RedApe
New member
Thread borrowed from http://ct4wd.com
D_ICK Cepek Mud Country Review: (sorry for the odd underscore...the name is a filtered word)
Test Vehicle:
94 4Runner SR5
Shopping:
I've had the experience now, after a few years behind the steering wheels of 4x4's, of running a pretty wide range of tires, on 4 different rigs.
82' LWB Toyota PU:
- 235x75x15 Woosung AT's
- 33x12.5x15 Yokohama Mud Diggers
- 33x12.5x15 Big O XTs
- 33x12.5x15 Super Swamper Radials
97 Jeep TJ
- 30x9.5x15 BFG AT KO
- 31x10.5x15 Goodyear MT/R
- 33x12.5x15 Super Swamper SSR
- 33x12.5x15 Interco TRXUS MT
94 XJ Country
- 30x9.5x15 BFG AT KO
94 4Runner
- 31x10.5x15 BFG Long Trail (the tires to replaced as subject for this article)
I've wheeled all of the above. I've driven in snow with all of the above, street and trail. I've daily driven all of the above. I've done long distance trips on all of the above.
The point that I'm making here, was that as time came to replace the tires on my 94 4Runner SR5, I had a pretty clear idea of what I was looking for.
A tire that had to:
- wear well on the street
- could not be a hinderence on winter roads here in Alberta
- perform on the trail
- have excellent gravel road handling characteristics (with the new family, we will likely be doing much more Expedition style back country travel than rock crawling...in the short term anyhow)
- low noise
- be available in 31x10.5x15
Simple, right? Well not so much. WOW, has the tire market ever changed. Almost every manufacturer out there is coming up with inventive tread patterns, side lug designs, moisture and material channels, siping, silica compound injection, hyperdrives, and flux capacitors. For the most part, gone are the days of a cookie cutter tread design in a mud terrain (MT) and all terrain (AT) by multiple manu's that likely shared the same manufacturing plants. What does that mean to us as the consumer, and more importantly the enthusiast you ask? Well, it means we're starting to get what we want. It's going to be a bit easier for me to find something in the market to match my 6 points above.
Top contenders for the replacement of my BFG Long Trails on the 4Runner, after some research online, and speaking with local dealers:
Mickey Thompson MTZ
**** Cepek Mud Country
ProComp Xtreme MT
Nokian Vatiiva MT
Interco TRXUS MT
Cooper Discoverer STT
The above designs all meet most of my criteria. We can see, from the advertisement photos, that each example has an aggressive design, siping in the lugs, side biters etc. All are available in the size of choice.
I narrowed down the selection to the Nokian Vatiiva MT and **** Cepek Mud Country. Between these two, it was a very tough choice.
Nokian's reputation in their all-weather WR and now WR G2 passenger tires for one of the best rubber compounds available on the market was certainly attractive for a tire that would see Calgary winter roads. The tread pattern is excellent (light on the side biter, in my opinion, but I was willing to overlook). So, I visited the only dealer in the province of AB for Nokian: Kal Tire. The rep was very excited to sell me a set of 5 (no, I only need 4 guy), and after not listening for a second time...he priced out a set of 5. Meh. At a price of $265/ea for 31's...HOLY S_-_! Two Hun....hun....Two....
Have prices changed that much?? I was at the counter to possibily purchase the Nokians...and walked away because of the inflexibility of a monopoly on the tire make.
With the Mud Country's, I had done the same approach with 2 local 4x4 shops. The starting price was about the same as the Nokians, but with competition between the two shops, Drew @ Modern Motors ( http://www.modernmotors.com/ ) did a piece of superior business and got me into the tires @ a hair under $200/ea.
Tires were installed on New Years eve, 2008. The day was COLD (-17* if I remember), and the roads were compact snow/ice covered.
The 4Runner:
Courtnee and I had become 'accustomed' to driving the 4Runner in the snow. We were ALWAYS in 4wd, cause we couldn't go anywhere without it.
Having purchased the rig in Sept of 08, the first real snow fall we encountered was the day of the Fourwheel Stampeders annual Xmas Toy Run. The event started at Bowness Park, and there was about 4-6” of snow on the ground. We came into the parking lot, and were driving through a section of virgin snow...and we got....S-T-U-C-K. Yes, stuck. We were in 2wd at the moment, flipped to 4Hi, and had to use excessive tire spin and rpm's to traverse the PARKING LOT. Either the truck was garbage in the snow (how could it be, it's a Toyota??) or the Long Trails were not adept in the snow on the 4Runner.
Tire Design:
VERY happy with the design from **** Cepek. Agressive lugs, side biters, siping, and a center channel for the displacement of snow/ice/mud/rain. We should be able to handle anything that a Canadian winter can throw at us, travel the back country, and wheel most terrains aired down without a concern.
10/10 in this category.
Road Noise:
The Mud Country certainly sounds like a MT. It doesn't, nor will it, have a Float Plane droan to it like Interco's Swamper lineup, but it's certainly not as quiet as the Big O XT that I ran on the '82; especially considering the lack of noise insultation the 82 had in comparrison.
6/10 in this category.
Winter Driving:
The purchase of the Mud Country's, and the drive home from Modern, was an absolute delight. What a difference! The hill we need to climb to get out of our neighborhood, which had ALWAYS been a 4wd hill for the 4Runner, was now 2wd.
Testing on this hill was as follows:
- climb @ 20Km/h = pass
- climb @ 20 Km/h, then kick the auto into passing gear = pass
- stop on hill, and start out with tire spin/rpm to get to speed = pass
- stop on hill, and crawl to top (rpm < 1000) = pass (this one surprised me, so I've done this one 2 dozen times or more, in varying temperatures).
These tests were performed on hard pack snow/ice approx 3-4” thick. Anyone in Calgary knows what the side roads look like in January after a handful of Chinooks, and temperature drops. The tests were ALL done in 2WD!
Braking in the winter, and more importantly trying to guage good vs bad, is not easy.
Factors to consider:
- Vehicle weight
- temperature
- material on the road (fresh snow, frozen snow, ice, snow on ice, cleared etc)
- whether the roads' been sanded, salted, or both
- tire pressure
- @ intersection, or on straight-away (intersections, because all/most activity is other vehicles stop/starting, will likely be worse than the rest of the road)
- velocity
- ABS combinations (RR, FR, FR/RR, none)
- etc
Very dificult to put much to this. Does the 4Runner stop better than with the BFG's? Well, it appears to. I think a better way of thinking about this concept is that it appears to HANDLE a stop better with the new tires....
Normal driving for us ranges from grocery getting, highway, and back country in the winter. The Mud Country scores an 8.5/10 over all in the winter driving conditions.
D_ICK Cepek Mud Country Review: (sorry for the odd underscore...the name is a filtered word)
Test Vehicle:
94 4Runner SR5
Shopping:
I've had the experience now, after a few years behind the steering wheels of 4x4's, of running a pretty wide range of tires, on 4 different rigs.
82' LWB Toyota PU:
- 235x75x15 Woosung AT's
- 33x12.5x15 Yokohama Mud Diggers
- 33x12.5x15 Big O XTs
- 33x12.5x15 Super Swamper Radials
97 Jeep TJ
- 30x9.5x15 BFG AT KO
- 31x10.5x15 Goodyear MT/R
- 33x12.5x15 Super Swamper SSR
- 33x12.5x15 Interco TRXUS MT
94 XJ Country
- 30x9.5x15 BFG AT KO
94 4Runner
- 31x10.5x15 BFG Long Trail (the tires to replaced as subject for this article)
I've wheeled all of the above. I've driven in snow with all of the above, street and trail. I've daily driven all of the above. I've done long distance trips on all of the above.
The point that I'm making here, was that as time came to replace the tires on my 94 4Runner SR5, I had a pretty clear idea of what I was looking for.
A tire that had to:
- wear well on the street
- could not be a hinderence on winter roads here in Alberta
- perform on the trail
- have excellent gravel road handling characteristics (with the new family, we will likely be doing much more Expedition style back country travel than rock crawling...in the short term anyhow)
- low noise
- be available in 31x10.5x15
Simple, right? Well not so much. WOW, has the tire market ever changed. Almost every manufacturer out there is coming up with inventive tread patterns, side lug designs, moisture and material channels, siping, silica compound injection, hyperdrives, and flux capacitors. For the most part, gone are the days of a cookie cutter tread design in a mud terrain (MT) and all terrain (AT) by multiple manu's that likely shared the same manufacturing plants. What does that mean to us as the consumer, and more importantly the enthusiast you ask? Well, it means we're starting to get what we want. It's going to be a bit easier for me to find something in the market to match my 6 points above.
Top contenders for the replacement of my BFG Long Trails on the 4Runner, after some research online, and speaking with local dealers:
Mickey Thompson MTZ
**** Cepek Mud Country
ProComp Xtreme MT
Nokian Vatiiva MT
Interco TRXUS MT
Cooper Discoverer STT
The above designs all meet most of my criteria. We can see, from the advertisement photos, that each example has an aggressive design, siping in the lugs, side biters etc. All are available in the size of choice.
I narrowed down the selection to the Nokian Vatiiva MT and **** Cepek Mud Country. Between these two, it was a very tough choice.
Nokian's reputation in their all-weather WR and now WR G2 passenger tires for one of the best rubber compounds available on the market was certainly attractive for a tire that would see Calgary winter roads. The tread pattern is excellent (light on the side biter, in my opinion, but I was willing to overlook). So, I visited the only dealer in the province of AB for Nokian: Kal Tire. The rep was very excited to sell me a set of 5 (no, I only need 4 guy), and after not listening for a second time...he priced out a set of 5. Meh. At a price of $265/ea for 31's...HOLY S_-_! Two Hun....hun....Two....
Have prices changed that much?? I was at the counter to possibily purchase the Nokians...and walked away because of the inflexibility of a monopoly on the tire make.
With the Mud Country's, I had done the same approach with 2 local 4x4 shops. The starting price was about the same as the Nokians, but with competition between the two shops, Drew @ Modern Motors ( http://www.modernmotors.com/ ) did a piece of superior business and got me into the tires @ a hair under $200/ea.
Tires were installed on New Years eve, 2008. The day was COLD (-17* if I remember), and the roads were compact snow/ice covered.
The 4Runner:
Courtnee and I had become 'accustomed' to driving the 4Runner in the snow. We were ALWAYS in 4wd, cause we couldn't go anywhere without it.
Having purchased the rig in Sept of 08, the first real snow fall we encountered was the day of the Fourwheel Stampeders annual Xmas Toy Run. The event started at Bowness Park, and there was about 4-6” of snow on the ground. We came into the parking lot, and were driving through a section of virgin snow...and we got....S-T-U-C-K. Yes, stuck. We were in 2wd at the moment, flipped to 4Hi, and had to use excessive tire spin and rpm's to traverse the PARKING LOT. Either the truck was garbage in the snow (how could it be, it's a Toyota??) or the Long Trails were not adept in the snow on the 4Runner.
Tire Design:
VERY happy with the design from **** Cepek. Agressive lugs, side biters, siping, and a center channel for the displacement of snow/ice/mud/rain. We should be able to handle anything that a Canadian winter can throw at us, travel the back country, and wheel most terrains aired down without a concern.
10/10 in this category.
Road Noise:
The Mud Country certainly sounds like a MT. It doesn't, nor will it, have a Float Plane droan to it like Interco's Swamper lineup, but it's certainly not as quiet as the Big O XT that I ran on the '82; especially considering the lack of noise insultation the 82 had in comparrison.
6/10 in this category.
Winter Driving:
The purchase of the Mud Country's, and the drive home from Modern, was an absolute delight. What a difference! The hill we need to climb to get out of our neighborhood, which had ALWAYS been a 4wd hill for the 4Runner, was now 2wd.
Testing on this hill was as follows:
- climb @ 20Km/h = pass
- climb @ 20 Km/h, then kick the auto into passing gear = pass
- stop on hill, and start out with tire spin/rpm to get to speed = pass
- stop on hill, and crawl to top (rpm < 1000) = pass (this one surprised me, so I've done this one 2 dozen times or more, in varying temperatures).
These tests were performed on hard pack snow/ice approx 3-4” thick. Anyone in Calgary knows what the side roads look like in January after a handful of Chinooks, and temperature drops. The tests were ALL done in 2WD!
Braking in the winter, and more importantly trying to guage good vs bad, is not easy.
Factors to consider:
- Vehicle weight
- temperature
- material on the road (fresh snow, frozen snow, ice, snow on ice, cleared etc)
- whether the roads' been sanded, salted, or both
- tire pressure
- @ intersection, or on straight-away (intersections, because all/most activity is other vehicles stop/starting, will likely be worse than the rest of the road)
- velocity
- ABS combinations (RR, FR, FR/RR, none)
- etc
Very dificult to put much to this. Does the 4Runner stop better than with the BFG's? Well, it appears to. I think a better way of thinking about this concept is that it appears to HANDLE a stop better with the new tires....
Normal driving for us ranges from grocery getting, highway, and back country in the winter. The Mud Country scores an 8.5/10 over all in the winter driving conditions.
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