The off-highway tire debate is over, and I’m embarrassed. The winner has been anointed. Sans oil. The inevitable my-tire-is-better threads may now cease. Allow me to proclaim: I've found the tire and they are the prosaic LTXen. Or, rather the
Michelin Defender LTX M/S as officially called.
¡Heresy I speak! “But brah, you don’t do the trails I do,” “Dude, you don’t know what you’re talkin’ ‘bout,” “Yeah my brother watched this YouTube video, and…”
But hear me out. As most revelations
...well...reveal, time, patience, and a "I simply don't care anymore"-approach to things have led me to this nearly universal conclusion. The thing is, everyone who disagrees with the title of this post has every valid counterpoint and argument. For as many years as I dreamed of driving, I had the ubiquitous, full-on belief that “mud-terrain”
tires were all there was to own. Nice big lugs, top and side, were the way to go. Better were when one could aftermarket
sipe them and stud them out, ‘murica-style. Even as I write this, my daily commuter car in my driveway has
Hankook ATMs on it and only because I couldn’t find proper mud-terrains in its P-series sizing.
But I age like fine milk. Classier, better, and more eloquent I don’t become. I realized many years ago that I just really liked the aggressive
look of mud- and all-terrain tires. It changed the vehicle: made it--and me by extension--seem more adventurous. Who doesn’t want to play and look the part?
What changed for me was that I had
sold my LC80 and switched to an LC100 and I needed new shoes for the new ‘Cruiser. Enter Craigslist: 295/70R18 used LTXen for sale. Interesting. A small hair too tall for the Hundy. Fair price. 5k miles rolled on them. Maybe I can save up for a few years for some real tires. At least these big street tires will get me through for a bit. Something aggressive with big side lugs for all those insane trails I do. Yeah, that. T’will make the truck look cool then. Fo sho!
On these LTXen went, and I took my chances. They trekked us all over across the Sonoran and Mojave deserts, you-name-it every trail we know and find in the Four Corners, and seemingly the breadth and depth of the Morrison Formation. Trailer in tow. These embarrassingly tame and lame tires ran at far less than 10psi for far too many off- and on-highway miles to which I should admit.
But once every day for a while I would feel like a total poser: a wanna-be who didn’t know what kind of tires real folks buy and should run. Then once a week for a while I would avert my eyes away from the tires when I drove somewhere. Then once a year for a while I would decide to rotate them. Maybe I kept forgetting these tires were there because they were so silent I could actually hold a conversation with my children at road speeds without the mud-terrain hum ringing in our ears. Yes, slowly I forgot that I was putting my overlanding cred in jeopardy every time I would pass a fellow wayfarer.
Of real jeopardy, I should tell you of a time last year where after several days of perfect low-pressure traction in deep sand dunes, my tire pressure gauge only reported about a ⅓ of the real, actual pressure. Took forever to fill the tires back up, then subsequently camped from mountain shale and forest roads for weeks at 120psi (←you read that right) wondering what could be so wrong with my suspension. I now carry two pressure gauges; I digress.
And there was that other time (of so many) just a few weeks ago at pavement speed coming around a blind turn on Highway 128 in Utah where we struck a large fallen rock straight-on so hard that one of the tires folded both sidewalls and made my steel OEM rim turn the shape of a valentine heart. No big hammer could ever get that wheel true again. That tire is now my spare, but escaped with zero discernible scapes or damage and balances perfectly.
I have found no terrain that I traverse where these tires don’t do exceedingly well. And they’re not extra-siped. Not studded. Not side-lugged. Not Mud Terrains.
Allow me to summarize:
- Sand? Grippy with no torque yank,
- “Moab”/Slickrock. Stick like old honey in your hair on slickrock. To be fair most tires will,
- Highway? Quiet. Like really car-like quiet. No cupping. Marked increase in fuel economy,
- Towing? High pressure inflation. No, don’t run 120psi,
- Full trail use? No punctures, no chunking. Conformant at low pressures to wrap the surface. Not the slightest bit of negative anecdote for lateral traction.
- Snow + Ice? Look at the designed sipes! and add soft compound. Out of the ballpark in comparison to any legacy AT/MT,
- Mileage? 70k likely with compound still pliable and soft for high-mileage winters.
“Listen, I hear you amigo, but I need a truly aggressive and voided tread. I mean, what about mud?” I’m quite confident the LTXen
suck in mud. But so does every mud-terrain tire I’ve ever driven. I’ve been trapped before in mild flash flooding on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in brand-new knobby MTs, they did jack all to help. Only a winch saved me there, and dozens and dozens of
other times.
I need help letting go of my toxic desire for aggressive-looking tires; I’m too old and busy now to worry about my past postulant ways.
How do I simply accept these LTXen as arguably superior tires?
My pontification was quite tongue-in-cheek, but in most "overlanding" conditions, I think my statement holds somewhat well.