Picking out new tires

[TerryMason]

I'm getting ready to pick out new tires, and need a bit of help. I'm moving up from a 31" Goodyear Wrangler AT

Mud-Terrain T/A KM2 - I like the look of these, and am leaning towards them.

however I also like the original KMs

what do you guys think about these? Are they noisy on the road?

I do most of my driving in the city, but make onto the rocks two or three times a year.

 

[southtj]

I'm kind of partial to the originals but only on looks. I have no idea about performance differences.

 

[Bounty__Hunter]

I run the KM2, and it's quieter on the road than I expected. Can't judge wear yet, I'm hoping they wear as long as the old KM's.

 

[TerryMason]

I would say that my 31" goodyears are about silent - I hear wind noise only. Bounty, would you say that you hear your tires over the wind when you've got the top off?

Well, I just noticed that you've got 36s, so that's probably going to be noisier then 33s...

 

[TerryMason]

Should I go with 10.5 or 12.5? what type of offset would I need to run the wider tires (I don't really want to go with wheel spacers)?

 

[SteelHeadz]

12.5's will most likely rub. Given the offset on the wheels chosen to compensate for the width of the tires, it will make it harder for the wheel bearings and ball joints. Although it looks pretty nice with the wide stance look, ive' been very diligent in checking my wheel bearings and balljoints after a hard wheeling. I don't recall the offset of my wheels but i'm using a 2.5 inch wheel spacers and still ocassionally rubs on a tight turn during articulation.

 

[TerryMason]

Thanks Mikey.
I've done a bit of reading and it looks like almost all of the KM2 reviews are positive, with people saying they are pretty quiet on the road.

I think I'm going with 33x10.5 KM2s

 

[Bounty__Hunter]

I like skinny tires but my current KM2's are 35"x12.5", the 36"s are my TSL's. The KM2's are my street tire LOL.

If you want to keep your stock wheels, consider running the Spidertrax 1.25" wheel spacer.

 

[jfrabat]

I run the KM2, and it's quieter on the road than I expected. Can't judge wear yet, I'm hoping they wear as long as the old KM's.

Mine have a couple thousand miles on them; they get a TINY LITTLE BIT noisier with time, but still not enough to hear over the engine unless the road is a VERY smooth asphalt road.

Wet traction in pavement is pretty decent also. I mean, it IS an MT, so dont expect it to handle like racing tires, but it is good enough to let the wife drive it in the rain.

They run pretty good on mud too; I have only winched out once (and I still believe it was because I forgot to deflate them!). And we get THICK mud here in Costa Rica! Take a look:

I can post up some youtube vids if you want as well.

 

[Savvy]

I have KM2 on the Savvy Test Mule and really like them. I had just taken off a new set of Goodyear MTR Kevlars. The BFGs are just a little bit noiser than the GYs. Traction is very good on both in the California terrain. I have no desire to test them in the mud! I did however get to test the GYs in the mud and they preformed great!

The main thing for me was I was able to get the BFGs balanced to 0/0 on the Raceline beadlocks. I could not get the GYs to balance out without have to put over 15oz of weight on them.

 

[jps4jeep]

I ran a set of bfg mt on a daily driver pick up and got almost 55K miles out of a set. I rotated teh tires every 10K miles (which was about every year or so) and got a allignment every 20K miles. when I finially took them off, they were a little on the bald side, but was still able to sell them for $20 per tire as trail spares.

get the BFG tires, I was and am not a huge fan of MTR's, up here in the north east, they simply do not work here.

 

[Jason4x4]

Can you even get the regular KM's anymore?? I've noticed 4wd's site and other places only list a couple of oddball sizes anymore.

 

[TerryMason]

I'm going to pull the trigger this week. I've been on the fence about getting either 10.5 or 12.5" tires, so I went and took some photos of different Jeeps. I think I like the look of the 10.5's the best - they seem to stick out just the right amount.

Here are some 33 x 9.5's that I found:




An my own 31 x 10.5



And some Super Swamper 33 x 12.5s

 

[jfrabat]

If you get wider flares, the 12.50 dont stick out...