Perfect off-highway tire = LTX? What?

[XJLI]

Mud, no. The tire tests I've seen conclude that even ATs are useless, as the grooves immediately fill with mud. Not all mud is the same though, so maybe there are varieties where a typical AT would be more effective than an LT.

Tests are irrelevant unless you are testing the same circumstances. Mud isn't the same everywhere geographically, and testing tires on a 3800lb Jeep is different than testing them on a 6500lb truck. And tire constructions, from the sidewall to the tread, is vastly different now between different load ratings (flotation, XL, SL, etc) with totally different tread compounds and even designs on the same tire.

I had OG Michelin LTX M/S tires on my stock XJ and they were great tires. But the voids on the new MS2s seem a lot smaller, and I'm worried about puncture resistance. I really love the ideology behind the Toyo M655 and M55 tires... a good, beefy tire that is built for trucks doing long highway hauls and trips on construction sites, ag, mining, etc. But those tires are very limited with sizing. Michelin has seemed to favor fuel efficiency, quiet ride, and lightweight on the last few redesigns of the Defenders.

 

[MidnightCAmper]

I drove Michelin Defender LTX over Donner Pass (I-80 not US 40) in slushy snow in the 2009 Tacoma (now sold.) They felt very secure. On graded or dirt roads I dinged the sidewalls a few times and they held up very well. I didn't off-road over sharp rocks. Sorry - don't know if they were M/S or M/S 2. Bought from Toyota dealer in 2020 only lists Toyota part number.

 

[XJLI]

Mid November and still no mention of 255/65-19 KO3s. I'm about to the wear bars on my Toyos so I may be the newest member of the LTX gang soon.

 

[ricoisme26]

Mid November and still no mention of 255/65-19 KO3s. I'm about to the wear bars on my Toyos so I may be the newest member of the LTX gang soon.

What vehicle has that size tire? outside of performance cars I can't recall seeing a 19" wheel on anything.

 

[XJLI]

What vehicle has that size tire? outside of performance cars I can't recall seeing a 19" wheel on anything.

Stock new Defender size, but it is two sizes up from stock on my LR4 (30-->32" tire).

BFG has announced they will release that size, but the date seemingly keeps getting pushed back.

 

[STREGA]

Just put on a set of LTX MS/2’s on the 2500 Ram Bighorn a few weeks ago, so not enough time yet to give a real accurate assessment of their performance. But so far I’m super impressed with them on their Highway performance which included 400 miles of towing a 27’ travel trailer on some really crappie road surfaces. They haven’t seen any dirt yet so no opinion on their off-road worthiness at this time.

I too had to do some soul searching and admit to myself that I really didn’t need the Falken Wildpeaks after all. The reality is that most of my driving will be on paved surfaces so my tire choice needed to reflect that. It didn’t hurt that the tread life expectancy was higher with the Michelin’s than the Falkens either and they were about $250.00 cheaper for the set to boot. Tires have gotten expensive, talk about sticker shock

Well the Michelins are little over 2 years old now with 30k+ miles on them. If they keep wearing like they have been I will likely get 70k out them easily. I do rotate them and check air pressure regularly of course. Nice even wear across the tread surface.
As I expected most of the miles have been on paved roads and the performance of these tires has been excellent. A nice smooth, quiet ride and they did well in the small amount of snow/ice conditions I encountered. Not a lot of dirt roads driven and definitely nothing technical but they did just fine on what I did.
Overall I’m very happy with them and would buy another set when the time comes for new tires.