Land Rover
(235/85 R16 R) on
mostly country roads
for 31,000
average miles
Got them in 2015 and now 2021 they are needing a change. They are still road legal but the depth is no longer good enough for heavy mud. I have completed just over 30k miles.
It's a farm vehicle that pulls a 3t horse muck tipper trailer into fields every week. It also goes down wet clay farm tracks which only the tractors go on. For 6 months of the year, the field is very wet. By winter, the field is trashed and with the muck pile being pushed around by a tractor, there are a few inches of water and horse wee on top of a few inches of sloppy mud and a lot of rutting from tractors and other vehicles dropping their muck off. It is a mud bath and it's on a hill. For almost 5 years, I have not had any trouble getting in or out of the muck field with the trailer. I have seen other vehicles struggle and get stuck. Some I have helped get out. I mention this as the trailer is a serious drag to pull through the slop yet these tyres didn't let me down. That is until recently. I have had to disconnect the trailer on two occasions. Grip returned without it but had to winch the trailer instead. Most mud tyres start to give up their mud grip after around 50% wear. These got to about 70% wear before I felt I was not getting the same grip. I could probably get another 10k road miles on them but the mud grip is now on par with an AT rather than an MT tyre.
Other characteristics are the tyre is not that good when new. Fine in the mud and on dry road in the wet, for the first 3000 odd miles they lack grip but that does come good later. Indeed, initially, I thought of changing them early. However, it was early spring the weather soon improved and I decided to wait. Come Autumn with a few thousand more miles on them, the wet grip was much improved. I have experienced that with other tyres where a mm or two of wear and the road grip improves. Road noise is typical of mud tyres. They sing quite loudly in the wet but no more than other mud tyres.
Lastly, snow grip. Really fantastic. We use the defender as an emergency support vehicle during snow taking staff to the hospital and carrying things back and forth to those snowed in. It didn't let me down once.
I considered paying more and going with BFG KM3s. I would probably get an extra 20k miles out of those but they cost a third more. Plus, with the mileage it does, I would be more concerned about the age of the tyre than the grip. So, I am getting a new set of the same tyres.