You don't mention what tires you have. That would help. They all do different things better and will all last different mileage. Millions of vehicles use mud terrains in the snow, you should be fine.

I'd run them until they are worn out, and that will be likely close to 20k miles.

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You would be amazed at the low lifespan of new vehicle tires put on at the factory these days. If the compound is fairly soft you could wear them out in 20-30k. Having a second set is not a terrible idea to get a longer life from the MT tires you have. Just need a storage space, and the willingness to swap tires when needed.

 

I'm also not a fan typically of the tires they put on from the factory.. My 2021 JLU Sahara came with the Bridgestone tires.. I had the dealer take those off and install a set of the KO2's before I took delivery.. Posted the Bridgestones on Fakebook Marketplace, sold them within a few days.

 

Welcome to the forum!

Your dealer is correct, for a change: on average, Mud Terrain tires tend to last half as long as All-Terrain tires, and tend to get noisier and bumpier as they wear out. Also, Mud Terrains in general do notoriously poor on snow covered roads —although they usually do better in deep snow...e.g., 1+ ft of it.

I don’t know where you are, but if winter is a “thing,” I’d take him up on a set of All-Terrains. The combination of a rear LSD and AT tires will get your Willys through winter like a dream.

You should be able to resell those Firestone Destination MTs with 3,000 miles on Craigslist relatively easily.

Good luck!

 

I agree completely... @Diertz If you get inclement weather, even just a lot of wet, the MT's are a horrible tire in those conditions. The Falken AT3W is by far my favorite, but the KO2's are also very good tires. Keep your MT's and put them back on in the summer, or sell them.

 

PS - any of the leading ATs, like BFG KO2, GY Duratrac, Falken Wildpeak AT3W, General Grabber ATX, will serve you well.

The dealer is going to try to put you into the exact same size as you got now. I’d go one size up, perhaps to a 275/70R17. You will enjoy the slightly wider tire.

Also, a lot of people buy Rubicon “takeoffs”, which are 285/70R17 KO2s. You can get an entire set with low miles for $800-$1000.

 

I assume your Willys came with KM2 MT tires. So a set of AT tires like the KO2 would probably work better for you. But that doesn't mean you can't just run the KM2's until they are worn out. There are plenty of Wranglers running around on the stock KM2's they came with. The guy at the dealership is just trying to talk you into buying new tires. You don't need new tires. While I am not a fan of the tires you have now, nothing wrong with running them a lot longer before swapping them out. And now is not a good time to be buying tires, many of the better tires are in short supply or no supply. Hard to get a good price on a good set of tires for a Jeep right now. So I would not replace a perfectly good set of tires.

 

Willys comes with Firestone Destination MTs.

It is one the better MTs out there, but still not “ideal” for on-road/snow driving.

 

I’ll go against the grain here and recommend sticking with MTs. I’ve ran MTs full time for over 10 years now with no complaints. I’m rural in northern Ohio and when we get snow the rural roads stay pretty messy and in my experience ATs performed worse than my MTs. BFG KO2’s were terrible even on wet roads and doubly so off-road in deep snow or mud; terribly overrated tire IMO.

For a few years I ran Mickey Thompson MTZs, but have since switched to MT/R’s, which are my favorite tire ever. Road manners are very good and off-road performance greatly exceeds any AT. In summary it’s all positives other than they will wear out twice as fast as an AT, but the benefits make it worth it for me. Your mileage may vary.

At the very least I’d stick with your MTs this winter in order to get first hand experience.

 

It would help if Diertz mentioned where he/she lived only for the benefit of local weather conditions.

It's an unnecessary expense to swap out a set of tires at 1500m. If they are rotated at 5K, you'll likely get 30K out of that set before they become noisy. While MT's aren't he best on slippery roads, neither are K02's, so you just need to slow down on curves, fly-over ramps, etc. If you're hard pressed for a change, get a set of takeoffs with Falken Wildpeak AT3W (off a Gladiator) and just swap them for a few months. Again, that's a good tire. I wouldn't just swap it out.

 

Why are BFG KO2's getting such a bad rap?

 

I think it's the all around best tire out there for a Wrangler. Tough, good traction and wear. I'm looking for a set of takeoffs for a '21 I just bought.
I think the Wildpeaks handle a bit better on wet traction/flyover ramps, but tend to get noisier sooner. The factory Bridgestones just don't look Jeep-worthy. I currently have seven jeeps, we have had just about every tire.

 

My stock mud terrains had 25k on them when I swapped to 35’s. I did 5 tire rotations every 2,500 miles. Pic is when I swapped them out.
Take care of your tires and they will take care of you !

I would never buy tires from a Jeep dealership

 

Yeah. Normally I’d go to Discount Tire. But Jeep dealers have a deal through Mopar right now if you buy 3 tires you get the 4th for $1.

Remember you’d be buying 5 tires.

Tire Services & Offers Near Me| Official Mopar® Site

Learn more about Mopar® tire services & offers. We offer tire rotation, alignment, repair, & replacement with certified technicians that will take care of your Jeep, Ram, Dodge, Chrysler or Fiat Vehicle.

www.mopar.com

 

Yeah. Normally I’d go to Discount Tire. But Jeep dealers have a deal through Mopar right now if you buy 3 tires you get the 4th for $1.

Remember you’d be buying 5 tires.

Tire Services & Offers Near Me| Official Mopar® Site

Learn more about Mopar® tire services & offers. We offer tire rotation, alignment, repair, & replacement with certified technicians that will take care of your Jeep, Ram, Dodge, Chrysler or Fiat Vehicle.

www.mopar.com

Aldo - Don't you also have a set of those cheap-ass bananna peal KO2's on your Jeep? What were you and I thinking when we were tire shopping? 😁

 

Hey all - just saw these posts. I appreciate the feedback gladly! I’m in the mid-Michigan area so our winters aren’t terrible but can get bad sometimes. It seems like the logical/economical idea for my situation would be to get the all-terrain set on the bogo deal and sell the stock mud set

 

I used to run MT's on the Grayling (MI) snow run (every January for a number of years), no need for you to rush.

 

So I got two quotes for a tire set of 5 thru the dealer - are these good prices and which would be the best? I’m open to spending the extra money on the BFG if its worth it. I’ll be mostly driving on the road or highway, not too much offroad


FALKEN
WILDPEAK A/T3W
All-Season
($1001 Total/5)


BFGOODRICH
ALL-TERRAIN T/A KO 2
All-Season
($1077 Total/5)

 

That's a heck of a good price on the KO2's. I checked Tirerack site for the exact same tire, $1348.00, 5 tires, and that was with a $100 mail in rebate..

The only difference might be Tirerack has a road hazard warranty

 

Can’t go wrong with either of them.

Falkens have been on backorder lately. If your dealer can get hold of them, that’d be super cool.

BTW, both of those tires are all-terrains, not all-seasons.

BTW2, what size tires is he quoting you?

 

Tire size is LT285/70R17
Which would be better for a Wrangler that is mostly used on city roads and highways - all terrain or season? Would it matter?

 

I took advantage of the dealership buy 3 get 1 for $1 deal on my Grand Cherokee. Got the Falken Wildpeak A/T Trail. Not a good idea.

The deal was for 4 tires mounted, not balanced (gotcha). Ended up spending more for a balancing later. At which point only the tires were covered by warranty, not the install or balancing.

The Falkens looked great, aggressive, very good in rain, but always wobbled. After paying to have them balanced 3 times, I ended up spending far more than just going somewhere else.

The frustration and wobble that never went away were part of the reason I traded it in for my new JLUR.

Please save yourself some money and avoid frustration by learning from my mistake. Buy from a shop with a good reputation who work with tires daily.

 

If you are running factory wheels, the 285/70R17 tires will rub at full lock. That is the size of tire that is on the JL Rubicon, but the Rubicon also has axles that are 2" longer than non-Rubicons to clear those tires on factory wheels. You can adjust the stops on the yoke on each end of the front axle so the Jeep will not turn quite as tight as it does not.

I am running the BFG KO2s in 285/70R17 on my '17 Chief and love them. They are a good tire and and are 3 peak winter rated (symbol has mountain with 3 peaks and snowflake). To make the tires clear on my JKU, I have after market wheels with back spacing of 5.2". The factory wheels with 6.0" of backspace are in storage. A set of 275/70R17 tires will clear.

That being said, the $1100 quote on the KO2 is a good price if that includes mounting and balancing. It's $500 less than I paid for my 5 last summer.

All season tires have tread that is for pavement only - a street tire, like the GY SR-A.. The All-Terrain is a more aggressive tire designed for on and off road use. The all season tires come on the mini-vans btw. They are also more like 3 season that all season as they are not winter rated. Here in the south where snow and ice are rare (2 snow falls in 20 years neither one more that 1/2") they are all season, but not in the snow belt.

BTW my Chief came with BFG KMs very similar to the tires on your Willys. I took them off with 22K miles because they were getting noisy. Yes, they needed rotating more frequently than normal tires, I rotated them every 3300 miles. If you have space to store them you put the knarly tires back on in the spring, but I think part of the good price is that they will put them back on there tire rack for sale next spring.

 

I have Falken Wildpeak AT3W's on my Cherokee, they are great, I have the Destination MT2's on my wrangler and in fact, they are siped. They have good snow ratings compared to other MT tires.

 

Don’t forget TireRack needs to add shipping to your ZIP code.

 

Tire rack has free shipping.

 

I had 38,000 on my Willy's when I traded it in. The mud terrain tires still had half their tread but the sidewalls were cracking. I rotated every 6,000 miles (5 tire). Be ready for a very loud tire after rotation for about a month.

 

I had 60k miles on my stock BFG Mud Terrain 2015 JKUR when I replaced them. Never a flat. Do not remember the tread depth but they still looked good when I took them off. No extreme crawling but plenty of mud, dirt, and rocky roads.

 

Ronkers, I strongly suspect that the Jeep owners who are reporting getting only 20,000 or 25,000 miles on their stock MT tires are the same people who routinely drive 80 mph on the highway (and 15-20 mph over the speed limit everywhere else), take freeway on-ramp and off-ramp cloverleafs at 45 mph, and invariably brake excessively hard at every light and every stop sign.

In other words, prudent and reasonable driving will reward you in much longer tire life.

If one insists on routinely drive like a reckless and ignorant 16 year-old punk who just got their driver's license that very day, that is their choice, but they are going to pay for it, in multiple ways.

PS: I own a 25 year old Dodge pickup truck, with 154,000 miles on it, and I am on only my second set of tires (which admittedly do need to be replaced at this point).

 

I agree with you Chugiakguy, they also complain of poor gas mileage. I got rid of mine at 22K miles, not because of wear, but of because of the tire noise. I went to the KO2's and was blessed on the way back home with no tire noise.