New Duratracs

blaze17

blaze17

New member
After much deliberation I have gone with 265/75R16 Duratracs in load range E. I will be in plenty of snow, ice, and mud, and traveling over mountain passes this winter. I feel this is the best tire choice for those conditions, especially with the mountain snowflake winter traction tire rating. My main concern was the ride quality coming from p-rated street tires. I am very pleasantly surprised. I have not performed the chalk test yet but have started with 38 psi. They actually ride and handle better than the passenger tires! They also took less weight to balance. :banana:
 
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thor999 said:
Not the best choice for snow :drama:
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What do you recommend? And what kind of snow? Hardpack or powder.

I'm looking for a good suggestion on hard snow here in MN... Had it narrowed down to Duratracs, Grabber AT2, and Cooper ST's. Always thought everyone thought the Duratracs were the best for snow. but open to suggestions!
 
volkinator said:
What do you recommend? And what kind of snow? Hardpack or powder.

I'm looking for a good suggestion on hard snow here in MN... Had it narrowed down to Duratracs, Grabber AT2, and Cooper ST's. Always thought everyone thought the Duratracs were the best for snow. but open to suggestions!
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I know a lot of guys that run the Duratracs here in Colorado and have said they are good in the snow. I am curious to hear what thor999 has to say about them as he is the first person I have heard from that doesn't like them in the snow. Not taking anything away from him or calling him a liar, but curious to hear his experiences. Looks like he lives in a place that sees some snow.
 
Last winter right after I put mine on I was out in the mountains in snow that was up to the running boards. There may be better tires for snow, but the Duratracs certainly don't suck.

OP, I will caution you to keep them rotated frequently. I let mine go a little too long and they've gotten considerably more noisy, especially the ones that were on the front. I had taken the truck up north for the holidays and some work I had lined out up there, and the jobs kept getting extended and extended. Every week I would think I would be heading home in it, and ended up bouncing to another location and putting another thousand miles on. By the time I finally made it home and rotated them it was close to 10k miles and that was too much.
 
I just put a set of 285/75 16 load range E duratracs on my runner, and we just got some snow here near Boulder. I am heading out this weekend and will definitely let you know how they perform.
 
I love my Duratracs in snow!!, being from Oregon if your familiar with the west hills of Portland and how steep they are then you know it's crazy when it snows. Well, I've bombed up and down every possible hill I could find and never had any problems that weren't my fault and speed related. Now I've never taken them off road into 2 foot snow conditions, but it's been my experience most everything struggles with that, and mud terrains rule those conditions.
 
The problem with Duratracs(and really any other all terrain or mud terrain tire) is that they are made entirely from synthetic rubber, which hardens in cold temperatures and therefore degrades their ability to gain traction.

Winter specific tires have specialized tread patterns to clear ice and snow, but most importantly they are made with higher percentages of natural rubber which remains pliable below freezing. This gives them much better traction than all-season tires without question.

That being said, with a 4x4 4Runner you can drive just fine in all weather conditions with any AT or MT tire because our vehicles are capable machines. I have run AT tires on every vehicle I've owned year round and have very few complaints.

However, if you go with Bridgestone Blizzaks or Nokian Hakkapeliitta tires you will notice a BIG difference. The winter driving school in Steamboat Springs trains EMS and law enforcement how to drive aggressively in winter conditions and they use the Blizzaks exclusively. Highly recommended tire.
 
MtnT4R said:
The problem with Duratracs(and really any other all terrain or mud terrain tire) is that they are made entirely from synthetic rubber, which hardens in cold temperatures and therefore degrades their ability to gain traction.

Winter specific tires have specialized tread patterns to clear ice and snow, but most importantly they are made with higher percentages of natural rubber which remains pliable below freezing. This gives them much better traction than all-season tires without question.

That being said, with a 4x4 4Runner you can drive just fine in all weather conditions with any AT or MT tire because our vehicles are capable machines. I have run AT tires on every vehicle I've owned year round and have very few complaints.

However, if you go with Bridgestone Blizzaks or Nokian Hakkapeliitta tires you will notice a BIG difference. The winter driving school in Steamboat Springs trains EMS and law enforcement how to drive aggressively in winter conditions and they use the Blizzaks exclusively. Highly recommended tire.
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Blizzaks all the way for the snow. A/T and Muds just never perform good in snow pak/ice conditions.
 
mountain mike said:
I know a lot of guys that run the Duratracs here in Colorado and have said they are good in the snow. I am curious to hear what thor999 has to say about them as he is the first person I have heard from that doesn't like them in the snow. Not taking anything away from him or calling him a liar, but curious to hear his experiences. Looks like he lives in a place that sees some snow.
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Just my opinion, but I haven't found them to be any better than an average AT on icy/snowy streets.
 
My mom's 4th gen runner and dad's 1st gen Tundra had Duratracs last time around, they seemed like they did fine but I never drove them much in the winter. The one thing I noticed is once they wore down a bit they were INSANELY loud. My dad switched to ST Maxx and the runner now has AT2s.
 
MtnT4R said:
The problem with Duratracs(and really any other all terrain or mud terrain tire) is that they are made entirely from synthetic rubber, which hardens in cold temperatures and therefore degrades their ability to gain traction.

Winter specific tires have specialized tread patterns to clear ice and snow, but most importantly they are made with higher percentages of natural rubber which remains pliable below freezing. This gives them much better traction than all-season tires without question.

That being said, with a 4x4 4Runner you can drive just fine in all weather conditions with any AT or MT tire because our vehicles are capable machines. I have run AT tires on every vehicle I've owned year round and have very few complaints.

However, if you go with Bridgestone Blizzaks or Nokian Hakkapeliitta tires you will notice a BIG difference. The winter driving school in Steamboat Springs trains EMS and law enforcement how to drive aggressively in winter conditions and they use the Blizzaks exclusively. Highly recommended tire.
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I guess I forgot there were winter specific tires that we can compare to. For the average person who is looking for the best all around for winter/summer tires and can only afford one set. How well does the Blizzak hold up on dry pavement in the summer or perform off-road? I have heard the duratracs get loud. And I suppose most AT tires would do just fine. I have heard the BFG A/T's were awful and the grabbers, ST's and Duractracs were better in the AT category. Oh well. Still a tough choice either way.
 
volkinator said:
I guess I forgot there were winter specific tires that we can compare to. For the average person who is looking for the best all around for winter/summer tires and can only afford one set. How well does the Blizzak hold up on dry pavement in the summer or perform off-road? I have heard the duratracs get loud. And I suppose most AT tires would do just fine. I have heard the BFG A/T's were awful and the grabbers, ST's and Duractracs were better in the AT category. Oh well. Still a tough choice either way.
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Because they have a high percentage of soft natural rubber, they do tend to wear a bit faster than a road tire, but they are probably close to a Duratrac's lifetime. One of my friends rocks them year round on his 98 4Runner and loves them. They work really well for casual wheeling, again because of that soft rubber. They grab really well on rocks. The biggest issue with more aggressive wheeling or mudding is that they don't have a really deep tread pattern, but they are designed to throw ice and snow, so they will still offroad better than an allseason road tire.

little sidenote- my SR5 came with brand new Wintercat SST tires, which I am trying to run for one more winter season. They hook up really well, even though im down to maybe 1/4" of tread. They didn't wear very well considering I've had them for just over a year, but then again I have put over 15k miles on them since my purchase last October. Wheeled fire roads all summer with no issues, they got noticeably louder when i rotated them back in June, but other than that they seem like a solid tire. Not the best, but definitely an option I will consider in the future.
Wintercat SST - Winter Tire from Dean


If you go with an AT and want better performance in the snow you can always take them to a local tire shop for siping, or you can buy a siping tool and do it yourself. Dirtco did that a few years ago as I recall. The writeup is somewhere in his build thread.
 
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I have the exact same tires the OP posted, both size and load range. If I could go back to before I bought them, there is no way in hell I would've gotten the E. They ride rough as hell, you definitely notice the extra weight, and the performance at this altitude can only be described as anemic. They do decent in loose snow, but are as crappy as can be expected on hard packed or ice. I have no trouble driving on them all winter here. I just wish I had not gotten the E load and got the C load instead.
 
I agree, duratracs are crap compared to a snow specific tire like blizzaks
But for those that don't live in a snow environment all winter long the need for a specific tire is pointless, a good a/t with the mt/snowflake is more then enough to get you through the white stuff. People don't realize but not all bfg a/t's are snow rated only certain sizes, I'm not sure about duratracs they may be the same.
 
MyHigh said:
I agree, duratracs are crap compared to a snow specific tire like blizzaks
But for those that don't live in a snow environment all winter long the need for a specific tire is pointless, a good a/t with the mt/snowflake is more then enough to get you through the white stuff. People don't realize but not all bfg a/t's are snow rated only certain sizes, I'm not sure about duratracs they may be the same.
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On Goodyear's website it looks like they all meet the requirement for the snow rating, but the website isn't great so it's worth looking into for each individual size if you're considering them.

Tire Rack has a little more information about the snow rating, which comes from our neighbors to the North. I didn't dig into it too much to see how they actually test the tires but it would seem to suggest that the compounds would have to be more tolerant to low temps than just a typical tire.

http://www.tirerack.com/winter/tech/techpage.jsp?techid=125


Personally, if I can't get around in the 4Runner on Duratracs, I'm keeping my ass at home where it's warm. :tea:
 
I had Michelin LTX m/s and they rocked in snow. I also have had cooper atx, atp and at3 and out of those the Michelins will beat them in snow, ice hands down. They are also rated as a 70k tire also from what I remember. I also had blizzaks on my bmw and dedicated snows are the only way to go if it's snow packed for long periods of time or else they will wear down fast. My blizzaks lasted 3 winters so that's about it with combination of dry and snow driving in the Denver Metro area.
 
I'm really interested in Cooper's new A/TW. It's a winter-oriented all terrain 4-season tire. It has tons of sipping and looks like it would be great on hardpack and ice.
 
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