Tyres for the WA bush?

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Ok, so I blew 5 tyres while out bush in the WA goldfields. All of which were sidewall punctures and unrepairable. Some of the scrub out there is too dense to avoid brushing up against when going off the track in search of new ground and quite frankly I don't have the funds to keep replacing tyres especially considering these were pretty much new A/Ts. I'm asking what tyres you serious offroaders run out in the prickly scrub that aren't going to burst immediately at the sidewalls. Is there a tyre available with sidewalls as tough as the tread? I never got a puncture on the face of a tyre. The trip's over for this year but I'd like to come back well prepared next time :) Cheers
 
Mate I have put punctures in all my tyres, Coopers, Bridgestones, Dunlop, and now Khumo. Brand NEW set of 5 x AT980's first trip away side wall puncture right at the side join, worst possible place for a puncture. Didn't even do 2,000k's on this one. It now sits as the spare due to this one small puncture. Same trip mate went away with nearly bald tyres and drove like a mad man, not a single puncture ! Go figure.

As you said, side wall issues. Did you let your tyre pressure down at all, or did you keep them at highway driving pressures. That is the only thing that may help I believe. I have also sliced a few tyres trying to go down tracks I probably shouldn't have. The razor sharp rocks should have been a good sign to turn around.

When you find the right tyre let us all know :)
 
I find mud tires with crazy side wall tread to be successful though they are quite noisy on the road and you don't get the miles out of a set that you get out of all terrains. Hopefully that helps . Cheers
 
Wide tread, radial ply tyres tend to die young in outback WA and scrub-bashing only compounds the problems that their thin sidewall construction is prone to. Bias ply tyres (12 ply if you could get them - Yokohama used to make a good one), @ 40 psi pressure on narrow split rims used to be the go. I suspect that the closer you can get to that proven formula with modern tubeless tyres, the better endurance you'll get.
 
Just did the tyre thing again , went with the BFG A/T's as I will be doing a fair bit of on road travel as well as mild off road , but on the side wall strength issue the Mickey Thompson apparently has Kevlar side walls, they are owned by the same company that holds the patent over Kevlar , I think it is DuPont by memory and are meant to be the ducks guts for side wall strength , next were Goodyear Wranglers but both very expensive.

Reckon you used all your bad tyre luck up in one trip !
 
A brilliant article Dr.Duck! Thank you! Hopefully can come to a sound choice based on that information alone. It's just a bloody waste to stake new tyres and have to throw them in the bin. Should have seen the faces at the tyre shop when I came in with all these brand new staked tyres. It baffles me that the current run of the mill A/T's have not advanced to a design to allow sidewall repair. That in itself would be great. Pull out the stake and pop a plug in. Least I won't be wasting my money on another round of Radials and I hope some of you guys heading to WA might avoid the expense. I will add that in my case it wasn't rocky ground that caused my punctures or rough tracks but serious off-track bush bashing! The A/T's held up fine around Leonora for example as the terrain was fairly open and easy to avoid rubbing up against scrub. In Kalgoorlie you have no choice but to drive through it if you wanted to get anywhere.
 
Bacchus said:
Just did the tyre thing again , went with the BFG A/T's as I will be doing a fair bit of on road travel as well as mild off road , but on the side wall strength issue the Mickey Thompson apparently has Kevlar side walls, they are owned by the same company that holds the patent over Kevlar , I think it is DuPont by memory and are meant to be the ducks guts for side wall strength , next were Goodyear Wranglers but both very expensive.

Reckon you used all your bad tyre luck up in one trip !

Kevlar sidewalls sound interesting I'll have to google them. The price is a non issue if they last. I'm out $1500 for about 5000kms of use. The inconvenience of having to limp back into town when I'd rather be out detecting would be worth the extra money.
 
Andyndan said:
I find mud tires with crazy side wall tread to be successful though they are quite noisy on the road and you don't get the miles out of a set that you get out of all terrains. Hopefully that helps . Cheers

The guy at the tyre shop actually recommonded a set of Maxxis muddies after he saw my tyres and I probably would have gone that route if it weren't coming towards the end of my trip. I agree they're pretty noisy onroad which is where I'll spend a lot of time til next trip.
 
Westaus said:
Mate I have put punctures in all my tyres, Coopers, Bridgestones, Dunlop, and now Khumo. Brand NEW set of 5 x AT980's first trip away side wall puncture right at the side join, worst possible place for a puncture. Didn't even do 2,000k's on this one. It now sits as the spare due to this one small puncture. Same trip mate went away with nearly bald tyres and drove like a mad man, not a single puncture ! Go figure.

As you said, side wall issues. Did you let your tyre pressure down at all, or did you keep them at highway driving pressures. That is the only thing that may help I believe. I have also sliced a few tyres trying to go down tracks I probably shouldn't have. The razor sharp rocks should have been a good sign to turn around.

When you find the right tyre let us all know :)

Bias Ply! Haha, pending a purchase and test run ofcourse! I did make an observation that most 4x4's I saw out in the goldfields (mining vehicles) were running very narrow tyres and didn't look beefy on tread. Perhaps running light truck tyres? I ran mine at high pressures (45 psi) because I figured less belly out on the sidewalls would minimize staking. It seems I made a poor choice in tyres or a poor choice in driving off-track.
 
True bias tyres are a pita everywhere except in real bad off road situations, poor handling, big flat spots eveytime you leave it parked for more than a few hours... no punctures but in truth after around 10,000ks I'd had enough of them. A good compromise is large m/t light truck tyres fitted on the smallest recommended rim width, eg 33 x 12.5 muddies that make their max load weight at low pressure say 35psi on only a 8inch wide rim instead of 10inch rim.
A set up like that has me running 25 psi in the front and only 30 psi in the rear whilst fully loaded on or off road, lots of tyre flex offroad and virtually no punctures compared to 31 x 10.5 a/t needing as much as 60psi max load getting lots of sidewall punctures at 45psi.

Yes I know muddies can be a bit noisy but I've found some of the cheaper brands are not as aggressive with their tread design so they are not to noisy and have given very good mileage for their $price, maxxis bighorns 60,000-80,000ks, federal coragia? around 60,000k.

Regards Daryl
 
nuggetino said:
I did make an observation that most 4x4's I saw out in the goldfields (mining vehicles) were running very narrow tyres and didn't look beefy on tread. Perhaps running light truck tyres? I ran mine at high pressures (45 psi) because I figured less belly out on the sidewalls would minimize staking. It seems I made a poor choice in tyres or a poor choice in driving off-track.

The locals know the score - everybody else gets suckered by the tyre company adverts showing fat, luggy tyres conquering rugged, rocky, moonscape terrain. The reality of the WA outback is that the stakes will get you long before you run out of traction climbing over rocks and when it does rain out there, the gaps between those lugs just fill up with clay and your tyres effectively become slicks. Been there, done that, learned my lesson the hard way. :8
 
Yeah that makes sense. Well add me to the tally and I'm sure next trip to WA some other problem will pop up. That's just my luck but it sure is worth it. Amazing part of the country. Miss it already
 
We run Maxxis Bighorn 764 prior to these we ran 762 Bighorn...
764's seem to have a tougher sidewall only my opinion...

Cheers Nanjim
Jim
 
grubstake said:
DrDuck said:
Been thinking about this issue, too. While I don't have practical experience, it may be worth considering all steel radials:
http://www.beadelltours.com.au/tyre_construction.html

Excellent article and their conclusion is that bias ply tyres on split rims are still the best solution for off-track use.

I spent 3 months care-taking a cattle station in WA last year and the station ute's used cross ply split rims, not wide tread, but these were far from immune from staking. But at least with the split rims a field repair was possible if the damage was not fatal and this was quite a regular activity, even for large vehicles like grader and articulated loader.

I use BFG A/Ts on my 4WD and have got over 100,000 kms from the current set and likely to get another 10>20, but while I used the vehicle somewhat during the station work (no roads at all), and other field trips, most of the kms would have been highway kms.

So my point if I have one, is that there isn't a perfect tyre for all situations, as we all have different needs.

Rob.
 
nuggetino said:
So can the sidewalls be repaired on LT muddies?

I've found some tyre dealers wont even check to see what can/can't be repaired, some larger truck tyre dealerships can/will repair what others wont.
Most mining/government 4x4's have 16inch split rims because that is what the base models come with. At the end of the day if you remember that to much speed, weight, and tyre pressure = more punctures no what tyres you have.

Daryl
 
Bacchus said:
Just did the tyre thing again , went with the BFG A/T's as I will be doing a fair bit of on road travel as well as mild off road , but on the side wall strength issue the Mickey Thompson apparently has Kevlar side walls, they are owned by the same company that holds the patent over Kevlar , I think it is DuPont by memory and are meant to be the ducks guts for side wall strength , next were Goodyear Wranglers but both very expensive.

Reckon you used all your bad tyre luck up in one trip !
I'm on my 3rd set of Goodyear Wranglers on my Patrol ute, they appear to be outlasting the BFG for k's on the clock, considering 50% of my driving is on gravel roads with a large amount of weight constantly on them they seem to be doing alright, as for BigHorns, my brother had a set on his Discovery, they lasted for ages and then they just seemed to chew away in days,
 

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