Summer Tire (on-road/offroad) shopping

[itsaguything]

Go figure...
By shopping by tire size and not vehicle type, on a number of websites, I discovered that the tires I want are available.
I know many here like the Toyos... but I find them very lack lustre. Spongy when I don't want the sponge, noisy, downright lethargic on the road. And newly wet road performance, or wet rock performance, horrible. Acceptable off road.

Equally acceptable off road, but many times better on-road were the Pirelli Scorpion A/T Plus I am replacing. Yes, the tread wears a little sooner. Imagine my brother's face when I pulled his tractor out of a bog, from in the bog! And they are acceptable in the winter... but no where near the Bridgestone Blizzak DM-V2 performance (thus any Canadian that "really" drives their vehicle has a set of winter tires, too.

Every shop told me they weren't available... and I found there is some last year stock still out there. Go figure.

 

[powershift]

I've been wearing out the tires that came with my rig, all 5 have been replaced except one in 25k mi. and they were new when I got it. Each one had sidewall damage of some sort, whether defective or not they were the Continental 4X4 Contact.

Had one Pirelli on the front left replaced recently and it wore the very outside edge and eventually corded. I increased pressure it to 42 PSI and that helped but it was too late. The tire pressure was at 36 PSI all its life on my rig. I've been buying used tires $50 mounted and balanced until I'm ready to get the Compmotive 18"s and then get BFG KO2's.

Its tempting to get a street summer tire because if you think about it the LR4 may launch harder if it has the grip on pavement. For stoplight jackrabbit starts a set of PZeros would be fun. Those new Toyota guys like to race until they lose lol. The Tacomas and 4Runners no matter how new, they will lose to the LR4 V8. I've raced 2 so far and they look good, but still too slow. Didn't need PZeros, the LR4 gets off the line pretty good with AWD and its gearing choices.

 

[gsxr]

Tire pressure should be 36 front, 42 rear. Wearing evenly on one edge of a tire indicates an alignment issue.

The LR4 pretty much can't break traction on clean, dry pavement with any sort of decent tire. No need for sticky summer shoes. I just installed a new set of Vredestein Quatrac Pro+ (link) for 3-season use, with a separate set of Blizzaks for the winter.

 

[powershift]

Yeah, the owners manual suggested that too, an alignment problem. Thanks to EuroTek in Las Vegas. Had my LR4 back 3 times to get the LCA's done, still not right. I had enough of EuroTek because they would break things like the boot during install, then left a backing plate loose on the 3rd visit for the same thing and left it rattle around. If I knew who was competent I would take it to them. Its not easy in Las Vegas for Land Rover owners. All people see is money bags lol.

 

[powershift]

For the traction advantage of PZeros, I had assumed that its possible that traction management might be dialing back power if you were to floor it from a standstill. Say at a red light you line up next to a sport bike. Plenty of room and nobody is around and you want to run him. That launch might be dialed back with traction management. It would be interesting to hook up instramentation to see. I think the locker icon would light up in the dash at some point, I could check that next time because it will lock the center and rear rain or shine which would indicate slippage managment. It will make a loud clack and thats when I know its giving me everything lol.

 

[gsxr]

My wife bracket raced our LR4 a couple of seasons at Firebird Raceway. Zero loss in power delivery off the line. She won several races and ended up 2nd in the Street Truck championship in 2019.

However, the LR4 does not like being power braked for more than 2-3 seconds. IIRC it will cut power if you do that.

 

[Nechaken]

My wife bracket raced our LR4 a couple of seasons at Firebird Raceway. Zero loss in power delivery off the line. She won several races and ended up 2nd in the Street Truck championship in 2019.

I'm curious -- what'd it run ?

 

[gsxr]

Typically ran mid-15's at 90mph.

Best ever ET was 15.305, best trap speed was 91.55mph.

This was at 2700' elevation, btw. Should be a few tenths quicker at sea level, and a couple MPH faster. Not bad for a 3-ton truck!