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Anyone else thinking of upgrading the Oem tires

12K views 12 replies 10 participants last post by  gmans 
#1 · (Edited)
The Oem Bridgestone tires are a hyway tread, and although a good brand that I know and trust, these Dualer HTs just look like they would be very poor in any sort of bad weather, rain, snow or ice.

The Bridgestone Oem HTs are some of the worst consumer rated tires on tire rack. The tire rack reviews seem to confirm all my concerns about these OEm tires, they have terrible owner ratings in any sort of bad weather.

Where the Bridgestone Alenza HL plus is one of the highest rated tires in this size on tire rack.
I too have owned the Alenza plus before, they made a day and night difference on my old LX570, compare to the nearly new high performance hyway tires that came on my LX.
 
#9 · (Edited)
That's a good tire, I have them on both my Pickups, however it's not available in the P275/60/20 size that the Armada comes with.
That said even if it were, I am not sure I would ever put them on the Armada, they ride a little bit harsh, I know the traction in the snow and mud etc, would be excellent , they are just way to noisy for all highway traveling I plan to be using the Armada for.

I did strongly consider this new Goodyear called the trailrunner AT I thought it had a good look to it, it's spec was little off and it is so new, I wasn't sure I wanted to take a chance on it.

 
#3 ·
I went with Terra Grapplers but mileage life was lacking, although they were great tires. Currently running Groodyitch all terrains. Quiet, great traction in everything, great wear. Always use E series and run them at 62-65 psi (highway) if you do any offroading, the E series will tolerate a cactus environment!
 
#4 ·
I'm a big fan of Michelin tires. My 12 Armada came with Michelin Latitude tires; they were total crap, tread was 1/2 worn at 15,000 miles, plus the sidewalls were cracking. I replaced with Michelin LTX tires, and couldn't be happier. However, the majority of my driving (actually, my wife's driving) is on dry roads, mainly highway. For the occasional off road, they are ok. They also seem to have reasonable traction in snow / ice, not that we get that here in Los Angeles, but we do take our truck to the mountains (Mammoth) and other places with snow (Colorado, Utah).

All in all, very satisfied with these tires, so long as you understand they are not hard core off road tires.

Keith
 
#5 ·
Big fan of michelins here as well. We did have a small storm come thru and the tires held up fine, traction was good for me. Winter is just starting here so i can update once we get more snow here in MN. I've got mixed feelings on the Alenza series tho, been in 4 different vehicles with those tires and the road noise was unbearable in 2 of them.
 
#6 ·
IMO the LTX is the best choice.
 
#8 ·
Which one?

The LTX AT2's I did find very tempting.


I did think the AT2's were a good looking tire. I wasn't crazy about some of it's specs, the ratings were not near as high as the Alenza's. Plus the price was 40-50.00 higher per tire then the Alenza's. The LTX Defender was rated as high and in some cases slightly higher then the Alenza, its specs were off just little and I just didn't care for the looks of the defender, and again the price was 40-50 per tire higher then the Alenza.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/CompareTires.jsp
 
#7 · (Edited)
I have had several sets of Bridgestone Alenza's I have not ever had any issues with excessive noise.

In fact it gets really high marks on Tire rack from consumers for how quiet they are.
Much higher rated then the Bridgestone dueler HTs that come on Armada's.

I swapped mine out for the Alenza's last weekend. By the spec they are identical in size to the Dueler HT's, the Alenza ranked by consumer reviews on tire rack as a top pick in about every category. Far surpassing some of the worst consumer ratings found of the HTs tires that came on the Armada.

So far I have only put maybe 200 miles on the Alenza's, but I would say they are slightly quieter not a lot, the handling is not quite as twitchy feeling as the HTs. There is a full 32nd's more tread on them, then the HTs came with and just by looking at them you can tell they are bound to be much better in any sort of bad weather then the HT's. The rain sipes are 10 fold more extensive then the HT's that have almost no siping at all.

Wide tires with shallow tread and no rain sipes pretty much tells me the HTs may handle well on dry pavement, but will be extremely prone to hydroplaning in the rain.

Alenza plus



vs

OEM HT's



I don't necessarily dislike Michelins, and the defender model is rated just as high as the Alenza in the consumer reviews, I have never had the Defender model, so it might be a great tire.



But I have had sever other Michelins over the years, My LX570 came with them, one of my Land cruiser's came with them, our LS460 came with them, from what I have seen with those tires and granted they were a little bit more of a higher speed maybe considered a performance tire, was that they were expensive to replace and wore out insanely fast 20,000 mile and ready for new ones fast.
To me the Michelin name use to mean a lot, and they were probably worth the price, I use to always buy them, but now days I think they are living off the name. I have not been at all impressed with any of the ones I have had in the past decade.

Comparison chart.
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/CompareTires.jsp



 

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#10 ·
After reading all these threads, I was a bit nervous to get the first snowfall of the season. Well we ended up getting I believe over 4 inches yesterday. The Armada handled great. No issues with the tires at all.
At this point I do not see any reason to change them out.
 
#13 ·
If you ever consider a mild All Terrain tire, I would strongly recommend Discover ATW (also known as AT4).
Very good balance of on-road comfort, off road grip and winter stability.

On the same vein, I would consider the Bridgestone KO2s too, but they are slightly more aggressive and more on the A/T route than passenger tire.

If you have to stay with passenger tire, I would also look into the Michelin Defenders
 
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