Falken Tires
- Thread starter MOAK
- Start date
I had a set of Grabber A/TX and Falken AT3W on my GMC Sierra. IMO the Grabbers had better traction in every condition (mud, snow, dirt, gravel, rain), but I had to replace them due to high speed vibration on the interstate. They were not out of round and their road-force numbers were within GMs specs, but at 75+ mph it was like riding in a paint shaker. Below 72 mph they were smooth, without a hint of vibration. The Falkens fixed the shake, traction was still excellent, and they were wearing well when the truck was totaled.
Todd780
OverCamper
I found the same. My duratracs lasted 70,000 miles! But as you said were loud. Falkens Wildpeaks are supposed to be quieter than Toyos which is why I would have preferred the Falkens. But what can you do... Everything is out of stock these days. I really wanted Nokian Outpost AT's due to how Nokian perform on crappy roads. But no stock on them either until spring....
DRAX
Active member
Out of curiosity, what size are you looking for/having trouble getting?
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Todd780
OverCamper
285/65/20 or 35x11.50R20LT. I was able to get Toyo AT3's in 35x11.5.
DRAX
Active member
Not sure if you checked online or only spoke with your local tire shops, but other than getting a great deal on tires from Costco for my wife's Jeep recently I've been ordering tires online with free shipping and having my local shop install them. Simple Tire and Amazon (Who often times uses Simple Tire but offers a better price) tend to have the best inventory. I actually ordered mine from Simple Tires first, then saw they were much cheaper (at the time) from Amazon. Simple Tire even offers free RETURN shipping, so I returned the ones from Simple Tire and ordered from Amazon...and when they showed up they were from Simple Tire (sold by Amazon, I checked. heh).
Amazon only has 2 in stock currently but a cheaper price -
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I like to shop Tirebuyer.com, which is ATD's online retail arm. Many local tire shops are already supplied by ATD, so if Tirebuyer shows a tire in stock and available for delivery, you should be able to find a local shop supplied by ATD that you can buy the tires directly through (if you don't want to purchase online). Being in Canada could impact Tirebuyer/ATD availability, but right now Tirebuyer shows 4 Falken AT3W in LT285/65R20 available for delivery on 11/18.
Todd780
OverCamper
That is pretty good. Note I am in Canada so there may be a difference in USD vs CDN.
When I look up the Falkens in the size I am after on Amazon this is what I get:
I am going through a local tire shop. It's the one my company deals with so I am getting a 'deal' there.
The Toyos are costing less than the Falkens that I've circled. Couldn't find the Toyos in the size I want on Amazon.ca.
Todd780
OverCamper
You got that right! lolLife in Canada sounds like a blessing and a curse.Good luck with the Toyos!
Thank you.
Alloy
Well-known member
The amount of space between tread blocks. Larger voids = more aggressive = more weight on each tread block = more likely to experience tread block movement which will affect steering, etc.
I'm not sure what size(s) you ran, but we can kind of make some assumptions based on tire weight.
LT285/70R17 LR E Wildpeak has a listed weight of 58.9LB. A KO2 in the same size and load rating is 58.2LB. The KO2 is a little lighter, but you would think if it had a much thicker/stiffer sidewall that would result in a noticeably heavier tire. Yeah?
Something else is your alignment. Have you had it checked recently? How many miles were on your summer tires when you took them off and put the Wildpeaks on? The reason I mention this is if you have some miles on the KO2s then they will generally wear to conform to the alignment, if your alignment is off and you put new tires on then the results can be what you experience. This is another annoyance I have with my current Duratrac tires, they are wearing poorly even with a perfect alignment. Might be PSI related, I've bumped up the PSI a little to see if it helps. Getting to my point, I had my shop do a rotation and check my alignment because the tires were developing poor wear patterns (In the 88k miles on my truck this is the first time I've had poor wear and had to rotate my tires). Alignment was good but when I left the shop my truck was pulling hard to the left and the steering wheel was off-center to the right when going straight. Took it back, shop swapped the front tires left to right (They were previously on the rear for about 8k miles) and the truck drove straight and true, no more pulling. Super strange because there's really no alignment to be done on my rear axle and it was well in spec so there was no reason for the rears to wear unevenly but they did.
Maybe you ended up with some non-uniform tires. I'm not questioning your bad experience or suggesting it didn't happen, I'm just trying to think about what the issue could've been considering the high number of positive reviews of the Wildpeaks.
Maybe I just got some crappy Duratracs, too. Who knows.
Whatever the case, I'm not trying to change your opinion of the tires. You had a bad experience with them and good experience with others. Just thinking out loud.
Today I flipped spun and twirled the Open Country AT3, Wildpeak AT3 and the KO2 . I couldn't figure out what your measuring to say there's a difference in the tread block spacing.
The summer tires were new +/-1000 miles on them.
As to the alignment. I took it to 2 shops and there was nothing wrong. After that I had the tire/wheels road forced balance. It didn't change anything.
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ricoisme26
Active member
No complaints about performance of my wildpeaks on my 2012 f150. Have a little over 22k miles on them they are about half tread but i guess they are at half their life with 50k mile tread wear warranty? expected them to hold the tread a bit longer but that's what i get using an AT like its an HT.
Interested in Toyo AT3 next though, curious if it will hold its tread a bit better
Interested in Toyo AT3 next though, curious if it will hold its tread a bit better
Martinjmpr
Wiffleball Batter
I put Wildpeaks on my half ton Suburban in 2016 because they were about $30/tire cheaper than BFGs and looked very similar. I had no problems with them for 3 years and probably 40,000 miles, much of it towing a trailer through the Western US. When it was time for me to put new tires on my F-150 to replace the crappy Wranglers that came from the factory, I considered the Falken first but the price had gone up significantly since 2016 to the point where they were only a dollar or two less than BFGs. Looking for cheaper options I went with the General Grabber ATX which looks very similar and has an even deeper tread (I think it's 15/32 vs 14/32 on the Falkens) and probably $20 - $25 less per tire. It has the 3 peak/snowflake rating as do the Falkens.
I put those tires on in January of 2021 and I'm very happy with them. I can't honestly comment much on snow performance, as I no longer have to commute to work and we didn't get much snow in the 2021-2022 winter season anyway. On the highway they do well and in the rain as well, no complaints. As with the 'Burb, my F-150 is primarily a tow vehicle for our travel trailer. when we're at home we normally take my wife's CR-V if we have things to do around town.
I think the Falkens are perfectly fine for what I need. I originally bought them because they were less expensive than the BFGs but I don't know if that's still the case (and I know tire prices have gone crazy, SO glad I got tires at the beginning of 2021! Fingers crossed that prices will come back down to earth a little bit before I need to replace the General Grabbers.)
I put those tires on in January of 2021 and I'm very happy with them. I can't honestly comment much on snow performance, as I no longer have to commute to work and we didn't get much snow in the 2021-2022 winter season anyway. On the highway they do well and in the rain as well, no complaints. As with the 'Burb, my F-150 is primarily a tow vehicle for our travel trailer. when we're at home we normally take my wife's CR-V if we have things to do around town.
I think the Falkens are perfectly fine for what I need. I originally bought them because they were less expensive than the BFGs but I don't know if that's still the case (and I know tire prices have gone crazy, SO glad I got tires at the beginning of 2021! Fingers crossed that prices will come back down to earth a little bit before I need to replace the General Grabbers.)
DRAX
Active member
Dunno what to tell you then, seems like you had some odd experience/issue that others haven't. I'd think if what you experienced were due to design or construction of the tire then we should be seeing a lot of people chiming in about experiencing the same thing, but I'm just spitballing since only you knew what you experienced. Oh well.