D4 and General Grabber AT3

I originally posted in April 2017 on the large, 49 page, Maxis tyre thread that I had fitted the new AT3s to my D4 and was off on a long trip and would report back. I have been away 4 months and did 18,000 km Perth/Cairns/Perth and am reasonably pleased with the AT3s but agree the side wall is not a tough as needed on a 19" rim.

I was towing a Kimberley Karavan over a lot of bad off-roads (Gibb, Mitchel Falls, Kalumburu and numerous National Park tracks) and have cut 3 side walls. One cut was deep enough to relegate that tyre as a spare. The other 2 cuts were not as deep and have not been an issue. Also have had a leak repaired and have a very slow leak that I am yet to have fixed.

The AT3 are quiter and better handling than my previous OEM Goodyear's and Pirelli's sets. They also look like they will last a lot longer with no chipping of the tread as of yet. I expect I will get well over 50,000 km form them.

I would definitely buy AT3 over the Goodyear or Pirelli.

My Karavan was fitted with new 16" BF Goodrich KO2s and had no problems and they performed much better than the old KO they replaced.

I wish 80,000 km and 3 years ago I had fitted 18" rims on the D4 so I could have had BF Goodrich tyres and put up with the noise. But the KO2 was not available then. I spoke to 3 other D4 drivers with 18" KO2s fitted and they were all prepare to put up with a little extra noise for the extra strength.

I had great weather on the trip and have not tested the wet weather capability fully but I don't foresee any problems.

After reviewing these forums I fitted 5 GG AT3s in October to my 2011 D4 that I have had for 11months. A month later I towed a 3T caravan to the Flinders Ranges from Melbourne and the tyres were no noisier than the previous all weather types.
The AT3s handles the van well on both blacktop and gravel roads. When doing some gravel touring I did drop the pressures to around 30PSI.
Late November I joined some guys from Sydney for a 4WD trip through the Vic High Country, the tracks were in worse condition than I have seen in a previous trip a few years ago.
I ripped 3 side walls, the first at a reduced pressure, the other two at full pressure. I was the only vehicle of 8 to suffer any tyre damage so have no confidence in the GG AT3 to handle rough conditions.
I have now fitted Maxxis 19" LT tyres to the rear wheels. They are much noisier but hopefully more robust. I don't intend doing much serious 4WD diving - I am more into touring - but I do want a tyre that will get me out of trouble if I encounter difficult conditions.

I fitted 19 inch GG AT3s to my 2013 D4 replacing the road tyres which were on it when I bought it S/H late last year.
Since then we have done about 10,000 km on two trips through the Eastern/Northern Goldfields on a variety of surfaces and later through the Gascoyne/Pilbara (Kennedy Range, Mount Augustus, Karijini, Millstream etc). We do not tow a camper but have a tent on the roof and the back fairly full with water/food/fridge/bedding/tools etc.
We generally run on the recommended road pressure for rough roads with corrugations and sharp stones etc , we just slow down a bit. We do lower the pressure to around 18 psi all beach driving when needed. Maintaining the higher pressure is based on anecdotal info that lowering the pressure around sharp stones makes them more susceptible to sidewall damage. I think there was also a link to a South African video on this forum where they kept the recommended pressure on pretty crappy roads.


Only problems to date have been a couple of halogen headlamp bulbs due to day running and losing one of the wing nuts off our Traxide axillary battery hold down which I've now replaced with nyloc's.

Anyway, so far so good with no unusual wear patterns or noise that I can pick either on or off road.

I will post if we have any disasters…


Cheers