Tire help. Winters or a good all terrain/mud tire

I live on Vancouver island, BC. So we get our fair share of rain and the occasional snow. For all the BC guys or whomever. Are you running winters here or are they not needed since we really don't see that much snow? How is the truck in snow with the stock tires?

I'm leaning towards a good set of all terrain/mud tires. I can use them on the trails, save the swapping between winters and summer. Then just deflate them a bit when it snows. Figured I'd ask and see if anyone's tried this out or what everyone else's experience is. Appreciate it.

 

Winters are not really needed in my opinion. I’ve had KO2s for a couple years now and Duratracs before that and they have handled the snow pretty well. Like you said, you can deflate them a little bit to get more traction. I think ATs are the way to go.

Edit: Stock tires didn't do me well in the snow. I have also thought about going to MT tires but worry about snow/ice performance. I’ll play it safe and stick with all terrains.

 

I personally would get some mud or good all terrains i have dick capek extremes and they handle well in all weather but it all depends on if you care about road noise from the mud tires or not

 

What part of the island are you on? North or South ?

 

Mid island area!
How significant would you say the road noise is with mud tires? Thanks for all the help.

 

Are you planning to keep the truck for 4+ years? If you are, you can pick up a used set of wheels on usedvictoria or usednanaimo for a few hundred bucks and mount winters on them. It’ll make your all terrains last longer, and you can buy whatever you want for a summer tire without worrying about winter performance. In my opinion, snow or slush is never the issue, it’s ice. I’ve lived in the kootenays, central coast, and now on the island. I always ran dedicated winters and they are worlds better than duratracs or bfg or even cooper atw. I’ve had all three and tried each in winter.

When I switched to Michelin defenders, I stopped using dedicated winters because of their high concentration of zigzag siping which along with their tread compound, give them phenomenal traction on ice. They’re great year round. Cornering on wet roads, you feel like you’re on rails. I did lots of wheeling in all conditions in Michelin ms2 and defenders. On the island it’s mostly forest service roads anyway and all you need is a ten ply tire that won’t tear up on crush rock.

So I guess my advice is go with Michelin defenders, or Get whatever you want for an all terrain and pick up a set of used wheels for some dedicated winters. In the long run it doesn’t cost much more (if any) and your emergency stopping/obstacle avoidance in winter will dramatically improve.

if there was a factory option for Our trucks, where you could pay a thousand bucks to have a button on the dash you could push to improve winter traction by 80%, everyone would pay for that feature. I don’t know why everyone is so quick to settle for all terrains. To me it’s a really cheap way to improve your personal/family safety and your truck’s capability.

to qualify for a snowflake symbol, the tire only has to perform 10% better than a standard all season highway tire. The snowflake symbol means very little. It’s just a matter of whether the company jumps through the hoops to qualify for it.

And hello from Nanaimo.

 

I have a 2wd prerunner and have always run e load all weather snowflake rated tires. Such as General Grabber ATW and currently Cooper ATW. they’ve worn well and work great. Both good for about 70,000km

 

I’ve had cooper discoverer AT-W’s on my last truck and they worked wonderfully well year round. I’d buy them again and you can usually get them on promo at Canadian tire a couple of times a year

 

I run studded duratracs in the winter only because I spend alot of time in the caribou and the highways suck in the winter up there.

 

I've run K02's on my 16' Tacoma (2 years), and then 18' Tundra (2 years) and drove Comox Valley to Victoria twice a week for 4 years. I'm back in a 20' Tacoma and just ordered K02's VS keeping stock tires and ordering a winter set. I drive about 50K km a year over Western Canada been quite comfortable even throughout the winter. Otherwise, the K02's have been a fantastic highway, rain, mud tire (I don't do much "4X4ing" - Mostly camping, fireroads and some tough to get spots)

That being said I've been told Duratracks are a bit better in the snow, but I can't speak to experience. I would say practice driving safe and smart and if the snow is that bad and your uncomfortable with driving - Stay home.

 

i Ran Duratracs for 5 years and they were great, no issues at all i drove in the winter to Banff area every second weekend to ride and was good. if it ever got sketchy flipped it into 4WD no traction issues at all. i just recently moved to Falken Wildpeak ATW3's, which im really liking, had to inflate them to 34 PSI from the stock PSI of 29. rides great, significantly quieter then the duratracs on the highway mileage seems to be better as well. real test will be in the winter. but check out the Falkens. seems like the most common tires i have seen for our trucks are the KO'2s, Duratracs, Wildpeak's.

 

I’ve got KO2s and live in the arctic. If it’s not snow and ice out roads are pure thick shale & mud. I adore these tires. They take everything I throw at them and never fail me.
I run them year round.


As for stock tires. I blew out both drivers side tires 4 days after buying my truck. At the exact same time. The stock tires are trash.