I'm finding trying to decide on an upgrade to the stock Bridgestone Dueller HT tire is worse than the actual vehicle buying decision. I want to stay with the 265/70/17 size. I was at Discount tire and they strongly recommend the Goodyear Wrangler UltraTerrain AT in P rating based on my needs. I am 95% pavement with the hopes of doing 5% off road. I have a trip planned to Estes Park in the near future and the most difficult trail I would do would be something like this: YouTube
With that said... in your experience, would you go with a P rated AT or a more substantial C rated AT (thinking a 6 ply KO2). Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

You should consider falken wildpeak at3w LT 265/70r17 as well

I 2nd the AT3W, best tire I have ever had to date.

Add a third vote for the at3w

P or C load?

For what you described and I saw in that video, the AT3W In P would be perfect. They have a 2ply sidewall but it’s folded over on itself so the majority of he sidewall is fairly thick. I did the totally scientific finger pinch before they were mounted and compared to some other popular ATs and found they were thicker than most. The only 2-ply thin areas were between the arrow shaped shoulder lugs.

I’ve done a few trails much more rigorous than that video with my P-rated 265/70/17 AT3Ws and aired down to 21 psi and they performed outstanding. I won’t go much lower than that unless the terrain is totally sand.

Just my .02. They make a 265 and 285 in P, as well as a 275 in C (newer release but it’s about as heavy as the 285).

The LT version is 10 ply sidewalls I believe.

I went with the new Cooper AT3 LT in C load 265/70/17 size. Slightly more aggressive than the prior version. Great in snow and rain.

% means nothing for tires. You can have a crawler that only does 0.2 mile long trails to 2.0 mile long trails. It will need the strongest tires. You may only do easy trails but if they are covered by small sharp rocks, they will be anything but easy for the tires.

C-load Wildpeak gives nothing over P for offroad per Falken themselves. It is nearly 10 pounds heavier per tire. I would not touch a D or E load that does not also have a 3rd ply in the sidewall.

P-metric has been good for me in the harsh Southwest terrain but not perfect on the 4R. Airing them down is a mistake.

There is no need to air down P metric tires for traction or comfort. You are exposing the sidewalls at 21 psi a great deal. One rock in the right spot at the right time and you are done. I have thousands of miles on P metric tires offroad and keeping them at street/near street pressures is the ticket.

The Ultraterrain is a lot more expensive than the Wildpeak with nothing to show for the price differential.

The Discount TIre certificates help.

I have C-range KO2s, the C range feel just as comfortable on road as P tires. They're heavier, I have about .5mpg drop, but I havent experienced the harsh ride you get with E range tires.

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Turns out they are C rated 6 ply.

I am most likely going with these in 275 this spring.

So the 3,428 other topics on the exact same dilemma didn't suit your particular inquiry??

I had the Cooper AT3s in 265 C-rated and found they were ridiculously stiff on the 4 runner (they actually felt better on my Touareg).
I now have the Wildpeaks in 285 P and feel they'll be fine for me.

First of all, an E rated tire doesn't necessarily have 10 plies and neither does a C rated tire mean it has 6 plies. It depends on the manufacturer and how thick and strong each ply is.

My opinion is to go with a C rated tire that is lightweight. For some reason the Falken C rated tire is almost as heavy as the E rated tire. I would recommend the C rated K02. The 265/70R17 tire is 45.5 lbs. Not bad for an all terrain tire. It is only 2 ply but they are thicker than the E rated plies which has 3.

The Jeeps at a rental place in Ouray, CO have Rubicon's with KO2 C-rated and they have them on the trails 99% of the time and no problems.

You may get by with a P-rated tire off road, but in my case I blew out 2 P-rated tires at once on my old Ford Escape on a very mild "4x4" road. Granted, they were Continental Contratracs which suck but I did read one post on here with someone with a Duratrac blowing out on a Jeep trail.

I have the 285/70R17 KO2s C-rated tires on my rig and love them. 51.5 lbs

Sorry to dig up this thread, but here I am. I went with P265/70R17 Wildpeaks on my 2023 ORP. Just did California/Engineer/Cinnamon passes in Colorado, and they did fine. Super love how they drive on-road as well. I aired them down to like 30psi offroad (or maybe it ended up being 28psi, can't quite remember) in the hopes of a little more comfort. I figured being a P-metric, I shouldn't air them down all too much. Even 25psi sounds like it might be working a P-metric's sidewalls too hard. It's tricky to research "offroading with P metrics", because there's at most 1/10th the information/opinion from experience that there are compared to offroading with LT's. There's still a lot of guys who think you'll pop all 4 P-metrics the second you get on a maintained dirt road.