Currently we have Falken Wildpeak At3W 285/70 SL with about 6 or 7 32nds left.
They are really loud. Get caught in grooves of the road easily. And in general don't seem to track very well anymore.
Considering of skipping out on this last few thousand miles and getting Michelin Defender LTX as Costco has a really good deal on them right now.

Questions are: Will I see a substantial improvement in noise and handling (both tracking and the general feel - as I have mentioned before I think the truck drives really rough but it could be the eibach suspension)?

Thanks

They are absolutely the best tires, no noise do well in all kind of terrain, wet, snow as well as dirt good mpg. Their down side is that they look like street tires.

Yeah. I know my truck is going to look even more like the mall crawler it has become but oh well. I'm a grown man and not concerned with others laughing at my vehicle.

Thanks for the advice.

How ironic this question came up. Over the weekend, I drove my friends 2021 SR5 4x4 1100 miles & he had the Michelin LTX Defenders on in the OEM size. I commented to him that his SR5 rode like a Cadilac. Extremely smooth & quiet compared to my Goodyear Duratracs. It was like a night/day difference.

Cool. I'm going back to OEM size as well. Doing what I can to convert this to a road trip vehicle until we decide what to get next.
At least it's paid off.

General ATX

I have the BFG KO2. Great tires! I took them on a 3,000 road trip from the SF Bay Area to Colorado. Drive like a dream. Very good off road too. The only con is I saw my MPG drop a little. I use to get about 17.5 with the Terra Grapper and now I get about 17.

I have the same falkens and I love them. Not sure what noise you're hearing. I haven't noticed that. They also handle superbly and I'm an adrenaline junkie. This is my second set. My first set I was disappointed at first as they weren't handling well, with some body roll. The tire pressure is very important. I kept raising the pressure to stiffen the sidewalls until it handled like a coupe. On a 3" lift the magic number was 42 psi. I am on 2" wheel spacers also so that helps in cornering performance. I'm on an aftermarket off-road suspension lift also. You'll feel a lot more feedback from the road. You may need to switch to grandpa mode for the escalade or navigator 😬. The little skinnies may just have less noise but nothing else except for the lack of capability to use your amazing 4wd..

As you can see from my sig i wheel quite regularly but this rig happens to also commute 80 miles a day for work… I will tell you these toyos at3 are great on AND off the road… I’m at 42k miles and I still have enough tread to comfortably likely reach 55-60k before even needing to think of looking for new tires… when that time comes I’m getting 315s of the same tires

@Bry n Surprised you have gotten such good mileage on your Toyos. I'm already down to 6/32 and only have 25k on the Falkens.

Still, I'm not looking for aggressive AT tires. I'm not interested in typical ATs at all. The Cooper Discovers would be my limit and are still overkill. I just need enough for the occasional fire roads as most of the time the truck is used on road trips to the mountains or is our lumber getter. This truck is 90% road use now so I'm looking for something that handles better (not as jarring over bumps and holes) and is less noisy than typical ATs but still has enough grip to do some minor exploring. Everything I've read about the Defenders indicate that they are good for that but I wanted some advice from people with T4Rs that have had them. I read a write up from someone that does some pretty major overland type trips with either a Land Cruiser or LR5 (can't recall) with them and it was very positive - I just can't find the link.
I'm also interested in clawing back some torque the truck has lost with the larger, heavier AT tires and hoping the Michelins will do that.

But, hey, at least @Jakeepoo3 was able to come here and swing his dick a bit.

I put the defenders on my 4 Runner five years ago.
Two years ago I bought a set for My K2500 Suburban.
They work great on both.

LTX is a great tire only downside is looks I have a set on our rav4 3 years and have been perfect on my 4Runner I run wildpeaks with about 15k and they look the part as well as run like a gazelle through the woods

What load tire are you running C, D or E?

What are pressure are you running too?

If you had suspension work done, did you have an alignment done at the same time?

I am running the Duratracs in 255/75/17 mounted on SR5 wheels with stock suspension. (winter/snow tires) They aren't listed as an LT tire in this size so I am assuming that they are a "Passenger" tire. Air pressure is at 38 lbs cold.

My $0.02? A SL load Duratrac is maybe not the right tire for the weight of these rigs. And running at 38psi isnt helping. Try dropping to 30-32 cold and see if the drive is better, tracking improves? You may lose a slight amount of MPG, but ride quality to me would be more important than losing 25 miles per tank.

For future, these rigs IMO run best in a C load tire. Move to a stiffer D or even stiffer E, and you really have to drop psi to make a comfortable drive, but then again, it all depends on what you do with your rig on the regular.