I get a lot of questions about what are the best tires to buy for off-roading. Chef Jon just installed a set of Nitto Recon Grapplers on his 4Runner and I just installed a set of Trail Grapplers on my Ecodisel Wrangler. This is the perfect time to talk about All Terrain vs Mud Terrain tires and some things to think about when purchasing a set of tires for your 4×4!
You guys ask me all the time what tire should i buy for my off-road vehicle well i’m not going to tell you what we are going to talk about are the tires that we’re using what we use them for and some things for you guys to think about when you’re deciding which off-road tires to be selecting for your 4×4 so we’ve got chef john here with us say hi john what’s
Up guys hey well we got the 400 here we just got some brand new tires put on it as well the ecodiesel jails got some brand new tires put on it let’s uh do a little walk around and talk about those tires and then i’ll hit you guys with some information on things you should be thinking about when buying tires so let’s start off with a 4runner we got some new nitto
Recon grapplers on here so these are nitto’s uh newer all-terrain tire chef john prefers the l train tire on the forerunner because this is still this is still a daily still a daily driver unlike this thing which sits here plugged in it’s a hybrid right we keep it plugged in charged up yeah uh it sits here all day so john’s got a few more necessities out of the
Forerunner not a driveway queen john wants to stick with a bit more of a modest on-road tire but he still hits the trails on the weekend let’s talk a little bit about the nitto recon grapplers because you just switch over from these and full disclaimer guys nato does sponsored the channel but what i did want to talk about is all terrain versus mud train versus
Like hybrid train because there’s all kinds of variations in tires that you can look at now and there’s different benefits and pros and cons you guys can check out the recon grapplers and we’ve got the trail grapplers once again on the ecodiesel jl so we’ll talk about those in a second what do you think of the the recon grappler so far i mean the first thing is
Just the look of them they look awesome like and that that is one of the things i think a lot of people you know you look at a mud terrain they’re gonna need for really aggressive looks they’re made to be used off-road obviously and you get a lot of the alter ends in comparison look a little timid look a little mild these things they do have they do have really
Cool they have two different sidewalls on them so you can choose that’s what i really like about these recline grapplers and so let’s just cover off different tire versions so we’ve got all terrains we’ve got a new hybrid terrain and then we’ve got mud trains and like full mud on tires so in the nitto lineup these fall in the all-terrain category nitto also has
The terra grappler which is a full all-terrain it’s got a single tread pattern across the whole tire and you don’t get these gnarly looking lugs on the outside now you’re probably saying well they’ve had the ridge grapplers out for a while and they’ve got the the hybrid less aggressive center tread very aggressive outer lugs much more like the ridge grapplers so
Where do these fit in well i think what nitto’s going for is a high mileage quieter tire because they’re not quite as aggressive and giving you some of that aggressive styling on the outer lugs of the tire which they’re terra grapplers they’re full all terrains don’t have quick pause from the video guys i need to ask you a huge favor hundreds of thousands of you
Are watching my videos every month by being subscribed it lets me know that you’re interested in the channel and leaving likes lets me know what kind of videos you really enjoy so hit that subscribe button leave a like and let’s get back to this we video the other thing is nitto has made these lighter than the ridge grapplers because these are i think size for
Size like two or three pounds per per corner lighter and size for size just for comparison so these are 285 70 r17 on the uh recon grapplers and if you were to buy 285 70 r17s in the trail grapplers they’re like 12 pounds heavier so the full mud train is going to add a lot more weight to each corner that’s going to affect a few things that’s going to affect your
Fuel economy because we all care about fuel economy right it’s also going to change how your jeep accelerates on the highway when you need to go and pass somebody these are 54 pounds but stepping up to a 37 these are like i think 83 pounds keep that in mind when you’re increasing your tire size but also when you’re looking at the difference between all terrain a
Hybrid tire and a full mud train is not just well how well is it going to do off-road on-road snow uh ice rain all your driving conditions but how is it going to affect your jeep’s performance or your off-road rigs performance acceleration and fuel economy one thing i can comment on so far because we do a lot of on-road as much as we you see us going off-road a
Lot we do a lot of miles a lot of kilometers thousands getting to the place yeah you know i think our oregon series we did we probably a couple thousand kilometers i wanted to know if they were quieter uh than i had my ko2s they and they market these as being relatively quiet yeah and they’re quiet enough that you’re not noticing them over the wind noise of all
This stuff that you got strapped to the roof and and whatnot on your rig i think the other thing too is like is tread wear so now we obviously haven’t tested how long and how many kilometers we’re gonna get out of these uh new recon grapplers but on nitto’s site they’re saying like 50 000 plus miles so that’s like 75 80 000 kilometers 88 000 kilometers that is a
Lot of kilometers and so that’s going to cut down on your cost because you’re not going to be buying new tires as often now by comparison on the uh trail grapplers that we have on the wrangler well i’ve got my last set sitting right here i haven’t even moved them i’ve got about 45 000 km is on these and you know we’re getting down where we’re starting to uh you
Know way past 50 percent and we’re losing traction off-road you know by comparison here’s a wash coin for my car wash and we will mark it right here so that’s about 45 000 kilometers that we put on them and then we’ve got a nice fresh set how much more tread a fresh set has so we’re like way past 50 on those which honestly forty five thousand kilometers on a set
Of tires before i have to replace them on this thing not so bad but if it’s your daily driver you could be doing that every year or every other year and these tires are pretty expensive so and to be to be fair to nitto these are also most people know these are a lot softer compound rubber than what the all terrains are going to be these are the all-terrains are
Generally going to be a harder compound rubber because it is an on-road um and it is one of the features of these the side the side lugs on them are a lot harder to help with on-road performance what pressure are you running in them on the street yeah good question i think i think it’s about 32 right now or in the low 30s yeah so so i run mine generally i run mine
In the high 30s on the highway like 36 to 38 psi on the highway i don’t know if i’m gonna get the right uh tread wear but it definitely just feels nicer driving on the highway the rolling resistance is a little lower the sidewalls are a little stiffer and uh when you’re cruising on the freeway for 10 12 hours at a time it just seems like a nicer drive the other
Thing i want to talk about is how many plies the tire are check this out here and the similar tires will have different plies but you can first start by looking at the load range so these are 10 ply tires load range d they’ve got two steel three polyester and three nylon and that’s going to be a combination of uh sidewall and tread the d-rated tires are not too
Firm that when you air down you don’t have to air down super low to expand your tread out if you get e-rated tires with more plies in the sidewalls then you have to air down lower or have a heavier rig before your tire starts i don’t even know if we can demonstrate this but but when you air down you see how it starts to widen out the pattern that’s the same and if
You have a harder or firmer sidewall it’s going to take either more weight or less air to make that tread pattern expand and you can see one of my patches in here so we’ve had a couple flats with these but honestly it’s been just big things jabbing through them but check out the sidewalls only like we’ve put so many gashes in these and they’ve still seem to hold
Air i think the one that i actually popped that we couldn’t repair had a hole in it so big that you could put your your fists through it let’s see i put a lot a lot of kilometers a lot of off-roading on these and i’ve only popped one that i couldn’t repair and one has a patch in it but the sidewalls on these have been awesome now how many ply are these so they’re
Two steel two polyester two nylon that’s on the tread and the sidewall has two so there’s an eight ply yeah so they’re similar the other thing i’m really interested to see we’re probably not going to see it on this trip but definitely this winter the the old ones did pretty well in the snow like especially in comparison to yours and shawn’s on the you know on his
For for the mud trains and these ones they are still m s rated but they’re not the twin peaks snowflakes that i had so it’ll be it’ll be interesting to see how they go like the tread pattern i think it’s going to do better where i was seeing the other ones uh fail a little bit which was on the on the rocks and mud a little more yeah that outer lug pattern i think
Is gonna be an upgrade they still have like stone ejection they have have i want to say water ejection but it’s water just they can disperse the water and the snow the site the the siphons on them um now by comparison you know you look at these there’s no barely any siping on here um these are great on the rocks they’re good in the mud but as soon as you get into
The snow and ice they’re definitely different now i’ve gotten to a lot of places in the snow with the trail grapplers for me they’ve been quite quite good in performance but definitely when it snows on the road you start to see where these things don’t shine i’ve done fairly well in the rain and the dry not so bad when it uh when it starts to snow out um these
I air them i actually air them down on the street to try to get a bigger tread footprint just for driving around when yeah well we don’t get very much snow here i think the slush is the gritty collector that’s what really gets you as opposed to just the snow itself you know a lot of we we hear that a lot i think our favorite thing to hear is everybody saying we
Should be using uh chains and uh it you know there’s so many different types of snow i’ve driven in snow uh on the east coast and the west coast yeah you know central alberta things like that and there’s different types of snow and unless you’re driven in it you don’t know uh dry hard packing snow is very different from the really heavy wet snow that we get here
And that’s where you things like the you know the exercises and having that that twin peak rating is is a big deal it makes a big difference apparently two these are quite good for the sand they have i’ve never heard the term before but scallops on the side scallops yeah these are i love scallops so you’ll actually notice that every second every second lug here has
This little scallop on it and apparently this is that that helps in the sand oh let’s go to the dunes loved it there we’ll go back the other thing with a stiff sidewall that we kind of got to watch out for is punctures because yeah the softer your sidewall that’s why we air down that’s another reason why we air down there’s lots of reasons why we air down big one
Being traction um and also ride comfort but also i find when i air down low enough when you get a big jabby stick in the side of your sidewall it’s like trying to poke a half inflated balloon if your balloon is completely inflated you poke it with something sharp it explodes if your balloon has barely any air in it you poke it it’s much much harder to pop and and i
Find in my experience tires are very much the same i like to run them as low as i can and that way if something jabs the sidewall because that’s pretty much being every puncture i’ve ever had is in the sidewall i’m gonna reduce the likelihood of that going through we’re going to take these out on some trails here we’ve got a crazy adventure plan and we’re going to
Do some testing with these let’s go hit the trail foreign day three of our trip the tires i think have been fantastic we’ve hit almost everything except snow we’ve hit gravel dirt we like tons of shale rocks going up the mountain get some sand a little a lot of mud going through it got right through we even went through a river did some did our favorite water
Crossings the recon grapplers did i think they did everything i threw at them i didn’t think at any time on the trip so far that there’s they were lacking at all especially in the mud i think they actually did quite a bit better and the looks of these of the recon grapplers i just love them a lot more aggressive than a lot of the other all-terrains out there the
Game didn’t only think we didn’t really throw out it was snow so we’re gonna be uh we’re gonna be doing some of that later in the year and we’ll do another update after that they seemed to be just a really good like all-around weekend warrior get out in some of the trails like we’re out here you know back country forest roads mud here we go us nitto recon grapplers
Available in many different sizes go check them out if you want something a little bit milder but very capable for your off-road rig hit the subscribe button on the channel leave a comment if you have any questions and hit that like button i appreciate it a ton i’ll see you guys in the next video
Transcribed from video
Stop Asking Which Off-Road Tires to Buy & Watch This…. A/T vs M/T By Casey 250
