Off road tyres

[saljosax]

Hi...we've just bought a new (2015) Discovery 4 and plan to do an off-road trip each year. Wondering if I should buy a set of off-road tyres to use on these trips and change back to our normal ones for city driving or get an all terrain tyre and leave them on all the time. Also wondering which tyres to get. Any advice will be much appreciated! Thanks.

[sheerluck]

Welcome to the forum!

Feel free to post some pictures of your new beast when you can.

You haven't said what size wheels you have. That will probably give you some more definite replies.

[laughto]

Welcome to the land of Land Rovers. If you are like me and this is your first LR, I hope and trust you will be as impressed as I am with its capabilities, not that I am by any stretch of the imagination an expert. This is our first 4WD and was specifically purchased to tow a hybrid camper-trailer - anywhere we want to go.

If this is your first LR, apart from the invaluable info you will receive from this forum, can I also suggest joining one of the LR Car Clubs. 2 that come to mind are the Land Rover Owners Club of Sydney and The Range Rover Club of Australia (NSW). Don't let the name of the later put you off as there appear to be many more Discos among the group than Rangies. Both will be another source of like minded people only too willing to help!

Back to your can of worms question, and much will depend on exactly what you are looking to do/how off road you intend getting. From my perspective you have a couple of options here depending on your current setup (this assumes you have standard 19" rims):-

1. Purchase a cheap set of 19" rims and purchase some more aggressive tyres - more on this later. Rims can generally be had, depending on condition and age for anywhere between $50/rim to $200/rim as I have seen advertised. You will also come across more expensive ones, which probably are not really necessary. I previously had some rims from an 2012 SE (I believe) which did not match my OEM rims - but who cares.

2. Purchase some more aggressive off road type tyres for the above mentioned rims. This raises the debate about suitable off road / LT tyres of which until recently there have been none available for the 19" rims, although I believe there have been for 20". Until recently, Goodyear Duratrac, Hankook Dynapro RF10, Cooper LTZ, General Grabbers (and a few others) seemed to be in favour for this requirement. More recently Maxxis have released a 19" LT rated tyre - Bravo 980 which has piqued the interest of forum members including myself. More discussion here. In my case I purchased 6 and rightly or wrongly leave them on the car permanently - you will get some debate about this strategy. But certainty, you could mount your off road tyres onto the aforementioned spare rims and swap them out when going off road.

3. Buy a set of 18" rims. There maybe some from other LR vehicles that will fit, I am not sure however many forum members have purchased specifically designed rims from Green Oval Experience out of WA. While not cheap, they are made to rally specifications and look fabulous on the car. 18" rims give you a much larger array of tyres to choose from e.g. Bridgestone Dueler D697s.

Good luck with your choices. I am sure as you get into this forum more and more, you will find more and more things to spend your hard earned on

[saljosax]

Sorry...they're 255 55 19

[shanegtr]

I dont think for general touring you need anything more agressive than a good quality AT tyre (some destinations might be different however). As such I just run the one set of tyres for everything - however my D3 has 17" rims and not 19". I'd personally try to get the smallest diameter rim you can for an offroad tyre. If I went to the expense of going the GOE rims I'd run them all the time

[LRD414]

Hi...we've just bought a new (2015) Discovery 4 and plan to do an off-road trip each year. Wondering if I should buy a set of off-road tyres to use on these trips and change back to our normal ones for city driving or get an all terrain tyre and leave them on all the time. Also wondering which tyres to get. Any advice will be much appreciated! Thanks.

Welcome and as others have said it depends on what type of off-road tracks etc you'll be taking.
There is a better selection of AT and LT tyres in 18" but it's expensive to get the required wheels.
There is currently only one legal 18" wheel for Australia for the newer 3.0L Discos like yours (see laughto's link).

If your off-roading is not too remote or predominately on harsher surfaces, staying with the 19s and getting better tyres would most likely be suitable. The tyre choice has improved over the last say 2 years for AT but LT is still thin on the ground, with the Maxxis mentioned by laughto being the only one (I think). Reading experiences on this forum indicates that slowing down, driving to the conditions and not lowering pressure too much tends to deliver acceptable results with 19" ATs.

Here's some good bedtime reading for the more popular 19" tyres:
Goodyear Duratrac
Goodyear Duratrac
Hankook Dynapro ATM RF10
Maxxis Bravo 980
Cooper Zeon LTZ
Standard OE Wranglers
There is a General Grabber too but couldn't find a specific thread.

I got a set of the 18" wheels but my father went through this decision process recently and decided to stay with 19" and get ATs. He's in the middle of a big trip and happy with the Hankooks so far.

As to swapping tyres on one set of rims, well that depends on your appetite for the hassle and cost. I reckon most don't bother after fitting ATs.

Cheers,
Scott

[saljosax]

Thanks everyone for all your great advice.

I am hearing the 19" wheels are not ideal. This trip we're driving Sydney to Uluru through the Simpson and Hay River Track, so sand is our main off road feature. We will be doing a trip each year though so whatever we get now should suit a variety of terrains.

I'll look into the 18" wheels and tyres for those.

Next decision is a bulbar. Do we need one? Are brands other than LandRover OK?

Thanks again!

[sheerluck]

......Next decision is a bulbar. Do we need one? Are brands other than LandRover OK?

Thanks again!

The Land Rover "bullbar" is not given very gracious reviews on here. I think most people view the aftermarket offerings as being much better.

Lots of reading in here

[saljosax]

I'm starting to feel like we bought the wrong car! I can't get through to GOE but even if they do call back its probably not possible to get the 18" rims sent over before we leave.

I've spoken to another tyre place in Sydney who say they can put 18" American Racer rims on with a Goodyear Wrangler tyre, has anyone heard of this combo working?

So if I can't get the 18" rims in time, can I drive the Simpson Desert and Hay River Track on 19" rims?

[sheerluck]

Without knowing which model of American Racing rims you're referring to, I'd be very sceptical personally. The D4 wheels have a very high load rating, 930kg or so from memory. I've not seen or heard of anyone having 18" rims on a D4 from AR before.

However, I'm sure there have been many who have done that trek on stocko wheels and tyres.