as noisy as hell.

Cooper STT's were eliminated well and truly by this forum's feedback.

So it was a process of elimination which led me to go silent armour. I know there will be times I may regret not fitting the MTR's but the diff locks should get me through ;-)

I was convinced re the $16 guarantee by Phil G's experience with getting a brand new trye. Reasonable insurance for a $275 trye.
I'm not going to tell them I was following Willem into the unknown at the time, I was backing out the driveway and mounted the gutter. :-)

I also had balance problems but for a different reason. Beaurepairs switched all my rims around, once they went back to their original position all was fine.
Cheers
John

Richard Kovac replied:

I just tried to buy some for the troopy 285/75/16 i think ... 3 months wait

O well back to the Dunlops

Tried Roadgrippers type "S" this time nice ride on bit and dirt.. $230.00 each

Will see how they go..

I was disappointed

Richard

Eric Experience replied:

Salties
The strong case on the silent armours make them less tolerant with out of round wheels. those who have balance problems most likely have bent wheels, the five stud Toyota wheels are particularly bad. large 4x4 wreckers are sending any straight 5 stud wheels to America because they get a premium price there. Before fitting any new tyre it is worth spinning the bare wheel on a front hub to see if it is round. Eric.

Dave & Shelley (NT) replied:

Hi Salties,

I know the dread of buying new tyres. You wait forever for the old one to finally give up so you can upgrade ( I certainly did!!!). I have had Perelli scorpion AT, Coopers AT, BFG AT, Bridgestone AT (only because they came with new Patrol and couldn't afford to change them over for 2 years) previously on my old Disco and Patrol. I went Goodyear MTR's on my patrol end of last year. This was mainly due to prices up here in Darwin and the Goodies were the best price by far ( around $27 a tyre x 5). As others have stated, the "guarantee" offered at beaurepairs seems pretty good and I to took them up on it, and told they will cover staking. Luckily I haven't needed it. I have done only 10,000 km (one trip) on them and they are holding up very well including some very muddy tracks lately (yeap, muddies working in mud, thank god!).

Balance problems. - I do have some feedback since I changed my tyres over to the muddies. I did expect a little of that. I spoke to a bloke who used to balance tyres at one of these places and he said for Patrol, 1 in 10 do seem to have some type of a balance problem with them and it is usually caused by the dynamic components (drive shafts) which are very hard to locate and fix. This accounted for the original tyres getting the feed back after about 10,000kms which still remains. Not an overall concern.

Mate, everyone can offer opinions on tyres and everyone is talking from experience. My experience is at the end of the day, the major brands are all OK. You get bad batches in all brands. Luckily I haven't and all the tyres have lasted around 70,000km doing some big trips (obviously chipping doesn't count). The only exception was the Bridgestone/Scorpions which last around 40,000km due to them being of a softer compound and very road bias. Pick a few types and start doing the shop around and go for the cheapest. It usually works for most people.

As for silent armour, I believe that is what Goodyear call there ply type. I think the silent armour comes in HT, ATR and MTR's. I have a silly "silent armour" logo on my tyres.

Good luck with your purchase and have fun.

Dave

Salties replied:

Dave & Shelley,

Yeh spot I had the same on my Prado with the speedo reading it is close as accurate as can be with the 75 series according to the GPS. Apparently most vehicle manufactures have this factor in the speedo reading.

Thanks to all for all the comments (and no one got hurt).

I did hear about the balancing problem from a tyre dealer, according to him this was a bit of a problem at first but has been rectified.

I spoke to a senior employee of Goodyear and he is a fellow 4WD traveller as well that has done a major trip on the silent armours and is extremely happy, yes he works for the company but my gut feeling was that he was very sincere and sounded extremely knowledgeable in his field. He also said that in the wet they are excellent. A good all round Tyre.

The best price I had for the 265/75/16 is $250 ea. Some places are quoting over $300 worth shopping around for this much variance.

I think I might give them ago I will let you know how things travel.

Take care all.

djm67 replied:

Just had a set of Silent Armours fitted to a dual cab rodeo (245/75/16), grip level went ***way*** up compared with BFG A/Ts on gravel & wet bitumen and seem to be as good on bitumen as the road orientated Bridgestone A/Ts that come standard.

Noise level is good, seem to be no louder that the Bridgestone A/Ts.

With only 1000km or so on them I am loving them.

Gob & Denny replied:

mine have been on now forabout 6 months and are going great no balance problems or any thing my tyres go on and forget them for a while they haveonly done 1 trip including broken hill to white cliffs via mootwingie just after the roads reopened and some offroad (not enough) but they just keep going and there is not much wear

steve

Salties replied:

Thanks Steve,

I have decided to give them ago and have asked the tyre shop to order me a set.
Sounds like they are a little short on stock as they have to bring them in from a country store. It was interesting to see the listing on the computer of the stores that had them, most in the top end and country areas. I had spoken to the gentlemen at the tyre shop about the balancing issue and he basically said that if there seems to be a tyre that needs an excessive amount of weight to balance then he would just order another tyre. He also had a set on his 4WD but he didn't sound like he did any real off road work with them.