Mudderoy
09-15-2011, 09:13 AM
My wife and I bought our 1998 Jeep new. I've had many sets of tires on it since we bought it, but about 4 years ago I lifted it and put some BFG MT KM 32x11.5.15 tires on it. The 32's were nice at first, much louder than the stock GoodYear Wranglers that I had run many times before, but that is what I expected for a mud terrain.
After about 6 months they started to scallop, or cup on the outside edges. Front only. The ride got very rough. Replacing wheel bearings, putting on a heavier duty shock seemed to help the situation, but not completely cure it.
As I would rotate front to back and have the tires balanced I would get varying degrees of a smooth ride.
Yesterday I purchased a set of BFG KM2 MT 33x12.5x15. This was the size I knew I wanted originally, but I didn't have the money for all the mods to ensure I would have enough open fender space. I'll say I really liked the tread pattern on the KM's better.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-vEBgVgg2_Zw/TnFon4vLXYI/AAAAAAAABMw/0WnuqBxFahU/s1024/2011-09-14%25252017.42.48.jpg
As I drove out of Discount Tire things just didn't feel right. And I mean as soon as I started driving forward. Not when I got out on the street.
There was NO, or at least very little vibration, noise, and I felt like I was floating on something. It was a very strange feeling. As soon as I got out on to the road the feeling persisted. The Jeep was just as responsive to steering wheel input, so it wasn't anything that felt dangerous, just very very different.
I accelerated out on to I-10 to head home. It was a little harder to get the Jeep up to speed, but this could just be due to me being in a NEW situation and perhaps just being hyper critical.
I ran the Jeep up to 70 in short order and maintained that speed easily. I brought up the GPS speedometer to see how far off my analog speedo was from the calculated GPS speed. Between 1 and 1.7 MPH slower.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-qPfXxZXyW90/TnFoCRjO8iI/AAAAAAAABMQ/cGTrq816hXc/s1024/2011-09-14%25252018.31.57.jpg
After getting her home I picked up the wife and kiddos and we headed out for a meal. With in a mile I started getting comments. First from my wife. "This is SO much quieter!" "So I guess it was the tires?" One of my daughters "Hey I can hear myself think!"
I don't believe anyone said anything about the smoothness of the ride but they all noticed a vast difference in the level of sound that was in the Jeep. My wife said "It doesn't sound like it is echoing in here anymore." I believe she even said "This is even pleasant to ride in now!"
All these comments were spontaneous, not in response to 35 questions from me all being "So what do you think?!?!?!?" They did know the tires had been changed, but I don't believe they would have commented if they hadn't noticed a real audible change.
So as I mentioned at the top of this review I just bought these, so I have yet to have them long enough to experience any problems like I did with the KM tires. Time will tell, and of course, I'll update this thread as they do.
I am very happy with my purchase and the smoothness and much lower volume on a semi aggressive mud tire, well if they last 4 years and 50k+ miles like the KM's I'll be a very happy camper.
At the time of the writing of this review I highly recommend these tires. :patriot:
After about 6 months they started to scallop, or cup on the outside edges. Front only. The ride got very rough. Replacing wheel bearings, putting on a heavier duty shock seemed to help the situation, but not completely cure it.
As I would rotate front to back and have the tires balanced I would get varying degrees of a smooth ride.
Yesterday I purchased a set of BFG KM2 MT 33x12.5x15. This was the size I knew I wanted originally, but I didn't have the money for all the mods to ensure I would have enough open fender space. I'll say I really liked the tread pattern on the KM's better.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-vEBgVgg2_Zw/TnFon4vLXYI/AAAAAAAABMw/0WnuqBxFahU/s1024/2011-09-14%25252017.42.48.jpg
As I drove out of Discount Tire things just didn't feel right. And I mean as soon as I started driving forward. Not when I got out on the street.
There was NO, or at least very little vibration, noise, and I felt like I was floating on something. It was a very strange feeling. As soon as I got out on to the road the feeling persisted. The Jeep was just as responsive to steering wheel input, so it wasn't anything that felt dangerous, just very very different.
I accelerated out on to I-10 to head home. It was a little harder to get the Jeep up to speed, but this could just be due to me being in a NEW situation and perhaps just being hyper critical.
I ran the Jeep up to 70 in short order and maintained that speed easily. I brought up the GPS speedometer to see how far off my analog speedo was from the calculated GPS speed. Between 1 and 1.7 MPH slower.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-qPfXxZXyW90/TnFoCRjO8iI/AAAAAAAABMQ/cGTrq816hXc/s1024/2011-09-14%25252018.31.57.jpg
After getting her home I picked up the wife and kiddos and we headed out for a meal. With in a mile I started getting comments. First from my wife. "This is SO much quieter!" "So I guess it was the tires?" One of my daughters "Hey I can hear myself think!"
I don't believe anyone said anything about the smoothness of the ride but they all noticed a vast difference in the level of sound that was in the Jeep. My wife said "It doesn't sound like it is echoing in here anymore." I believe she even said "This is even pleasant to ride in now!"
All these comments were spontaneous, not in response to 35 questions from me all being "So what do you think?!?!?!?" They did know the tires had been changed, but I don't believe they would have commented if they hadn't noticed a real audible change.
So as I mentioned at the top of this review I just bought these, so I have yet to have them long enough to experience any problems like I did with the KM tires. Time will tell, and of course, I'll update this thread as they do.
I am very happy with my purchase and the smoothness and much lower volume on a semi aggressive mud tire, well if they last 4 years and 50k+ miles like the KM's I'll be a very happy camper.
At the time of the writing of this review I highly recommend these tires. :patriot: