Thread: Time for new tyres on TDV6

I am also thinking about new tyres but have the luxury of waiting a few months.

Can anyone confirm if 285 50 20's fit on genuine alloys.

I have heard conflicting reports.

They may be a good option;
bigger sidewall
bigger width for sand and snow & to keep rims of kerbs & rocks.
reasonably priced
legal
should fit in spare position

Originally Posted by scomac

Gordon's 18's are the way to go, if you have a spare $5000 to spend (incl tyres of course)

I think you have just hit the problem on the head

Thanks - I see the benefit of the 18" rims, but a tad too expensive for me.

So I thought which of the tyres have a stronger side wall and it looks to me that the Duratracs have 2 ply and the Dynapro have 3 ply - which I thought would therefore make the Dynapro a stronger tyre for towing a heavy van and help withstand side slashing when 4wding.

However reading about side wall ply - it is not as simple as just the number of plies. It depends on the construction and the materials used. So apparently in some cases a 2 ply tyre could be better than a 3 ply tyre? Also it seems that a higher ply tyre doesn't like being deflated for say sand work, or rocky tracks.

I find all of this very confusing (similar to comparing mobile phone plans - its hard to compare like with like ) and think I will just go with the Hankook Dynapro ATM's - they have to at least be better than the Wrangler HP All Weather that I currently have.

pprass ply is no longer a relevant term for modern tyres. Originated back when tyres were made by hand starting with the canvas wrapping which was called a ply.

Modern radial construction tyres are made completely differently and whilst they do have a wrapping as part of their internal construction the number is completely irrelevant given they are made from much stronger materials up to and including kevlar and mylar of which a single wrap is probably so many times stronger than a canvas one it does not matter. As well it is important to understand that tyres breath (lose heat) via the sidewall. Hence high performance tyres are quite thin in this area and when you see the sidewall of a LT rated tyre it can be as much as 11.5mm thick making the LT tyre have a much lower speed rating which you normally trade off with a much higher load rating

So with that in mind the load rating of a 4WD tyre is the most important measure in my view. Tread pattern is not overly important in the overall performance of the tyre albeit mud tyres will certainly be noisier and handle poorly in the wet due to having less rubber on the road and less complaint rubber to allow the tyre to flex under load as well hence the term "stiffer" comes into the discussion.

Our experience from around 20 years of tours and training is that the most important thing, generally, is the right tyre pressure and speed for the conditions supported by a tyre pressure monitoring system. But we then bring into the discussion sidewall depth and our 19" rim elephant in the room.

The more sidewall the easier it is to reduce pressure without significantly increasing the risk of a sidewall penetration but we do not drive off road in a perfect world so that risk simply changes depending on the terrain.

You will find few if any 19" tyres to suit that offer a load rating of >112 and there are plenty of threads on the forum indicating same size and rating by maker offers some rather interesting performances in the real world. So we tackle this by running our 19" rims and experimenting with the Hankook RF10 which seems to be pretty good and will shortly be putting a set of the Goodyear Duratrac on the car. Yes we also use 18" rims with Bridgestone D697's for regular and long outback trips as we hold the view that the 19's are OK for what we consider short term off-road work but not sustained touring

I hope that helps

Rob

I was interested to see that in this 4x4 Australia trip sponsored by Land Rover Australia that they chose the Goodyear Wrangler Duratrac.

[ame]https://youtu.be/iQCoKBCiayA't=25m41s[/ame]

They got a number of punchers (sidewalls damaged). Got me thinking that maybe 18's are a must to get back into a LT construction tyre.

Originally Posted by RobA

So we tackle this by running our 19" rims and experimenting with the Hankook RF10 which seems to be pretty good and will shortly be putting a set of the Goodyear Duratrac on the car. Yes we also use 18" rims with Bridgestone D697's for regular and long outback trips as we hold the view that the 19's are OK for what we consider short term off-road work but not sustained touring

I hope that helps

Rob

Excellent information from a first hand experience/source
So with side wall strength the relevant measure is thickness!

Peter

Originally Posted by pprass

Thanks - I see the benefit of the 18" rims, but a tad too expensive for me.

So I thought which of the tyres have a stronger side wall and it looks to me that the Duratracs have 2 ply and the Dynapro have 3 ply - which I thought would therefore make the Dynapro a stronger tyre for towing a heavy van and help withstand side slashing when 4wding.

However reading about side wall ply - it is not as simple as just the number of plies. It depends on the construction and the materials used. So apparently in some cases a 2 ply tyre could be better than a 3 ply tyre? Also it seems that a higher ply tyre doesn't like being deflated for say sand work, or rocky tracks.

I find all of this very confusing (similar to comparing mobile phone plans - its hard to compare like with like ) and think I will just go with the Hankook Dynapro ATM's - they have to at least be better than the Wrangler HP All Weather that I currently have.

Peter.
For those of us in the same boat,ie cant afford Gordons wheels at the moment,can you let us which tyres you choose and how they compare,especially if you still have more rough road travels to come.
Thanks
Andrew

Originally Posted by pprass

Excellent information from a first hand experience/source
So with side wall strength the relevant measure is thickness!

Peter

Peter more load rating which tends to derive sidewall thickness but not in a way that can be called regular when it comes to measurement I am afraid. The best tyre we have used for really serious off roading is the Goodyear MTR with Kevlar. Not light, a 123 load rating and capable of handling 12 psi for over 500km of really remote travel leaving me with a clear idea of what I prefer in some situations. But for us our preference is to run a decent all rounder normally in the AT to LT ratings hence our choice of the Bridgestone D697. Our focus is on tyre performance and reliability not the ability to last for 60,000km as quite frankly I don't care and by that I mean our tyres must have a tread depth of >50% to leave Adelaide on any trip. Less and you are courting punctures so our tyres are traded out at that which still does not mean we can not guarantee a puncture as there is no such thing as a puncture proof one just yet.

Rob