Thread: 18 inch BFG K02 on D4

When I see the pictures that my son took I think it will just go in the bin and I will use my half worn D697's as spares. It still has plenty of rubber at the cut but who knows what damage has been done to the structure of the tyre. A very expensive mistake on my part.


It looks like it hit a piece of steel, not a soft limestone rock. Who knows what was in amongst the rocks and holes in the dark. Maybe there was some steel or an old rim or something that I didn't see? Anyway, the damage is done now.

Originally Posted by BobD

When I see the pictures that my son took I think it will just go in the bin and I will use my half worn D697's as spares. It still has plenty of rubber at the cut but who knows what damage has been done to the structure of the tyre. A very expensive mistake on my part.


It looks like it hit a piece of steel, not a soft limestone rock. Who knows what was in amongst the rocks and holes in the dark. Maybe there was some steel or an old rim or something that I didn't see? Anyway, the damage is done now.

Why don't you take it to a tyre place and see what they say. It may be ok as a spare. Easy to damage a tyre given the right circumstances. I split the side wall of one of my tyres by clipping a smooth gutter at an almost parallel angle. The tyre was the OEM goodyear though which is not known for its strength from what I read later.

Martin

Originally Posted by BobD

Here are the photos to show what the tyre survived without puncturing.

Those tyres have a strong wall, I found that out the hard way.

When you replace that tyre and get a balance make sure it hasn't gone out of round. Mine took a hard hit but looked fine, when I had it checked they found it was out and not repairable. I'd say yours are fine but keep it in mind.

I had BFG KO2s fitted today in 265/60/R18
No trouble with stock through Jax, only made final decision on Wednesday.


I was undecided between these and another set of D697s for ages.
The D697s have served well in the city and in the bush over some tough roads with a reasonably heavy camper trailer but have worn down faster than I expected.
Our recent central aus trip really accelerated things.

This is RH rear after 42,000k. Still legal and would maybe get to 50,000k if staying in the city but I don't feel confident running tyres this low.
The fronts are slightly better as per usual, with the rears getting extra stone damage.

Anyway, I'm keen to see how the KO2s go in comparison.
I've been following BobD's experiences with interest and his seem to be going well.

Cheers,
Scott

I will post a shot of my 697'after a similar distance but our recent 18,000km sojourn through the NT, Kimberley, GRR, Cape Leveque and all things in between. Towing a heavily loaded Ultimate and the D4 well full itself so pretty close to GCM all round I suspect.

Our tyres look remarkably different in so much as; a long way off the tread wear indicators, I will shoot the rears only as they have done the most work. Much less scuff wear, distortion and shredding. You can now see from the two pics below that the tyres whilst having covered around 42,000 themselves look a lot different. Removed in Geraldton so they do not have a lot of bitumen travel to smooth out any damage and that was nearly 4,000km ago now. The fronts are now on the rear and look new compared to ours below

My analysis from this shot and a whole pile of others on this subject is we all drive differently, use quite a wide range of tyre pressures in similar conditions and many don't use a TPMS to record hot pressures for later analysis. Sadly we do all of this as after 15 years of tyre testing that is just what we do to report back to the engineers and we will be doing exactly that when back in Adelaide as the rears will be pulled down for further analysis by the factory I suspect.

We saw plenty of the KO2's in the Kimberley and received a very wide range of feedback from crap to fantastic and owners of everything from D1,2,3 & 4, LC200, Hi-Lux and pretty much all the new utes to start with.

What am I getting at here? Well a picture may be worth a thousand words but it may only be a picture

Given where we have taken our 697's in the last four months and 20,000km by the time we are back in Adelaide I have to say without question they represent at least to us incredible value for money and unless the price of the KO2 becomes acceptable to my wallet we will continue on with the Bridgestones

Rob

I will post some pics of the tyres after a 5 week 14000km trip through Central Australia, Birdsville and the Savannah Way, Darwin area plus the track to The Bungle Bungles, when I get around to it.


The fronts look almost new, the rears are a bit the worse for wear. The right rear has several large chunks missing from the tread where the tyre was cut by rocks. The sidewalls are all perfect and no punctures. I think most of the cuts happened on the Bungle Bungle track towing 2.2T on the steep rocky bits. I had my tyres on 28 cold.


The new K02's on my Kimberley Karavan are more worn than the D4's I reckon. Probably because the suspension was not greased when the repairer in Perth put new swing arms on after mine was damaged when a wheel fell off in March. This resulted in the alignment adjustment bolt moving with the swing arm and destroying the alignment. I didn't notice the tyre wear until I got home. That is now fixed and properly greased.

Originally Posted by plusnq

It fits deflated with the heat shield intact on my 2013 D4. Very tight squeeze though..

How much did you have to deflate to to fit the spare wheel well ? 15psi 8psi?

Got my BFG 265/60/18 in the spare wheel housing of my D4 at 30 PSI. At 40 PSI it was not going in at all.