BF GOODRICH MUD TERRAIN T/A

Reviewed by SARAH TURNER

When I started off-roading the BFG MT was the tyre for all round performance. Like the vehicles themselves we ask a lot from our tyres, to perform at 100mph on the road as well as clawing their way through deep clay is no mean feat and one which the MT satisfied admirably. Over the years its off-road ability has been surpassed by the competition who have sacrificed the all round capability and longevity in favour of off-road performance. As more vehicles become competition orientated the road ability has become less important and as such I guess that BFG must have felt the pressure. I’m very glad that they did….

Meet the new beast, the KM (stands for ‘Key feature Mud’ apparently). Across the road contact area the pattern is very much the same as the old tyre, hence its road performance is unaffected. The change comes in the side wall and edge lugs. What BFG refer to as Diggerlugz™ make the new tyre stand out from the crowd. The new lugs offer upper sidewall traction and improved cleaning. They also offer greater sidewall protection.

BFG have also changed some of the sizing, bearing in mind the main market is the US there are bigger tyres for rock crawling, my problem was they have discontinued the 33 9.50 R15 I have used for six years so I threw a set of 255 85 R16s onto my Toyota and took to the rough stuff.

Going up to a sixteen inch tyre changes a lot, the 16" versions are classified as Light Truck tyres and hence 10ply rated over the 6 ply rating of the 15". This gives a much less flexible sidewall, which in turn has pros and cons… less flexible means less able to mould around obstacles but it also means less ‘bulge’ so the tyre is much less prone to damage, a fair pay off.

Once in the mud the tyre performance is indeed improved over the original, I always found the original struggled to climb out of deep ruts, the new tyre found the job considerably less demanding, the edges providing grip where none had existed in the past. On reduced pressures, (dropped from 32psi to 16) the stiffer walls still proved malleable enough to climb and mould over hard ground. The ability to clean on the outer edge seems improved too.

As I said, the MT T/A KM is not the most aggressive tyre on the market, the swamper types and Simex have overtaken it here, but as a tyre I can run every day, in any terrain it very possibly remains king, it is just a shame it also demands a ‘kings ransom’ to pay for a set, though even on that front the old tyre offered good wear and I have no reason to believe that the new one should be any different, so mile for mile it probably evens out with the cheaper brands.

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