Tyre Selection

Spoky
I use both Bridgestone AT LT and Toyo - Open Country and M55s. I rate both brands highly based on ~200 000 kms of use.
Regarding bad reviews, I always look to see whether they are a small minority or prevalent. If the former I ignore them as they could well be more of an indicator re the driver - not driving to conditions, over loading, excessive speed, poor attention to pressures, rev head, etc
Good luck with your choice
Andrew

Spocky, Sensitive subject this one, in fact tyres seem to be up there with religion. I am running Coopers at the moment but the Bridgestone 697 are a good tyre. I have had two sets of Bridgestone Duelers they have excellent grip and tread pattern but seem to be just about done at around the 55,000km mark. In saying that they are a good all-round AT tyre. Your right about the reviews for every 4 glowing reports there will be the one review that absolutely slams the brand. I have a mate travelling across the top at the moment for the last 6 months and he commented the Bridgestone Dueler's seem to be a popular tyre.
Regards Will

I've never had trouble with Kumho's before my current set of KL78 A/T's 285 x 75 x 16 are nearly 5 yrs old and have 94,000 km on them and still have 5 to 6 mm left before they reach the tread wear indicator. I have them on a twin cab GQ which is constantly around 2.6 ton in weight I have be very happy with their wear rates and grip. I'll change them sometime soon because they are starting to loose a bit of grip in the wet on my ute other than that they're an excellent tyre.

Hi Spocky

Like many drivers, I have tried many tyre brands over the and seem to come back to one brand.

In June this year we headed up to the Gulf Country from South Australia, and covered more than 6000 kilometres of classic outback roads, including the Birdsville Track, Sananah Way, many unnamed out of the way Queensland dirt roads and the Strezelecki Track.

We have been on these tracks before, but this time towing our Ultimate Camper. Any dirt road travel saw us drop tyre pressure by a minimum of 20% and 2 psi lower on the camper over the car..

The Camper was running BFG A/T and the Prado Bridgestone A/T 697, ( both in LT Construction). At the end of the trip, I came away very disappointed with the BFG tyres.
The reason being is that the Brisgestone came home with not one mark on the tyre, yet the BFG came home just like the old Coopers of a few years back, with tread blocks quite badly chipped, which I would never have thought would have happened.

The Ultimate in a very light camper to town and speed over any dirt road was never the case, as when we drop tyre pressures on dirt roads, we never go over 80 kph.

Based on how the BFG were damaged compared to the Bridgestone 697, I would not be giving them a chance on the Prado, and now can not wait for them to wear down so I can put the Bridgestone on the Ultimate.


Cheers



Stephen

Thanks Gents,

Appreciate your feedback.