Interesting thread. My apologies, but here comes a wall or three of text.
From what I've heard, the Duratracs are the way to go (I'm looking at those or BFG KM1 Mud Terrains sometime this fall), but it always comes down to what your needs and limitations are.
As for tread life; that's an interesting subject to me.
My last car was a '98 Camry that I bought a 90,000 tread life tire for. That's a huge amount of security and frankly, something that made me pretty apprehensive of buying a 4Runner, a vehicle I've wanted for off-roading and camping since I was a teenager. Hearing that I would need to spend around $1,000 every couple years for tires (I do quite a bit of driving) was pretty disheartening.
Then I found this guy on ih8mud that got 120,000 miles out of 35" KM1's on his Cruiser.
"No ****ing way," I thought to myself (sorry for profane language, but that was my verbatim thought). More over than that, he sold four of them after one of the steel belts came loose and threaded on him, taking out a fender flare and roughing up some paint. The pictures he posted of the tires had easily 35-40% tread left. That post was a few years old, too. I didn't believe it and I spent some time digging through his posts on the forums to see if I could track down more information.
I found his original post talking about when he purchased them and a few more posts along the way that mentioned odometer readings and how much he had put on them. I was absolutely floored when I found he switched to KM2's after the KM1 mishap (he also, sold his KM1's for $100 a tire because they had plenty of tread left), which he got 100,000 miles out of before finally switching to Duratracs as he didn't like how the KM2's held up compared to his original KM1.
So a couple of things he mentioned stuck out to me:
1. He had five tires and did a five-tire rotation, according to what Toyota recommended in the owner's manual.
2. He was extremely diligent about his oil changes and doing a tire rotation with each oil change. He did this every 3,000 miles.
3. He spent 90% of his time on pavement and goes back and forth between Orlando and New York quite often, hence 120,000 miles in just a couple years with the tires.
4. When he does go off-road, he airs down a little as possible and tries to avoid it unless necessary.
5. His Land Cruiser, a '97 80 series is pretty bad-ass, built and carries a ton of extra weight.
6. He has a train horn mounted to his roof rack and it's wired to the panic button on his key fob. He also has this cool camera setup with a front-facing, one on each side, and a reverse camera. He also mounts go pros inside and out to get some cool footage when he takes his LC out and about. I'll put up links to these in an edit. I don't know what that has to do with the tires, but I thought it was pretty cool.
So I'm the type of person that reads as much as possible on a subject, over thinks things, then makes as much of an educated opinion as I can on something.
I decided to send him a PM on the forum, asking about how he liked his Duratracs, how they were holding up to wear, and if he thought they were worth picking up for myself.
He told me they have about 50,000 miles on them so far and they're still looking nearly new because he hasn't hit many trails lately. He also mentioned that the five-tire rotation is definitely key to getting so much life out of a tire rated for so much less, and that the LC rotation instructions are slightly different because of the solid axle in the front, but the principles should hold the same for a 4Runner, but to make sure I check what Toyota recommends before going with the standard formulas given on many websites as it may differ.
I find this fascinating as one of the biggest expenses we can expect to cover on our trucks is the tires. No matter what we do, these will wear out and we will be paying for more tires. So why not try and get the most out of them? Especially when I go craigslist and see guys selling a set of four tires, or five with four worn and one with zero miles on it.
Have you ever pulled your spare after it's been sitting under the truck for a while? Covered in dirt, drying out (in Arizona), it might still have air or it might not, and if it's really been sitting a while, you'll have worn spots on the sidewalls from sitting up against the bumpers under the truck.
It only makes sense to use this tire and get something more than dead weight out of it. Plus it insures that it's always in a drivable condition with air in it, and not a question mark, waiting to be cranked down to show it's ugly face.
He goes by 98 SNAKE EATER on ih8mud, so check him out if you want to see a bit more on what he's said on the forum about all this. I'll link a couple videos in an edit to check out. Attached is a picture from a fellow forum-member that saw him in traffic. Looks like a tank.
EDIT: Here's and idea how much this guy is driving. Description says he's close to 300,000 miles on the truck and it's September of 2013. A video from June says he's at 329,000.
http://youtu.be/AzWzWegWPOA
EDIT2: So many cameras...the nerd in me is extremely jealous.
http://youtu.be/2eWJ8W87KQM
EDIT3: Train horn + co-worker.
http://youtu.be/bWE5YTauJwM
