RedRunner_87
Senior Member
Update: 12K miles and I am 14/32's. I have done a decent amount of off-roading with them and they are doing awesome.
Untitled by redrunner87, on Flickr
Untitled by redrunner87, on Flickr
New Falken AT tire (A/T3W)
- Thread starter weeeee
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SpeedyKevin
New member
Update: 12K miles and I am 14/32's. I have done a decent amount of off-roading with them and they are doing awesome.
Not bad at all! My 265/70 in E were around 15/32 (17 new) after 18-19k with lots of offroad. was really pleased with them
RedRunner_87
Senior Member
You are doing really well! I was 15/32's at 7K miles. I will continue to update it as. I get my tires rotated. All these numbers are according to Discount Tire.
RedRunner_87
Senior Member
I also wonder if the colder weather in the winter causes my tires to wear slightly faster than So Cal where you are at. I got these in November so a majority of the tires life so far has been in cold weather.
85GT-79FJ40
New member
Trip number 4 on the balancer for mine this week. Decided to see if road force balancing would help. It definitely did. But they still aren't perfect. one of them has a hop in it and road force came back at 32 no matter what they tried. Of the others I have a 7,13,and a 21. They apparently like to see less than 20-25 on a truck tire. Now I'm not sure what to do. I need a full size spare and was thinking of buying a matching wheel and tire and putting that one on the truck and using the worst one as the spare. But the wheel still shakes a little around 60-65 and the best 2 are on the front. I've had about a dozen lifted toyotas with aftermarket wheels including a few tacomas with similar suspension setups and I've never had issues with tires like this. I so want to bite the bullet and just get some BFG's and with what I've spent on balancing this month along with the cost of these I realize I really should have just bought those in the first place. My first serious case of tire buyers remorse in 30 years of buying tires.
SpeedyKevin
New member
Sorry to hear you are having difficulties with them! Just curious, would you happen to have the batch # for your tires? Curious if they were from the same batch my defective set came from.
I don't think it's just a bad batch, I think it's just inherent to the brand. At least according to my friend who is a GM of a national tire chain. He says they're considering stopping carrying them, as even though they sell a lot, they have too many comebacks.
SpeedyKevin
New member
Ahh thats a bummer to hear. Glad I got somewhat lucky with mine. Will probably try something else next time...maybe Cooper...or BFG but they are heavy
Where did you buy them from?
85GT-79FJ40
New member
Date code on these is 3MDR5019
The last shop that took a whack at them already did. Way too many comebacks and they just dropped their light truck line altogether. I know the manager and should have just bought tires from him in the first place. But it wasn't convenient for me and I bought these from a secondary seller on amazon. So I doubt I will be able to return them. They've only been on the truck about 5 weeks maybe but it's been a horrible experience. Granted I am very picky about my vehicles in general (I restore cars for a living currently and have worked in automotive for over 20 years) but any shimmy is unacceptable from a brand new set of radial tires. Bias ply swampers sure.
From doing a lot of reading on Falkens and having owned a set for about 45000 miles, I feel like at least with a vehicle like a Toyota truck that is very balance sensitive, something like 2 out of 10 people who get them will have issues.
Out of those 2, maybe one of them will be able to get re-balance done several times including road force and get them cleaned up.
I had 265/70R17E on my previous 4Runner. I loved everything about the tire except the fact that I could not get a perfect balance no matter what. I probably had a balance done at least 4 times on them and I felt like they'd get way better and then I'd go through a tire rotation and have issues again. I honestly only ended up keeping them since I wasn't as anal about it as I should have been in retrospect.
They really are a good tire and have a lot of huge advantages going for them. Really tough, long wearing, and fantastic in rain and snow. I've thought about getting them when I pull my Terra Grapplers off my Pro. That being said, the more and more I think about these on-going balance issues, the less likely I will as I just don't want to risk going through this (or waste a ton of time trying to get the balance right to ultimately end up swapping tires).
Saving money is great, but quite frankly my time is way more valuable than struggling with trying to get a flawed tire balanced perfectly.
Just my two cents. It's really unfortunate as Falken has a great product with what appears to be a major quality concern issue.
Out of those 2, maybe one of them will be able to get re-balance done several times including road force and get them cleaned up.
I had 265/70R17E on my previous 4Runner. I loved everything about the tire except the fact that I could not get a perfect balance no matter what. I probably had a balance done at least 4 times on them and I felt like they'd get way better and then I'd go through a tire rotation and have issues again. I honestly only ended up keeping them since I wasn't as anal about it as I should have been in retrospect.
They really are a good tire and have a lot of huge advantages going for them. Really tough, long wearing, and fantastic in rain and snow. I've thought about getting them when I pull my Terra Grapplers off my Pro. That being said, the more and more I think about these on-going balance issues, the less likely I will as I just don't want to risk going through this (or waste a ton of time trying to get the balance right to ultimately end up swapping tires).
Saving money is great, but quite frankly my time is way more valuable than struggling with trying to get a flawed tire balanced perfectly.
Just my two cents. It's really unfortunate as Falken has a great product with what appears to be a major quality concern issue.
kenwilliams0803
New member
I agree 100%. Think I'm going Cooper next time. It's really a shame because they are great otherwise.
85GT-79FJ40
New member
Exactly. Great appearance, road noise is minimal, steering and ride are good, off road traction is great for an A/T. They just aren't round. Which is one of the biggest things you really want in a tire.
Alternatives?
Given the apparently rampant balancing issues w/ the Falkens, what would be the best alternative in a 275/70/17? The characteristics most appealing w/ the Falkens are the reported off AND on road ride quality and the rain/snow performance. I need to make a decision on new shoes next week and, yes, I've been using the search function but doubt i'll have time to get through the 1000s of posts before Thursday. Any help is much appreciated!
Given the apparently rampant balancing issues w/ the Falkens, what would be the best alternative in a 275/70/17? The characteristics most appealing w/ the Falkens are the reported off AND on road ride quality and the rain/snow performance. I need to make a decision on new shoes next week and, yes, I've been using the search function but doubt i'll have time to get through the 1000s of posts before Thursday. Any help is much appreciated!
kenwilliams0803
New member
My road noise is high because I can't rotate them anymore! Lol. The bad ones have to stay on the back.
Last time it was in for something I threw a rotate in there. Well after 2 more rebalance they all ended up back where they were before and haven't been touched since. As a result, they are almost as loud as the Interco tires I run on my JK 15k miles later.
I put the new Toyo AT3s on my wife's 4R and they are really good and balanced well.
Those do look great- Unfortunately not available in 275/70/17, as far as i can tell
