Goodyear Wrangler Fortitude HT

Hi everyone. Just picked up a 2007 Explorer XLT last weekend. It’s in need of tires but otherwise appears to be in great shape. My father in law is a master tech at the local ford dealer and he texted today saying that his dealership had some brand new 265/70 r17 Goodyear Wrangler Fortitude HTs that were a takeoff from a customer who wanted some MTs mounted on his new truck instead. So, he could pick up the set for $60 per tire. This is not a tire I would ever consider under normal circumstances, but that just happens to be the max size my explorer is likely to fit and $260 for a set of new tires is a good price. I’ve had great luck with Yokohama Geolandar g015s on my 3rd gen explorer and was planning on getting those on my 4th gen before this came up today. My driving habits are mostly paved highway and side roads, a decent amount of gravel and some light off road. I do not rock crawl or anything like that, but I do take my explorer down some fairly steep and twisty one track gravel paths through the woods and would want to be able to take a fire road or logging road on a trip without worrying. I think my biggest concern is mid Missouri winters. We have had single storm snowfall of over 10 inches in the past several winters, with one storm two winters ago topping 22 inches. With my geolandars, I just opened the garage door and drove out, driving up and down a few times making a path through the driveway for my wife’s fusion. I know that OEM equipped tires are never the most capable, but just wondering if anyone here has used them. I’ve searched some f150 forums and people seem to be very ready to swap them out for something better, which makes me a bit apprehensive. Thanks for any advice!

 

[awaympar]

Check out Toyo all terrain tires, particularly the Toyo Open Country A/T III tires. It has good feedback on and off-road and even performs well in snow.

 

[Allen Clark]

Would you mind sharing your experience using this tire? It's been a couple of months since you installed it.

 

[BAMxi]

Ended up not buying them. I noticed some irreparable damage to the stock 17s that was causing one to slowly leak air. So I’m currently running the stock 16s off an 02 Explorer with Yokohama Geolandar ATs. I’ve ran those tires for 4ish years and am really impressed with them. I did talk to a couple guys who had those fortitude HTs on their newer f150s and they seemed reasonably happy with them. I think they’re probably worth it if you can get them for cheap and you mainly drive on pavement, but otherwise there are better options out there.