my .02¢
Central Wisconsin resident, new to 4runner ('04) and any vehicle this size. Other drivers include a CR-V and an Elantra, so several thousand pounds lighter. Works @ home, drives highway, city, back country roads and very minimal off-road. Car is mostly a school bus during the week and a recreational vehicle during the weekend.
The T4R came with the Geo's H/T's nearly new in 16" standard sizing. The ride quality is/was fantastic on the highway and part of what ultimately sold me the vehicle. Relatively quiet, smooth and fair traction. And just like others have mentioned... then there's winter. I hesitate to really bash these tires, but they are aweful in the snow, snow over hardpack, snow over ice and on ice. Let me qualify.
1. on all snow, seemingly regardless of speed, they will plow when trying to turn. You may want to go right, or left, but the tires don't. They go the direction the mass of the vehicle is travelling ( I think it's called linear momentum) and the traction the tires offer is not enough, in either two or four wheel drive, to redirect the direction of travel.
2. the abs threshold is ridiculously low. barely tapping the brakes will send abs into conniptions... and because the point of abs is to allow you to steer when braking and the traction offered by the tires cannot overcome linear momentum (or whatever the correct phrase is), the benefits of abs are completely negated and stopping distances feel greatly increased.
3. that being said and while sometimes 2wd wouldn't get me started perhaps as quickly as I'd like, I never had much of a problem getting started in 4wd. they certainly slipped but it never caused much of an issue that caution couldn't fix.
That being said, the first two points were enough for me to peel the tires off of the car and replace them with something else. This, despite probably only having 1 more month of winter and having the tires be less than 4K miles old.
I went to a shop and tried out a mechanics truck that had GY wrangler silent armors. they were a "drastic" enough improvement that I was satisfied (1) I was not imagining it, (2) I would realize significant benefits from a new tire and (3) be happy with my investment over the useful life of the tire.
While not a perfect tire (still sliding around plenty on ice) they are probably 40%-50% better in snow, snow over hardpack and snow over ice. In fact, they were so much better that driving into turns in snow that it felt almost unnatural. Unnatural as in "there is no way the truck should be able to do this". In an effort to keep this in context, I've never driven anything else of this size in snow and perhaps it could be that the truck should naturally be able to do it and the tires are simply "that bad".
I now perceive myself to be driving the truck much harder with the new tires. I feel like i can drive into turns, that there is a significant reduction in traction control "events" and that there is a noticeable/obvious increase in threshold where the ABS would have normally engaged. Additionally, while control is not perfect, I can steer while ABS is engaged and the car will respond -vs- plowing into snow.
Of course, I could have backed off of the throttle, driven much more defensively and dealt with it. It was just my opinion that the performance was unacceptable and worthy of an investment in improvement. Anyone that would not have to deal with any snow events, can put up with exercising more care with this tires would/may feel absolutely comfortable with these tires. I freely admit I was fine with them 9 mos. out of the year.
