KO3 tires tested by Tire Rack off-road + My Experiences

[Peter949]

I took mine to the sand dunes. Aired down to 15psi and never had any problems. Almost felt as good as having paddle tires.

Then I went on an off road trail with my buddies who have a jeep with 40's and a ZR2. Aired down to 22psi. My Jeep buddy spun the tires a lot while I only spun onece. My ZR2 friend said he has to put it in 4L sometimes. I just put it in off road(4H) and never changed anything.

I'm thoroughly impressed by the whole truck and the tires. I can't say how they'll be at 20k miles but even if I get new tires I'm going to keep these around for maybe some really rocky trails.

I was on a very bumpy rocky trail. 27k miles and the tires did well with minor rock crawling when necessary.

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[MoBob]

I have been through 5 sets on my raptors, mostly KO2’s, and they are not junk. They are good in the snow as well. They require rotation and proper inflation to be at their best. I suspect most run them with a little too much air. Are they the best tire? Probably not, but everything is a tradeoff for some other feature. I routinely have 50- 60k miles on them and they do get a little loud and slippery when the siping wears off. I haven’t found any other that gives me the longevity with a good ride.

 

[AlloyPony]

I think a lot of people hesitate on the KO3 because of how poor the KO and KO2 were. I even had a tire shop manager tell me two summers ago that he no longer recommends BFG to guys when they come in because, in his words, "they're squares". Said he has lots of nightmares trying to get them balanced properly most of the time.

My personal experience with KO and KO2 has been terrible snow and mud traction. The interlocked tread packs up and won't clean itself and then you get severe under-steer going into curves in slippery conditions. Also, the outer tread likes to feather and chop quickly even on a well aligned vehicle. Lastly the rubber compound is notorious for dry rot. Leave a BFG in the sun for a year or two and it'll crack and split like crazy. But, I haven't personally had a tremendous amount of trouble getting them balanced up, so....

What I can say for certain is that the Falken A/T3W and A/T4W are both excellent tires. They wear like iron, grip like a cat on carpet in ANY weather, roll smooth, and look great. I haven't yet found a better A/T category tire.

 

[SRsquared]

A two year old tire (KO3) with that many good reviews and reported mileage is suspicious at best, but sounds more like a corporate shill trying to mitigate reputation damage. My real world experience says that while they may be great on and off road when first broken in (after 1k miles), they turn into hockey pucks around 20k miles. So much so that I have to use 4A to not have the ass end start spinning and sliding when it's slightly damp out. If they can't handle damp pavement, then no way I'm going to trust them in the back country. I am looking forward to being rid of them.



Seriously? Talk to me, and everyone else who has had a similar experience, when you've passed 20k miles. We'll be expecting your apology.

I don't have 20 k miles, but I am not a fan of the ko3. I can't wait to change them.

 

[Lion77]

It would be interesting if Tire Rack tested the KO3 and AT4W off-road. They only have on-road testing, and the off-road test was a first of its kind and only had 4 tires, each with a different overall focus.

While not a direct comparison, I put Falken WildPeak AT's on the wife's AWD Mazda SUV (18' CX-9), which is their road-focused AT tire. They were very good for the first 40k~45k of their wear life (lasted 75k on that car), but after a little over 3 years their wet traction degraded quickly, and the front tires would break lose on pavement even in the warm summer months.

So, the degraded wet performance is pretty much par for the course and my wife definitely noticed that and the substantially reduced snow traction, especially when cornering.

I'm just wondering if we have several things going on here. Compared used KO3's to brand new AT4W's....no crap the AT4W's going to be noticeably better than a KO3 with 30~40k on it.

What if you went back the other way? Could also be some quality control issues too, which happens with every tire mfg., some more than others. I don't have a dog in the fight, once my KO3's need replaced, I can get anything I want, I'm just not convinced the AT4W's are as super-duper as claimed when looking at a wide variety of data, from Tire Racks own testing to user reports to heritage in Baja and other well-known off-road racing.

Doesn't mean the AT4W's are not great tires either, too bad we didn't have some instrumented off-road testing to compare.

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