To fit or not to fit, that was the question. I had toyed with the idea of going to a large tire in the past, but wasn’t sure which one I wanted. The Goodyear MTR is a terrific tire, but a bit more money than I wanted to spend. The BFG MT KM underwhelmed me. The Swamper Radial in 33x12.50 seemed a good choice, but I would have needed new wheels to run them. I spent weeks making up my mind and then just decided to go with the Bias Plys. The 34x10.50 was going to be a stretch in size, but well worth the trouble.
Installation
I dropped in on my good friends down at Discount Tire and ordered a set. On August 9, 2002, the shop called to inform me that my tires were in and off to the store I went. I had put my angle grinder in the truck along with a cutoff wheel, grinding disk, and several hand files just in case I needed to do some clearance work.
In the end, none were needed as my lift was just tall enough to let the tires fit without rubbing. When the shop guys saw my truck, they couldn't believe they were going to be installing them onto the Range Rover. They asked questions like "is this your daily driver?" and "Are you sure these are going to fit?". They seemed amused when I told them that we'd cut to fit if necessary.
My biggest concern was whether we'd get the tires to actually balance. I'd heard horror stories about balancing bias ply swampers but that process went smoother than expected. Before the last tire was mounted, I rolled it up next to a 35x12.50 Goodyear MTR that was getting installed on a different truck. The LTB was about an inch shorter, but the sidewall was easily twice as thick, and perhaps 3 times as thick. I was beginning to understand why people love the bias swampers as much as they do. They shop tech asked how much air I wanted in my tires and I said to put 45 psi in all 4. I found later that they had put 40 psi in the fronts and 45 in the rears.
Leaving the shop, the truck felt MUCH taller. As I pulled out into traffic, I found out just how much turning radius I had lost and it was plenty! A lot of my maneuverability was compromised. After getting the tires up to speed I needed to brake for a stop light. Two things became immediately apparent. There was not enough pressure in the tires because the truck was squirming all over the road! And the second was that I needed to completely relearn my braking distances. I aired up to 50 PSI the next day and that smoothed things out very nicely. After doing that, most of the wander was gone, and the tires felt very much like the radials they replaced. There is a very low hum to the tires but they were much quieter than the tires they replaced.
The following Sunday, I took the tires for a short run in the forest. In the sand and mud, they were unflappable. I didn't bother to air down, but the difference in traction over the BFG Trac Edge was night and day. I no longer spin tires going thorugh the mud. The tires just hook up and propel you forward. The "bite" is tremendous. On Monday I took a high speed run out of town. Half an hour at 70+ mph, produced no surprises. The tires handled well, weren't too loud as far as swampers go, and felt good. I checked air pressure to see if they were heating up, but pressure was still 50-51 pounds.
With all that said, I would highly recommend these tires to those looking for a set of hyper-aggressive rubber for their truck. They are NOT radials, they do wander just a bit in road ruts, and they do hum at speed. I don't expect more than 20-25k miles from them and they will get rotated every oil change. I bought the free replacement warranty from Discount Tire for $19.99 per tire. This is the best warranty on the market as far as I know, and I highly recommend it. It also gives you lifetime balancing. With big tires this is a huge plus, as I expect I'll need to re-balance with every rotation.
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