I love love love nitto mud grapplers but they suck on the road so bad

 

What are you guys' top 5 favorite tires from worst to best?

 

My personal Mud Tire top five hall of fame (excluding bias ply tires which blow radials away in mud) would be as follows:

5) Mickey Thompson MTZ

4) Nitto Mud Grappler

3) Interco TSL Radial

2) Interco Bogger

1) Mickey Thompson Baja Claw

of which only the MTZ would be a decent pavement tire. You know with your 90% pavement driving, a good hybrid tire like a Cepek FCII, Nitto Trail Grappler or Interco M16 would be a good choice...

 

Never been a really fan of the Interco tire on the street, but they kick a$$ in the mud. Favorite pure mud tire of all time is the Ground Hawgs, love them but suck on pavement. Alot of people like the Toyo M/T's and I really like the look and pattern, I just don't know how they hold up, I get mixed reviews. Buddy of mine bought the cooper M/T's and says that they do pretty well but again have not seen them in action myself. The mud pitts I go to, even with my 35's I'm still considered the little guy, these guys are running 40+ size tires with about 600 - 800 horsies and they run the TSL's and Boggers.

 

The guys who have the trucks that they tow to the mud pits either have Baja Claws or Boggers here and almost always a bias version. I give a slight edge to the Boggers in mud but they are poor on rock. I made the Claws my #1 choice because they are very close to Boggers in mud and are also one of the best rock climbing tires on the planet.

Yeah I know what you mean about the Toyo M/Ts (which has a very similar pattern to the Nitto Trail Grappler). I see guys who say they get 40k out of them and I read posts from guys who say they only got 25k out of a set.
Still a VERY good tire for off roading in what has to be your daily driver.

I had a set of Baja Claws (33x12.5x15) on one of my Jeep Wranglers. GREAT tire for almost any off-road situation from mud to rocks to sand, but they were so-so on dry pavement and were downright squirrely on wet pavement. Although my next tire (if and when my Cepeks ever wear out) are going to be the new Baja Claw Radial TTC which is a more road friendly version of the Claw...

 

I looked up the fcII's they look pretty good. I like how wide they are! And by the way by top 5 tires I didn't mean only mud terrain, just your favorites in general

 

5. Firestone Destination M/T's

4. Hankook A/TM

3. Nitto Terra Grapplers

2. Nitto Trail Grapplers

1. BFG All Terrains

Now let me explain - I have run all these tires except for the Hankooks. I had 2 sets of the Firestones and they are great, but don't run in larger sizes like 35's. My Dad runs the Hankooks on his F150 ( 6" lift with 35" Hankooks ) and they last along time, good pattern and great road manners for an All Terrain. The Terra Grapplers is an all around great tire, exceptionl on both on road and off. Trail Grapplers ( my current tires ) so far have been awesome, but don't have enough time in them yet to get an entire life expectancy out of them. The BFG's I have run for years and have literally saved my life and gotten me out of more **** than I can even talk about. The best A/T street tire that can still kick some serious off road a$$. The only reason I bought the Nitto's was because I wanted to try something different.

 

Ok I'm gonna chime in just because we need a good, healthy debate and I know you can take it and give it without resorting to talking about my mother, LOL.

I'll give you the Nittos, I own a set on my Grand Cherokee and I like them. I would have preferred Mickey ATZs but at over $200 per tire vs. $127.50 a tire I bought Terra Grapps. I don't think I'm ever going to see the 80k I know guys see out of ATZs but over-all they are a solid tire. I have always liked the Trail Grapps since the day they came out but to me they are more of a hybrid than a true mud tire. Not that it's a bad thing - my Cepek FCIIs are the original M/T-A/T hybrid.

I have no experience with the Destination M/Ts but I know first hand that Destination A/Ts are a solid tire.

Where we differ are on the Hankooks - I've never owned a set but everyone I personally know who had them (and I use the word HAD intentionally) complained about chunks of rubber flying off on the highway and premature dry rotting.

Now as far as the BFGs go, I have had two sets of BFG All-Terrains and both sets were easily the WORST tires I've ever run. I had cupping issues with both sets and both took stupid crazy weights to get them balanced. After a ton of arguing with the tire dealer over cupping and a belt separation issue with BFG A/Ts on a Ford diesel 4x4 I had, where the dealer constantly blamed my truck for the tire failures, I finally removed them with only 18k on them, replaced them with Mickey Thompson MTXs (which aren't made anymore) and ran the Mickey's for 27k miles when I sold the truck. Never touched the front end of the truck that was supposedly the "issue" and the never had a single problem with the MTXs short of having to plug one that had a nasty screw in it (which can happen to ANY tire). When I sold the truck, the tires easily still had 60% tread left.

Now I know a LOT of guys love BFG tires and swear they are great, just can't prove it by me. But given your experience with this tire vs. mine with the exact same tire is why it's inevitable that "tire threads" get more differing opinions than "who's the best ballplayer of all time" threads get, LOL...

I couldn't more strongly recommend the FCIIs for a daily driver 4x4 that sees some hard play/hunting/fishing use on the weekends. My next tire is going to be a true (and very aggressive) mud tire, but that's because since I bought my FCIIs, I bought my 4x4 Grand Cherokee which is my daily driver. Since my truck is no longer anything near a daily driver, I'm going very aggressive on the next set.

If you end up getting FCIIs I'll tell you the key to running this tire: If you look at the tread, the middle of the tire has a very heavily siped, true All-Terrain tread and the inside/outside and aggressive side-biters are true Mud-Terrain blocks. When running on the highway, run the tires at the very least 80% of PSI capacity. It keeps the center of the tire making contact with the pavement first and saves those big, honkin' side treads for when you need them. When you go off-road, air 'em down enough so that the entire cross section of the tire makes contact with the ground uniformly. It doesn't take much, I run my 50 PSI max tires at about 28-30 PSI off-road. Those big blocks grab just as well as all but the most aggressive M/T tires out there.

Now granted they ain't cheap, but given my miles and the small amount of wear on them over the long haul they are gonna prove to be less expensive than buying multiple sets of cheaper tires.

Again, these are MY tires at 34,000 miles. I've known guys who had to replace their off-road tires before 34k because of tread wear. You can see by the pic that I'm not down 10% of tread yet:

 

Hmm thanks to the OP for posting this and others tossing there findings/opinions in!! Looking for tires as well...

 

i had KM2s on my dually and they held up pretty good with heavy towing didnt do good in the mud IMO