What You Need to Know about New Jeep Tires!
Scott Carline • June 17, 2019
When our jeeps are bought new they come out with an all season tire, and that all season tire it's really designed to work everywhere, drive, pavements, snow, ice, rain. They're designed to last a long time and they're designed to be quiet. They don't do us very much good off road, and so if you're planning on doing some trails, or you're getting into some mud, or some grassy fields, it's definitely not the choice.
The next step up from there is going to be an all terrain tire. The all terrain tire is going to have some more lugs in it, larger pieces that can grab a hold of things and get a bite. There is going to be a lot of rain siping in there. That's going to be those small thin cuts that are in there. The all terrain tires are going to stay pretty quiet. They're not going to hear them much on the highway. They're typically going to have a mileage warranty, a 50, 60,000 mile tire, that kind of thing. The ride quality is pretty strong.
The drawback to that all-terrain tires is it's going to fill up with mud, so if you were to get in a muddy situation, or if you were to have a rock ledge you needed to climb up with the lugs may not be opened up quite enough. In that mud situation, the tread is going to pack with mud, and so it's not going to clean out to get the next bite.
The next step up from there would be what we consider a hybrid tire. That's a really nice cross between an all-terrain and a mud terrain tire, so we have characteristics of both. And if you look at the tread you'll typically find the center line of the tread is going to be more like an all terrain, but on the outer edge of a tire we're going to have some of those larger mud lugs that can get in there and get a bite and that'll clean out if you get them spinning and full of mud. It is not the best all terrain tire, it's not the best mud tire, but it's a really nice cross section. These tires remain quiet as well.
The next step up from there is going to be your mud terrain tire. Now, this tire is going to have a little bit of sound to it on the highway. For some people this might be really annoying, and for others that are going to have the top off it may not matter, but it is something we want to make sure you're aware of. Most of the technology is still pretty decent that I consider them usable on a daily driven vehicle. Once we get into the mud terrain tire, we're going to lose the mileage guarantees and the road hazard. In our experience, you can expect anywhere between 40 to up to let's say 50,000 miles.
As they get older, they tend to be prone to chop up a little bit and that can make them even louder, so it's really critical that you stay on top of your tire maintenance with a mud tire. It's not something you're going to put on and just forget about it for 60,000 miles. It's something that you're going to have to rotate all the time. You're going to have to stay on top of your tire alignments, your wheel alignments to keep these things from chopping up. You're going to need to balance them on a regular basis, and that'll extend their life, and of course keep them quieter.
The next step up is going to be what we consider to be a dedicated off road tire. I genuinely don't recommend these for daily drivers. They're not going to be any good in the rain, and the snow, borderline dangerous, I would say. There is almost no rain technology in them. Now these are going to have really large lugs and they're going to be able to grab on to rock faces and ledges. They're going to be able to throw mud out pretty quickly and not pack up. And from the off road perspective, I think they're probably a great tire, but if you regularly travel more than 35 an hour, I think you're going to hate them because they're genuinely not round and they don't balance very well, so we consider those more suited for just off road vehicles only.
When looking at a tire we'll look at the general size, the width, the tread design, the pattern, and what it's designed to do. We need to figure out where that client, where they're going to drive, and how they're going to drive, and make sure that we get a tire that fits into that cross section.
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So we're back inside at Axleboy Offroad. We've got our 2020 Jeep Gladiator Sport S. This is still bone stock. I haven't made any modifications to it yet. We have ordered and been receiving a lot of the components from our supplier partner. They're going to end up on this Jeep Gladiator. One thing that's going to be probably the most dramatic cosmetically and performance and everything else from the outside, is the lift kit, and the wheels, and the suspension. Yeah. So right now behind us is bone stock. Let's talk about suspension first. Why don't you tell us what we have here from TeraFlex? Sure. So from TeraFlex, we're doing the adjustable alpine IR arms. IR stands for independent rotation. Now this is a really new product and it's amazing in the fact that it uses the bushing, so we're going to retain the same sound dampening and the same ride quality as we would when we're stock. But the inner sleeve that the bolt actually goes on... Okay. This is actually on a bearing. Okay. And it's a sealed bearing and unlike standard bushings where once the bolt clamps down, it's captive in the rubber and the rubber has to flex in order for this arm to move through its travel. The independent rotation allows free movement, no binding whatsoever, and this is huge in terms of ride quality, in terms of flex when you're off road or when you're on the RTI ramp at a Jeep show, or whatever it may be. We get the best of both worlds. We get the reliability of a good rubber bushing. We get the flexibility of a flex joint, but we don't have the parts that wear out or they get loose and make noise like the flex joints do. So it's kind of the best of both worlds. We expect that these bushings are going to last the vehicle's lifetime. This is a new product, this independent rotation bushing, been in testing and development for quite a while. We expect these to do amazing. What does installing an adjustable control arm do? What's the benefit for me as the Gladiator? Yeah, that's a great question. So we're going to lift it and we're going to raise the suspension. And the way that the geometry works, as we raise, this control arm is going to drop down further away. Now if you notice when this control arm swings down, it moves back. We actually lose some wheelbase when we lift it and it's just the nature of basic geometry. There's nothing we can do about that unless we put in an adjustable control arm. In this case, we can extend the length of this. We can recover our wheelbase, we can recover our alignment angles and our pinion angles as needed. So this gives us the ability to affectively adjust the front axle forward and backward. So we can make sure that the front axle is exactly where we want it. Exactly where we want it with the correct angle and the correct rotation. This is going to make the vehicle drive amazing. We're going to be able to keep caster where we want it, which is important because as we lift it caster drops out. Caster is the alignment angle that gives us stability going down the highway. We can roll it back in. Terrific. What else do we have here from TeraFlex? Well, we also have the new Falcon series three shocks. These are the brand new SP two shocks. Now I know in the past you and I have talked about how nice the Falcon shocks are because we have the quick adjust knobs. So we can turn this knob and we can go from soft ride to firm ride or tow, or if you're particularly picky like I know you are, you can go into setting number two, which gives you micro adjust on the small knob. You can literally dial in the ride as you drive. Now the SP two adds a new feature to it. Okay? It allows us to control the dampening, so this isn't as quick adjust or as easy, but what we can do, if you come in and say, "Dude, I am going to run down a gravel road and I'm going to run this thing hard." You can take the shock off and you can twist it, turn the bottom, and it goes into performance mode. Now this isn't going to be something you're changing in and out of every day. It's something you're probably going to do on install, but it gives you the ability to take the entire shock range and move it to more of a performance setting or to move it more to a comfort setting. Okay. So it just adds one more layer of adjustability to these shocks. These shocks are made up in Utah at the TeraFlex plant in the Falcon plant, handmade up there. Everything is amazing. We've been up on this line. It's the most spotless incredible thing you've ever seen. They've put a lot of time and development into this and these are definitely the best riding shock out there for the JK, and JL, and Gladiators. And it's going to look really cool. Oh yeah. How do you go wrong with all the big, all the billet, all the anodizing, the badging? They cut no corners on this thing at all. So I'm going to guess we've got a front and a back. Yeah. Yeah. So this will be the back. And so the importance with the back is... So it's a gladiator, right? So we're probably going to load it up with stuff, right? I mean, bicycles, kayaks, tent. So we're going to be taking weight in and out of it all the time. And that's really where the quick adjust knob is going to come in for us. So as you add that weight, all your shock dampening needs to change. It's easy now. Reach in there through the wheel-well, make a flip, and go. Going down the road or as a daily driver, what setting would I want to put it on? Well, I'll let you have it as far as a personal preference, but I know when I'm going down the road, just genuinely driving down the highway, I like a softer setting. I don't need to really feel the road. When we go to the firm settings, you're going to feel more input from the road. Now that's going to be great in certain situations. So if you're particularly driving sporty or driving heavy, you're going to want to have that road feel where you can feel the bumps and know what the vehicle is doing. With that, we're going to get a lot of roll control. So the vehicle is going to corner better and it will be able to handle the washboard gravel roads. Because I know like when you're out camping, you're driving down the- Gravel road. Yeah, yeah. You know how it is. You hit the bump and you bounce off the road, not with these, you move it to a firm setting and yeah, it's going to feel like you're zipping across the desert in a Baja race there. So really good stuff. Very adjustable, tunable to how you want it. So typically when you're off road or you're driving in let's say a spirited fashion, if you will, we're going to put them on firm. That's great. Well, thanks a lot to TeraFlex and to Axleboy Offroad. To learn more, you go to teraflex.com or visit us at axleboy.com.
