Last time we spoke of tires, I had just taken off the Cooper STT Pros and replaced them with General Tire X3s. I promised to do a write-up on those. And then four years passed. In that time, I’ve played with a lot of tires on a lot of trucks (7, to be precise). Some were short-lived, others have been hanging in for years. It seems appropriate to do an update as such. I’ll save my usual preamble and just jump right into it.
GENERAL GRABBER X3: This tire is a behemoth, in more ways than one. Constructed like it was meant to be fitted to an APC, I never once worried that shale, granite, or a sneaky fallen limb would be capable of shredding its sidewall. These tires can take an absolute beating, and not bat an eye in the process. Tread wore evenly under the weight and stress of the FJC loaded to the ceiling while traversing trails in Brown’s Camp as well as flying around the highway. Absolutely crushed every type of terrain I could find. And you absolutely get your money’s worth on diameter - I started getting rubbing in some spots I never had on the STT Pros in the same size accordingly. In the face of their capability, they were quiet, balanced well, tracked true, and wore very well. General knocked this one out of the park.
However, they are HEAVY. In a 315/75-16 on an alloy wheel, I was at over 100 lbs per at 35 PSI. They certainly were not kind to my woeful Toyota compact front end components. But then again, neither were the lighter STT Pros.
Consensus: one of the best-performing tires I’ve ever used, however you can’t half ass maintenance on any of your unsprung components on these things. And they aint exactly a budget tire, either. General’s 15 mins of fame in the overland sphere seems to have faded into oblivion, but this is still an option (and a great one), especially for full-size trucks.
8.5/10
TOYO OPEN COUNTRY AT3: A wholly competent all terrain with fantastic longevity, it won’t wow you anywhere…but it will always do its job. These tires adorn both my CO daily driver Suburban in a 255/80-17 pizza cutter and my OR Ram 1500 in a 285/75-17. They’ve had no qualms about ripping over high desert rocks, tracking faithfully through sheets of alpine ice and snow, or punching down highways at 80 MPH. Wear pattern is good, although my one gripe would be with some highway-speed shimmies. Being on new wheel bearings, ball joints, and tie rods in the Burb as of February, I have to look at tires when that feint rattle and shake starts becoming noticeable above 65 MPH. Especially because I get a bit of the same on the Ram. Nothing insufferable or even annoying, but noticeable.
I still wouldn’t hesitate to recommend these tires or run them again. I have done solo winter timber-cutting runs in the Central OR forest with these tires and never once thought I was at risk of getting stuck, much like taking the Burb out to elk hunt at 10K feet in fresh snow was a breeze. In both trucks I am able to go hammer down over dirt and rocks with no kick outs or cookies. I mentioned a few years back that the Goodyear Duratrac was my gold standard all-purpose tire, and these have unwittingly taken the crown.
8/10
FALKEN WILDPEAK MT: Good rock/dirt performer, meh snow performer. In a 37x12.5-17, these kept my 3/4 Ram moving fairly well, but didn’t light up the show offroad. In summer, they’re perfectly up to the task; it’s that damn winter that showcases their shortcomings. On many a trek up snowy Oregon switchbacks, I found the truck bogging down and coming to a halt. Limited slip could not keep the 850 ft/lbs of turbo diesel torque in check with these tires, and I often found myself hopping or spitting snow all over the place. Same story when I got stuck near AZ’s North Rim in late spring snow. I only pulled cable once on the afore-mentioned Arizona run at nearly 8K feet, but was stopped many times. Sometimes reversing and keeping momentum worked. Other times, I abandoned the path after multiple attempts to feather the throttle just enough to keep the power band in range without breaking the tires loose. They were up to your typical 4-6” snowfall on relatively flat trails, however.
85 MPH with a single finger was nice, as was the silence on the pavement. Hard to do with an aggressive tire underneath a truck tipping the scales at 10K lbs loaded. Unfortunately, they exhibited some uneven wear after about 10K miles. Full size enthusiasts might want to make note as a result. If you have the mind to not go blasting around in single-digit February temps to camp, or avoid two hour long solo trail-clearing, they’ll be excellent. Snow-bashers need not apply.
7/10
NITTO RIDGE GRAPPLER: A good performer with some behavior issues; I see in these Nittos a less severe version of Cooper’s woes. I ran these in a 37x12.5-17 on my JKUR during my 2022 campaign of CO>OR>CO>OR>CO>OR loops. A Wrangler is known for being a romantic for the utilitarian 4x4s of yesterday; little in the way of road noise mitigation being a part of that. I’d be hard-pressed to blame the road noise entirely on the tire as a result, but spend a day on Jeep Forums or boards and you’ll find that plenty of folks have found tires that hum along unnoticed. The Ridge Grappler is not one of them.
A unique tread pattern does pretty well at hooking up in terrain. Spring snow in Central OR was taken easily, and the CO rock slabs on trails like China Wall were taken on without too much fuss. I cannot assign either causation or correlation to said pattern, but I did notice that these unique lugs seemed to unfortunately wear fairly unevenly. I could see a notable degradation in under 5K miles. Balancing seemed to go just fine, for what it’s worth.
A fine performer on the trail, but not mind-blowing. Fine on the highway, but a little noisy. Meh wear. A very middle-of-the-road option.
7/10
MILESTAR PATAGONIA MT (Gen 1): Oh, boy. 2019-2021’s favorite hype tire is a doozy. A buddy gave me a 38x13.5-17 set for the SASsy ‘Hoe at an absolute steal when he upgraded to 40s, and I figured I’d see what was what. The what was a tire that seemed capable of driving upside down on the ceiling, just so long as you didn’t mind it being suicidal in the process.
The tires hooked up over muddy, wet, basketball-sized rocks in the Colorado winter on another of our Suicide Missions. They ate up fresh 8” snowfall on Rampart, even as I pushed the truck up steep, sloppy grades and into ditches and ruts. They ripped through more fresh snow on oddball weekend solos. I’d find dry slabs of granite and sandstone and they’d walk themselves over it without a thought.
They also spit out a mailing envelope-sized chunk of treadblock from the interior carcass in New Mexico. Random pieces of tread vanished into the ether. The sidewalls didn’t flex so much as fold while I stared at them in the side mirrors waiting for that dreaded PSSHHH of air to come blasting out. Going above 70 MPH was like pushing a guy with cauliflower ear and eyebrow scar tissue and seeing what happened next. I think looking at them sideways could take another 1/32” of tread off them.
My experience is not unique, apparently. Friends in the industry tell me the 2nd generation uses a new compound and is much more durable, but I’m hesitant at this point. Typically, a deal that seems too good to be true is. And a monster tire at only 60% of the competition’s price is no exception.
6.5/10
The 2nd gen Ram one ton swap is underway. A set of 38x12.5-17 Falken Wildpeak R/Ts are in the mix for that, and we’ll see if the hybrid tread design and compound can help alleviate some of the M/T shortcomings. I’ve also got a set of 37x12.5-17 Nitto Terra Grapplers for testing that can help determine the same on the Nitto side. I’ll try not to let an election cycle pass before I give my thoughts on those. Until then, friends.
-JOSH