General Grabber Tire Observations

DiploStrat

Expedition Leader
After a long and expensive series of misadventures, I finally have nice round wheels on my MB 917. To these I mounted a set of General Tire Grabber OA WB, size 385/65x22.5, load range L, and set off from the east coast Overland EXPO. The trip took us from Arizona, to California, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, Idaho, back to Nevada and finally, after about three months, back to Virginia. As the speedometer on the truck is broken, I have no idea of the actual mileage, but it was serious. Herewith the observations:

-- Balance beautifully, 3 or 6 oz.
-- Quiet and much faster on the highway. (Replacing Continental MPT 81 in 335/80x20.)
-- Terribly stiff on washboard and potholed dirt. These are truck tires, not MPT, and the ride can be harsh. Most of the trip we kept experimenting with lower pressures.
-- Not great in snow or mud. This is driven by a couple of factors; the outer edge is not siped and thus they don't clean. Also, the profile is very square.
-- Wear appears to be low, next to nothing visible on the rear and some visible wear on the left front.

Bottom line, great for good pavement - nice and stable. Need to air down on bad dirt and probably air down even more for mud or sand.

We were given a lot of warnings about low pressure as the rims are said to lack safety beads. Scholars can debate this.

Again, impressions, not a formal review or road test.

 

VerMonsterRV

Gotta Be Nuts
Hey DiploStrat, nice write up. We just picked up our spare tire so we can finish the rear rack. While at the truck tire shop the guy said we should get between 40k-60k out of the tires, likely the 60k as we are not heavy for the tires. Also good to get a heads up on the dirt/mud traction issues. So far since we are still at the build stage we have just been on pavement, but hopefully in a few short months that will change.
 

DiploStrat

Expedition Leader
Small update. Still using the same tires. Running 45 psi in front. Technically too low, but we rarely ever reach 60 mph, but the ride is much, much better. Larger contact patch is more assuring; haven't felt much instability in heavy rain, but we do slow way down. Total weight is around 18,500 lb.

Should still get edge wear, but the odd wear pattern we were seeing appears to have been caused by excessive play in the steering, since corrected.

Still stiff on bad roads; may have to air down even more for Morocco.
 

Geo.Lander

Well-known member
Small update. Still using the same tires. Running 45 psi in front. Technically too low, but we rarely ever reach 60 mph, but the ride is much, much better. Larger contact patch is more assuring; haven't felt much instability in heavy rain, but we do slow way down. Total weight is around 18,500 lb.

Should still get edge wear, but the odd wear pattern we were seeing appears to have been caused by excessive play in the steering, since corrected.

Still stiff on bad roads; may have to air down even more for Morocco.
Nice, they look very similar to our Nokian R-Truck Steer we have in the same size. We had them up and over Hemsedalsfjellet during this seasons first full on winter storm, sheet ice and 9% grades snowy downhills. Didn't perform too bad at all from someone used to driving with Nordic compound tires with 250 spikes per tire. Bit sensitive on the ice of course. We took a small off track detour on our way to our favorite surf spot at Hoddevik this weekend, and managed some fairly decent milage, we of course have nothing to compare to, we only did a few 100km on the old 9R tires that were mounted.
So far so good thou, I would be really interested in everyone who has similar tires sharing their offroad, winter and on road tire pressures with me, as I am working on my own STIS system at the moment..
Our fist proper road trip with our box this year:
IMG_7330.jpeg
 

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