ITECH
Member Since: 12 May 2010
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 1
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Interesting, here's my few cents worth...
I fitted General Grabber AT2's 255/55/18 at 92,000km in August 2009, to replace whatever was fitted as standard. I've had my LR2 HSE since new (November 2007) and am now about to replace the tyres at 161,000 km (September 2014). I used to commute 460km each way once a week, so easily ran 1,000 km per week, including running around. Slowed down over the last three years, but still tour extensively, knowing that I can go absolutely anywhere (that doesn't require vehicle mods, obviously) but snow has only been slush or a few inches at the most and the AT2's are also excellent at gravel roads, which I seem to find a lot of...
I generally have all tyres at 40 PSI (minimises body roll and the suspension is soft enough to handle it) and if I'm travelling long distance through a major wet, I drop them to 36-38 PSI, to give them a bit more flex (aka grip), but bear in mind that in New Zealand, most roads are coarse chip, not smooth macadam. Not that it's happened, but the slightly lower pressures stop that 'will it flick or not?' feeling, perhaps by inducing a bit more body roll than the brain (mine) is programmed to. The higher pressures assist in flicking sharp rocky things out (I've only had one puncture and that was due to parking on a roofing nail). Mud and sand, I've dropped PSI to 18-20 with no traction problems (so far).
If I look hard, I can see where the inside of the tyres have rubbed on the suspension, but there is no paint worn through or scuffed tyres, so this could be due to me maintaining cruise control speeds of approx 100 km/hr (legal open road speed limit) for all corners rated 75 km/hr or above, so some tyre movement is expected. The vehicle will quite happily drive around 35 km/hr corners at 60 km/hr and 50 km/hr corners at 80 km/hr, not that I do often, but it can comfortably with passengers (Rumour has it that it can do so faster without pax.).
The increased tread on the road was immediately noticeable when I upgraded the tyres and made the already great handling, excellent. For comparison, I used to have a 2l Diesel BMW X3 before the LR2 and I compare the handling as a) BMW is short skis, flicking through moguls and b) LR2 is longer skis, carving through bends. The wider AT2's on the LR2 cut down on body roll and made a huge (in my opinion) performance increase over the original tyres, with the only caveat as I said above, my preferring to drop pressures slightly in (really) heavy rain on a long distance run and (as had been said by many people), they are AT tyres, not mud tyres. I emphasise the wet weather performance at 40 PSI as feeling slightly slippery (but it was probably OK) as the vehicle being what it is, it is immune to whatever weather conditions have been thrown at me over the last seven years.
Cheers, Kevin.
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24th Feb 2014 7:03 am
