Tyres........again & again & again

Quentin, have a look at thread 76697 that i posted, had some fantastic responses in regards to Bridgstone Dueler 694 LT's, especially from RobAck who has been using them for near on 8 years.

Quentin

If you are after a tread pattern of similar aggressiveness, Mickey Thompson MTZ's, they are not nearly as noisy as you describe, that noisy would drive me nuts, cetrainly wouldn't have put up with them for 80K's. The last set of MTZ and my current set are great, good on the road, brilliant off it, I do lots of dirt-track km's, at speeds of between 70-100 kph on the good stuff, had them smoking trying to get up over rock ledges and never had to have a puncture repaired yet.

Snowy.

Quentin, helpful tip:

If you wear two hearing aids, when in the driver's seat switch-off the right ear leaving the left on to hear your wife. If in passenger sear, vice versa of course. This significantly reduces road noise.

As an extra, you could even replace one hearing aid with an ear-plug.

Have got the heavy ply rated version? AND have you got LT version
Im pretty sure theres 8 and 10 ply rated in LT construction

Not many others have stronger walls than 10 ply ST's?
Ive had 10ply ST- C which were very good on hard dirt tracks, wore a bit faster than normal ST though

Although a Cooper STT user, I would suggest the Mickey Thompson ATZ which has a bigger block tread than the Cooper ST and is much quieter.

I initially thought they may be a bit tame for the rough stuff until I saw them used in the bush last weekend.

I will replace my "road tyres" Bridgestone Duelers (Australian 693 pattern) which I do not rate at all for anything but tar and gravel.

I too would be interested in peoples thoughts on the Goodyears, as they are having a sale of 4 for the price of three at our local dealer, who recommended the Wrangler Silent Armor. Are they no good or what?

Mike

I have the Goodyear MTR's - the original set did 80k (never staked them) before I swapped them out for the new updated version which now has Kevlar belts in the sidewalls for extra protection against staking/damage and the obvious protection from stray bullets.
They are brilliant offroad, and quite on the road so far. but can guarantee once they are half worn, the road noise will start as they did with the original set...

Interestingly, I never see anyone mention the goodyears - am I the only one using them on here??

regards
Bryan

changing for noise is fair enough but will the human ear really hear much difference?
To be honest I don't see changing tyres because of side wall stakes as realistic. Are you saying that those stakes would not have gone through another brand?? No tyre is bullet proof and never will be.

I suggest that if you got 80,000 good km's why change? Tyres get staked, aggressive treads do make noise (compared to road treads); can't defy the law of physics.

Cheers,

I have a mate who runs the Silent Armour MTR's and loves them. If you look closesly at them you will notice that the size of the tread blocks varies around the circumgerence of the tyre. This is supposed to reduce road noise.

I am currently running my third set of Cooper ST/C's, getting about 70k out of them without doing the regular rotations and they are not overly noisy. I think overall they are probably the best tyre I have used and I have no hesitation in recommending them.

But if you can get 4 MTR's for the price of 3 they would be very hard to beat. In fact I might go shopping myself.

Duncs

Quentin,
It might seem a little confusing, but there is 2 different tires, Wrangler SA MTR (mud) & Wrangler SA (AT). Previously I have run 2 sets of Wrangler SA, one on a Mazda Bravo and the other on my Mitsubishi Challenger. I found both to be fantastic medium aggressive AT tires that were very quiet on the road and fantastic grip on wet bitumen. I gave them quite a work out on gravel roads and they also got me up all the intermediate tracks at Landcruiser Mountain Park that I was prepared to tackle. They have a characteristic of a very stiff side wall due to the kevlar and being an LT construction. I never got a puncture on either set. They give very, very good mileage for me. I did about 30k on both sets prior to trading the cars in and they still looked very new. In sand, due to the stiff side walls you need to let them down a fair bit. After playing around for a while, I now start at 15psi and go down from there. We had to do a long high tide beach run at Fraser Island at christmas and we sat on 70 to 80 with no problems.

I have just upgraded to a new PB Challenger and have put on a set of Mickey Thompson ATZ 4 rib to see what I was missing out on. I can tell you that they are very loud compared to the Goodyears. I purchased them because I like to try different things to make up my own mind. I have no doubt that they are a fantastic tire off road, however for my money, when they wear out I will go back to the Goodyear SA. It suits my style of driving (family touring).

Good luck.

Wranglers are rubbish but thats just my opinion, a cheap tyre that wears just as good as your cooper (but dont they all) try Kumho there are a couple of different variants Ive had 4 sets in the family all had good service when looked after.

Dont get confused by "number of plys" and "ply rating", even 10 py may only have a few accross the tyre but ply rating is representitive of strength
Cooper ST-C has another layer too SNOW??? Not sure what it does.
I ued to stake walls a bit, 3 or 4 a year and since switching to ST-C havent even had a puncture, Had 5 sets now.
Price is frustrating, same now as when $USD was 0.70.