Conversation with my wife on new tyres

[BilboBoggles]

I am pretty lucky really. Discussed the need to replace the tyres on my wife's defender today. I suggested some quiet on road tyres.. Her comment was.. well that would be a bit boring wouldn't it.... So looks like another round of mud terrains coming up.

[jabber]

Congrats. She's a keeper.

You have to appreciate a significant other that recognizes the infectious beauty that defenders have. And the fact that it can take over.

[Yorkshire_Jon]

What about a 50/50 compromise? AT's (especially the BFG AT) are a very good style of tyre. Quieter than a MT also.

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[flagg]

So BFG Km2's it is then :D

[newhue]

I was thinking on the way home form a 4x4 park the other day, as I worked the Defer up to 90km/h on a dirt road. Tyres you can trust, that cost a bit are worth more then their weight in gold. My KM's have survived two trips to the desert and surrounding areas, many days at the beach, 4x4 parks, weekend off road camping, all at low pressures with no mercy. Then driven as a daily driver around the city with a good load. Then driven for hours on highways.

Tuff strong tyres of any persuasion are worth every cent I feel. Have noticed however, some Chinese tyres spec wise are very similar to the more expansive US made tyres, but half the price. Not sure if I'm there yet. The old Landy does't seem to go well with unexpected blow outs.

Good to see, actually great to see the wife understands. Well, hopefully more than jus cosmetically.

[Chops]

I'd say you were lucky twice over.

She chooses to drive a Defender :D

[BilboBoggles]

I do indeed have the great luck to have an unusually Land Rover compatible wife. When we first got married she was interested in panel work and did a 6 month panel beating course - and hand made a series three door frame including rolling the alloy skin from scratch, it's a perfect match to the existing doors!

In fact she made me buy a county just recently because I'd been eyeing it off for a few years.

Back to the tyres. Her defender has BFG MT's on it at the moment. The older style with the tread up the side wall - so not the really old style. I must admit I'm not very happy with these, they are 4 years old now, with perhaps 40,000 on them. But the sidewalls have started cracking around the tread, and they have worn into a sawtooth pattern. It's also lost chunks of tread from jsut gentle dirt roads. The previous Coopers STT's also wore to a sawtooth pattern - but I got 80,000 out of those, and the sidewalls had no cracks. All of the BFG MT's I've owned over the years have had the cracks around the tread blocks, so I wonder if the KM2's will do this too?

[Loubrey]

43,000km on my KM2's (3.5 years) and still looks almost new.

No sidewall cracking at all and no lug throwing or chipping either. I've lived in Karratha, WA for 14 months where the car saw daily gravel driving and LOTS of rock crawling.

Toughest tyres I've ever owned...

Cheers,

Lou




Back to the tyres. Her defender has BFG MT's on it at the moment. The older style with the tread up the side wall - so not the really old style. I must admit I'm not very happy with these, they are 4 years old now, with perhaps 40,000 on them. But the sidewalls have started cracking around the tread, and they have worn into a sawtooth pattern. It's also lost chunks of tread from jsut gentle dirt roads. The previous Coopers STT's also wore to a sawtooth pattern - but I got 80,000 out of those, and the sidewalls had no cracks. All of the BFG MT's I've owned over the years have had the cracks around the tread blocks, so I wonder if the KM2's will do this too?

[voltron]

43,000km on my KM2's (3.5 years) and still looks almost new.

No sidewall cracking at all and no lug throwing or chipping either. I've lived in Karratha, WA for 14 months where the car saw daily gravel driving and LOTS of rock crawling.

Toughest tyres I've ever owned...

Cheers,

Lou

Are there any compromises with these tyres Lou. I'm all for tough tyres but not if I need to except more Defender quirks. I guess my biggest issue is wet bitchumen roads. If there is not compromise there then I might seriously look at these.

P.S I am a tyre virgin.

[Loubrey]

There are definitely some compromises with any mud tyre and don't believe anyone that tell you there's not!

They are noisier than All-Terrains, slightly poorer handling on blacktop and in some cases you can feel the tread "feed back" through the steering wheel.

BFG KM2's have however been rated in two independent tests by Australian 4x4 magazines as the quietest of all the main brands of MT's, but some of the other brands did fair better on black top handling and braking (most probably softer compound).

The BFG A/T still remains the most versatile tyre on the market IMO as it gives you superb road handling, very long life and works fine in all but the most serious offroad conditions.

As always, horses for courses and the supporters of the other brands will no doubt be short on my heels!:D

Cheers,

Lou

[n plus one]

Are there any compromises with these tyres Lou. I'm all for tough tyres but not if I need to except more Defender quirks. I guess my biggest issue is wet bitchumen roads. If there is not compromise there then I might seriously look at these.

P.S I am a tyre virgin.

I'd argue that there are limited compromises associated with running the KM2 over something like the A/T - they're very quiet and have good wet and dry bitumen grip for what they are.

Can be a pig to balance out though...

[MLD]

Are there any compromises with these tyres Lou. I'm all for tough tyres but not if I need to except more Defender quirks. I guess my biggest issue is wet bitchumen roads. If there is not compromise there then I might seriously look at these.

P.S I am a tyre virgin.

I live in Stanwell Park and if you are a Sydney sider you'd appreciate the steep winding road that leads down from Stanwell Tops. The road is often wet days after rain has stopped falling. I have km2's in 255/85 and i can point and shoot my defender down the hill at 70 km/h taking corners with the same level of confidence i can in my wife's sedan. Wet road grip is not a shortcoming of the KM2. As for putting up with punishment while rock crawling, my rear tyre from the weekend. Been doing this for over 2 years to the poor things and no punctures or broken bead.

Punishment taken by the BFG KM2 rock crawling on Vimeo

my 2 cents: money well spent.

MLD

[Samblers]

My advice - act quickly! Get the Muds before she changes her mind!

Tried to convince the Mrs that she needs a 90 as a nice city runaround but to no avail ...

[newhue]

I've had BFG AT's which are ok, but I'd prefere my KM2's a lot more. My current KM2's have a bit of saw toothing at 50K. I's say 2/3 warn from useful off road lug grip. 50% warn if you want to extract the most from the tyres and still be legal but non effective.
To me they seem a great all rounder. The ware well, handle wet roads well, and go great off road, and tuff as nails.
I have two tyres with cuts in the floor of the tread from wrong pressures on harsh gravel roads. These two also have rips in the lug base from bottoming out on an alloy tray. The lugs grabbed the trays ribs so something had to give but the tyres still keep going.
The other two have the odd small cuts, but no cracking or chipping.

For what it's worth, if I didn't go muds i'd buy the old Continental General Grabber. Boring to look to, but will do you proud with everything bar mud. Have a mate who goes just about every where I have, and gets 80K out of them easy.