New Shoes - Goodyear Wrangler Duratracs

After over 3 years running Kumho muds, I finally made a switch to Goodyear Wrangler Duratracs. Stayed the same size, 33x12.50x15. I was looking to move from muds to ATs. These are classed as ATs, but they're closer to a mud, in my opinion. Love the look of them, and haven't heard a bad thing from anyone who has run them. Toyota guys in particular seem to LOVE the damn things, and give them very high marks for driving in the snow. With the winter bearing down on us north east guys, I'll get to test this claim soon enough.

I really dig the look so far, time will tell how they perform. Here's a couple of crummy night pictures until I can get some daylight shots.

EDIT: Better photos added.

 

[Glen4X4]

Sounds good Jason...they look better on your truck then they did on the tire sales sites.

 

[turboexplorer]

Glad to hear thy are working good for you. I have the last version of the wrangler and have liked them. Love snow wheeling, almost as much as rocks so will keep those tires in mind. Look good to. Agressive but still looks like does well on the highway.

 

[GRNMACHINE]

Great Looking tire and somewhat affordable for Goodyear. Had a set of old Goodyear Wrangler A/T's (which looked a little more like a M/T than an A/T-loved em. Been looking for a decent set of snow tires in 285/75/16's to put on some chrome 16x7's sitting in the basement. Last year ran Pro Comp Xterrain's in 31x12.50 on black rock crawlers. They performed well but look too short.

Based on your review/pics going to look for some Goodyears. Your truck looks awesome!

 

[Paraphoe]

Powering through snow is one thing...but what about BRAKING performance?

If it can stop predictably in deep snow and in the wet slushy stuff on pavement, THEN it might be a 5 star tire.

Pretty damn good braking, too. Much better than my Kumhos. Not a bad thing to say about these tires.

 

[RaveDigger]

Just an update here - we got about 18 inches of snow last night, and at 3 am I went out to have some fun and tackle some unplowed parking lots, drifts, and streets. Unbelieveable what I went through and kept going. I was basically TRYING to get the truck stuck, and couldn't. I was hitting walls of snow so high that my grill and headlights were getting jammed up with snow. I thought to myself going in that I wasn't going to make it multiple times, and every time the truck powered through.

Bottom line is that these tires are 5 star in the snow. Unbelieveable performance.

I've basically found the same with my set of tires. I'm in the northeast and we've gotten slammed with snow and I've been out in it. These are quite possibly the best winter tires I've ever owned.

 

[storlied]

Its been awhile man, what are the updates on these tires?.. lol

I got these a month or so ago to replace the BFG A/T's.

 

[RaveDigger]

I still love mine after using them for 8 or so months.

 

[storlied]

How are they wearing? I've only had mine on the street, wet and dry.. and some gravel roads... not really much of anything to get a feel or test them.

It's been so dry here, so no mud to run em through... we'll see about winter.. but even by then I'll be down in the lower 48 probably... lets see how these do on a 4k mile trip. ^_^

 

[RaveDigger]

No wear issues thus far. I rotated them once and included my spare with the rotation. Really couldn't be any happier with these tires for a combo of on and off road performance.

 

[storlied]

Any comments on mud/snow/ice compared to BFG A/T's? Or just in general?

 

[RaveDigger]

I've never had the bfgs, so I cant compare, but i will say that these run better in the snow than anything else I've ever driven. They're siped which is a huge plus for winter driving.

 

[MidnightRebel07]

I just installed these last week on my '03 Sport Trac mounted them on 15x8 Cragar Soft 8's.

Has anyone else had any problems with keeping wheel weights on them, I've been back to Goodyear three times in the last week to get rebalanced. They started out with steel wheel lips weights and had a couple fall off after the first mile of driving, then they installed led weights that formed to the curve better then the steel weights but I had one fall off about 10 miles later. I went back and they put it back on.

They only thing I can think of is the bead/curb gaurd on the bead of the tire is popping them off. Any help would be great because we can't seem to figure out why I keep popping off wheel weights.

 

[gmanpaint]

Dynabeads will remedy the lead weight issue.

http://www.dynabeads.ca/

 

[YoungMounty]

I was on a return trip (120 miles roundtrip) and had a blowout on a DuraTrac with about 16,000 miles on them. Further investigation shows a wheel weight had fallen off. I threw my spare on and continued the trip. Took the tire to Goodyear the next day to get it pro-rated for a new one (got the Road Side Hazard Warranty with them) got a brand new tire for around $50, the old one had relatively no wear. That is the only problem I have experienced and have not heard of a similar event happening. All-in-all, I love these tires even though I experienced a blow-out after about 16,000 miles of usage. These tires perform amazingly in the rain, mud, and snow! When I need new tires I will once again go with the DuraTracs (hopefully in a larger size, 33x12.50x15 perhaps).
IN summary, great tire except for the blow-out issue which may or may not be related to the loss of the wheel-weight. Will definitely buy again especially considering I have heard semi-negative reviews from friends on the BFG A/Ts ranging from wear issues to poor off-road performance.

 

[storlied]

I'd like to say after having these tires through everything now, I would not go back to the BFG's. They simply grip better overall and they definitely don't get all gummed up like the BFG's (A/T) loved to.

 

[RaveDigger]

I've put about 20k on mine. Done lots of wheeling and quite a few trips from MA to Philly, Ohio, South Carolina, and Canada with them. Driven in snow, rain, and mud, and I would buy another set in a heartbeat whenever these wear out. I still have roughly 70% tread on them.

 

[MidnightRebel07]

Here's some pictures of my lifted '03 Sport Trac with the DuraTrac's. I would definetly buy another set of these before I ever bought another set of BFG's.

 

[RaveDigger]

Midnight rebel, I think you and I have the exact same wheels, tires, and center caps:

 

[storlied]

I want your rear bumper.

 

[MidnightRebel07]

Yep, we do. There's a couple others that have the same setup too. I tried to contact RLC to possibly have them build a rear bumper and tire carrier for my Trac but never got any replies so I ordered the spindle kit from EMS Offroad and should have it tomorrow. I'm fabricating my own swing out tire carrier for my Trac, using the stock plastic bumper cover and plastic reinforcement to make it look factory. I'll post pictures in the offroad fab section and in the ST section.