So as some of you know I have been less than thrilled with the performance and tread life of the E rated BFG All Terrains that I have had on this for a little over 20K miles. I was at the tire shop recently getting a slow leak fixed and noticed how low on tread they were getting and then the guy brought up the purchase info on his computer and I saw how much I paid for them and how recently I paid it. That brought my opinion of the tires to a new low. Now I realize I use the tires a bit harder than the vast majority of BFG AT owners do, but to whack that much tread from the tires in that amount of time was ridiculous. I maintain pressure regularly. It always gets checked before a trip as well as when we air up after a trail. I have leaks fixed as soon as I notice them. I have the tires rebalanced annually or so. So even with all of the trail miles I put on these, they lead a fairly pampered life. If this tread life is indicative of high maintenance, I'm far from impressed. Now mind you they were not worn out, but when no tire guy in his right mind would come to where we travel to fix a tire, I tend to err on the side of caution when it comes to tires. If it was a street queen I would not have been as nervous, but they were getting a bit thin for trail use.
What to do?? What brand to go with?? This guy says Toyos are great and that guy says Toyos are wet crap. That guy says Nittos are great. This guy says Nittos are only good for wheeled garbage cans. Ugh. Who to believe?? I solicited opinions from several people I know, many who use their vehicles is a variety of conditions, from street to trail to industrial. I got a wide range of opinions just like the examples shown earlier. These work for this guy and that guy had no luck with the same tire. Ugh. I started doing my own research with no idea where it was going to lead (other than AWAY from BFG). I had heard some good things about Toyos, so I was checking those out. I was reading reviews of the different aspects of performance of the different tires. The MTs were sounding like a good tire, but I really don't need (or want) a mud tire. The reviews of the ATs were not as good for what I was doing, but still looked like a good tire. The AT IIs were a nice tire as well. One thing I noticed on our trip last year through UT, MT, WY, SD, CO, etc, was how many one ton service trucks had Toyo M55s on them. You'd swear they came from the factory on those trucks up there. I started looking in into those tires. They are a full-on commercial tire suited for pretty brutal conditions like logging, oil/gas fields, mining etc. After reading the reviews on as many sites as I could find info on I was becoming more and more sold on them as I read more reviews on them.
The tread pattern falls between a mud lug and an all terrain pattern. It has good tread voids. The reviews tout great performance in pretty much all weather/road conditions including ice which is not normally a strong point of a lug type tread with a lot of negative space. Well, it looks like I found my tires. Now to go buy a set. Yeah, I'll just go buy a set. Not quite that easy. I went to a few tire dealers around town and nobody had ever heard of a Toyo M55. Swell. A couple offered to order them in for some super-stupid high price--plus freight. I contacted a non-tire place that I knew could get Toyo tires and he was finally able to get them at a "reasonable" price. These things ain't cheap boys and girls. Oof. I had to pre-pay and sign a letter stating I would never even think of considering trying to return them. I left my pile-o-money and had them ordered.
In my research I found that the tire size, 285/75R16 preferred to be mounted on an 8" wide wheel. I had the BFGs mounted on 7" wheels which are the narrowest size listed for a 285. With the cost of these tires, I really didn't want to potentially shorten their life by putting them on a wheel that was too narrow for maximum life, so researched out a 8" wide 16" steel wheel. I had no luck locating a factory application for an 8" wide 16" wheel so I ordered a set from Wheel Vintiques. After I ordered them I got to thinking and after all these years and various vehicles I've had and modified, this was the first set of new wheels I had ever bought. I have bought many sets of wheels, but never a NEW set until now. Ironically, they look like stock wheels. So I get the new wheels and they are powdercoated black. Ugh, I don't want black wheels on this thing. I call around and get prices on re-powdercoating the wheels. The prices range from really expensive to beyond asinine. I then start researching painting over powdercoat. Come to find out, powdercoat works very well as a primer and with a light scuff takes paint beautifully. Sold!! I applied some white paint like every other steel wheel I have has on them and got the new tires mounted upon them. The first thing I noticed about these tires (beyond that they look pretty cool) is they stunk. Yep, stink, stank, stunk. Nasty. Smelled like some funky avian fecal matter. Took a long time to go away too. Wierd. Other than the stink they seem cool.
Here is one next to the BFG it is replacing: (for the same given tire size, load rating. load range, etc, the Toyo M55 weighs 7 pounds more per tire than the BFGs weigh)
All mounted upon the new wheels:
Now I have held off talking about these tires because I wanted to be able to give an accurate opinion of them. They needed to be put through some hell before I could honestly report on them. I will admit I was expecting them to perform well using the reviews as a baseline for judgment, but I have to say they have exceeded most of my expectations by a fair bit (except odor...LOL). I was pretty nervous about the sidewall construction. There are no real shoulder lugs or tread for that matter, just three concentric beads that are very uninspiring. I quickly found there is no reason for concern at all with the sidewalls on these things (or any other part of the tire). These things are as tough as titanium nails. I have aired them down and shown them no mercy whatsoever. My boy and I have put them through the wringer on some pretty sketchy trails and I have yet to permanently mark the sidewalls on these and it took several trips to find a piece of rubber chinked off the main tread of the tire. Absolutely amazing. The sidewalls have had the usual rock marks all over them, but as soon as it rains they look like brand new again. As it sits outside right now, two of the sidewalls are full of cactus needles of some sort. They don't care. At all.
I have had them in some different weather conditions. Dry, wet, no snow yet, some light mud. They seem to do good in everything so far. Road manners seem nice as well. Not as quiet as the BFG ATs, but not as weak as them either. Kind of a cross between an AT and a MT for noise. They do seem to do the Toyo drift to the right that I have read about on several of their tires, but nothing that bugs me so much I want to do anything about it. They handle wind and wet very well. I am quite impressed with the tires so far. I have had them on for about eight months now. I don't recall how many miles are on them though. I rotated them one time and they seem to be wearing great. One odd thing is they threw all their weights off at some point. I'm not sure if the original balance place didn't install them correctly or if when they are aired down they push the weights off, but I got them rebalanced and all has been well since.