Thread: 18 inch tyres for touring while towing a camping trailer

Originally Posted by Seldarb

Hi All,
I’ve been a member for 4 years & this is my first post, I have always found great advice for my D3 on here
My personal experience with a set of 17” Falken Wildpeak’s is that I’ll Never touch them again !!
I bought them for my Pajero & they were walking all over the road to the extent that I thought a front & back were half flat, but they were all on 40psi
My steering corrections were up to 15 degrees left & right from straight ahead @80 Kph
Tyre shop redid the wheel alignment twice ( Bob Jane )
(They were going to swap them for another brand, but at the time I couldn’t afford the difference)
I found another guy in a Triton with 17” Wildpeaks & he had a similar story with constantly having to correct the steering
They may have improved them over the last couple of years, But I won’t buy them again

Agree with you on the falkens, I had them on my 16 D4 and were horrible in the snow and mud, I currently run Kenda klever at2 on alpha equipt 18’s and I love them they are a wallet friendly tire with aggressive sidewall tread, you can never go wrong with the ko2 just a little pricier

Interesting experience Seldarb. Going off topic a little bit but what size 17 inch tyre did you try?

I recently changed to Falken Wildpeaks in LT245/70R17 and they drive very well on the D3 - but they are a heavy tyre. I can let go of the steering and the car just follows the road. At most I need to apply some minor steering correction to counter the road camber.

In my case, being an LT tyre they need much higher pressure in them - at 40psi they would feel half flat with the LT version. At present I am at 45 front and 50 rear but if towing I would probably go up to 55 on the rear. Even at 45psi the fronts look like they are low on air.

I wouldn’t want to go wider on the D3. By comparison, I find when I run the 255/55R19 highway tyres the handling is worse and the car gets pulled around by the road much more.

Would hate to imagine what a wider and heavier tyre again would be like although I note plenty of people here do run the Wildpeaks in a wider size than myself, so probably more about how well set up the 4 wheel alignment is.

I use Bridgestone 694's have found them to be long lasting and puncture resistant.
LT rated. Had them on for 5yrs, and still roadworthy..

Originally Posted by Tombie

BFGs havent been gold standard for over 2 decades...

Falken, Radar etc will all do far better for you

Hi Tombie,

I read a while back you were trying the Renegade RT and were enjoying them at the time. I'm currently wearing out my 19" Scorpion AT+ and am then going to permenantly park my 19" wheels and run the 18" Compos. I was going to do this earlier but it seems a waste of $ to put the 19s under the house when they still have 3/4 tread left on them and will just become hard and useless. Anyway ... I ramble ...

What's your thoughts on the RTs now that you've had more time to play with them?

Cheers,

Kev.

I ran with the Falken's when I got my Tuff Ants based on recommendations in this forum and have been happy with them. 30,000ks in 18 months with those tyres and no dramas on the road like you have described Seldarb.
I find them great on road, in the wet or dry and fantastic ATs off-road. 30,000 ks and they still look new and I am hard on tyres.
The only negative was a bit of wobble in the steering wheel above 100 km/h which has settled down over time (had 3 goes at two different tyre shops to get them balanced with no real change).

Originally Posted by John_D4

The Toyo open country at2 look interesting.

I’m currently running Maxxia 771 in 285 60 18LT. The tyre shop guy is recommending Falkens (which I had on the D2 and loved them).

Would anyone be able to compare the Falken to Toyo?

Few comments on Toyos & Falkens:
Advice for AT wheels and tyres for disco 4

Shane linked to his review of the Toyos in the thread.