New tires
Token Redneck
Joined: Jun 2007
Posts: 9,339
Likes: 350
From: Breckenridge, TX
Congrats on the new tires 
I really do actually like mine, IMO they're a solid investment.
I've had my 295/70R18Es TGs for about 11k miles now. They're holding up alright, I had low expectations for tread life having seen several other sets of Nittos get killed in 30,000 miles. Mine are roughly half gone, but I swear that the first 3/32s disappeared in the first 500 miles. They had a long-tooth wobble to them that is slowing going away with the tread, and a few other odd quirks:
1. I run 70-80psi in the front, because any less and the steering suffers horribly. Worse than d-rated 35s on 17" wheels and a leveling kit with bad caster type slop (which is what I came from), it was almost dangerous in traffic a few times. But a little bit of tread wear and keeping the pressure up solved that problem.
2. I run ~50-55psi in the back, and don't like going any lower because the sidewalls start to sway a little at lower pressures. Even with a pretty solid 400# load (loaded toolbox and a heavy headache rack and rail caps) the tires still aren't sitting flat.
3. Most of my treadwear issues comes from mounting a 295mm wide tire on an 8" rim instead of a 9" rim, and my unwillingness to air down anymore than I already have. I have pronounced crowning wear down the center strip, and that's what will kill these tires early. Probably could have done 30k easily if I had forced them to wear more evenly, but I decided a more stable ride is worth killing the tires faster; just a judgment call on my part.
4. Dropped a few MPGs going from a 2" leveling kit and 35s to 34" Nittos at stock height. Weird, yes. Surprising? Not really, since I went from a ProComp AT to a solid lug MT tread, and the Ranch Hand hadn't been on long enough with the 35s for me to figure out what that cost me. I really could care less about 2mpg, my truck weighed in an 8100# last time, so getting 14 consistently is all I could ask of it. It can still hit 85mph in a hurry to pass anything on the highway. (Speedo is programmed for stock 275/70R18s, so I'm reading 2mph slow, and yes, I accounted for that).
5. I'm NOT complaining about anything I've written above. I knew all these issues ahead of time, and I had correspondingly low expectations about tread life and pavement performance. But in my experience, these tires were absolutely amazing for an M/T tire in all the ice we had this winter, and they've never once broken loose on wet pavement during braking. Off road they're awesome,that's expected and it's why I bought an MT and not an AT tire, they clean out really well and you can air them down pretty far without them looking like the bead is gonna blow off.
At the end of the day, they're Nitto tires, so the tread life sucks. I read a dozen reviews on other forums with guys swearing they tow 15k# fivers and get 60k out of them, but I'll either sell them around 18.5k, or replace them at 25k. Personally, I think Super Swamper SSRs might be a better deal, but these are for sure cheaper than Toyos and work perfectly if you don't kill them with highway miles. I'll give them an 8 out of 10, with points lost to tread life and the instability problems I had when they were new.
I really do actually like mine, IMO they're a solid investment.I've had my 295/70R18Es TGs for about 11k miles now. They're holding up alright, I had low expectations for tread life having seen several other sets of Nittos get killed in 30,000 miles. Mine are roughly half gone, but I swear that the first 3/32s disappeared in the first 500 miles. They had a long-tooth wobble to them that is slowing going away with the tread, and a few other odd quirks:
1. I run 70-80psi in the front, because any less and the steering suffers horribly. Worse than d-rated 35s on 17" wheels and a leveling kit with bad caster type slop (which is what I came from), it was almost dangerous in traffic a few times. But a little bit of tread wear and keeping the pressure up solved that problem.
2. I run ~50-55psi in the back, and don't like going any lower because the sidewalls start to sway a little at lower pressures. Even with a pretty solid 400# load (loaded toolbox and a heavy headache rack and rail caps) the tires still aren't sitting flat.
3. Most of my treadwear issues comes from mounting a 295mm wide tire on an 8" rim instead of a 9" rim, and my unwillingness to air down anymore than I already have. I have pronounced crowning wear down the center strip, and that's what will kill these tires early. Probably could have done 30k easily if I had forced them to wear more evenly, but I decided a more stable ride is worth killing the tires faster; just a judgment call on my part.
4. Dropped a few MPGs going from a 2" leveling kit and 35s to 34" Nittos at stock height. Weird, yes. Surprising? Not really, since I went from a ProComp AT to a solid lug MT tread, and the Ranch Hand hadn't been on long enough with the 35s for me to figure out what that cost me. I really could care less about 2mpg, my truck weighed in an 8100# last time, so getting 14 consistently is all I could ask of it. It can still hit 85mph in a hurry to pass anything on the highway. (Speedo is programmed for stock 275/70R18s, so I'm reading 2mph slow, and yes, I accounted for that).
5. I'm NOT complaining about anything I've written above. I knew all these issues ahead of time, and I had correspondingly low expectations about tread life and pavement performance. But in my experience, these tires were absolutely amazing for an M/T tire in all the ice we had this winter, and they've never once broken loose on wet pavement during braking. Off road they're awesome,that's expected and it's why I bought an MT and not an AT tire, they clean out really well and you can air them down pretty far without them looking like the bead is gonna blow off.
At the end of the day, they're Nitto tires, so the tread life sucks. I read a dozen reviews on other forums with guys swearing they tow 15k# fivers and get 60k out of them, but I'll either sell them around 18.5k, or replace them at 25k. Personally, I think Super Swamper SSRs might be a better deal, but these are for sure cheaper than Toyos and work perfectly if you don't kill them with highway miles. I'll give them an 8 out of 10, with points lost to tread life and the instability problems I had when they were new.
