I need help quick I'm going to but either one of these tires manana. I need your guyses opinion. If you had a choice what tire would you pick. I'm finding out the goodyears are more expensive but the polls show they're more liked. Please help!

Personally?

BFG Muds- I still keep second guessing my choice of the all terrains- but with all of the highway driving I do- I think I made the right choice.

I'm not sure if you're talking just MT tires, but here's a little of my experience.

• I've had BFG AT/KOs - they rocked for the hwy driving and frequent offroading.
• I currently have 32" Goodyear AT/S (not MT). They're great too, but a tad louder, and are wearing well.
• I also have a set of 32" BFG MTs in the garage waiting to be mounted on my other rims. Found them slightly used for $150 - I can't wait to use them!

Good luck though. Both tires you're looking at are good.

I did have a choice and picked the BFG MT's. My opinion is they look better on the truck than the AT's, tougher anyway. The downfall to them is the road noise, they're loud. I don't know much about the Wranglers except for that Lee & Shanna have them and seem pretty happy with them.

The Goodyear MT/Rs was an excellent purchase for us. They have been shown to be extremely durable when offroading. They have been puncture resistance when aired down in the 8 to 12 lb range.

They are not as noisy as the BFG or GY mud's, but not as quiet as the AT KOs. I have not observed the Goodyear AT/Ss.

As for road wear, who knows. We have two tire/wheel setups. The primary is the stock Goodyear Longtrails with the alloy rims. The second is the MT/Rs on the Xterra steel spare rim. I rotate back and forth, the Longtrails get better gas mileage and are quieter. Also we decided to let day-to-day driving eat up cheaper Longtrails.

No matter which tire you chose, a meater tire, better tread, puncture resistance, and higher profile all will help with offroading.

I am picking up a set of BFG Mud Terrain T/A KM 265/75/216's tomorrow for under $400. I was told it's a good deal. And if you buy before the end of august, there's some wristwatch promo too.http://tirerack.com/tires/special_events/bfg_watch.html

I would say $400 for 216 inch. talk about riceing

I like my MT/R's 265/75/R16's

So is that $400 for 2 or 4?

Damn Dan, 216" rims? If you could trim enough to fit them, you would have some awesome axle clearance. :p

Yup, $400 for four tires. And with the "216"'s, they only turn 14 times per mile.

Well, scratch my last post aboot the BFG's. Snafu and I ended up with Firestone Destination MT's. Lt 265/75/16 (they were out of stock on the 216's ) With a quick T-bar Adjustment (3 full turns) and some minor mudflap modification (the 2nd or middle screw hole in) I drove away one Happy Camper. Man these things look tough too, check out the reviews on tirerack.com Hello Mud, I'm comin' to get ya'!

get an Alignment now!

the adjstmnt was done by a pro mech in the shop. He's done his two trucks as well and many others I'd suppose. He didn't hook it up to any type of machine(diagnostics?) is that necessary?, it ran true and straight all the way home.

Raising the front end will throw off your camber. An alignment will correct this, however at $59 each must make their own decision. 3 turns may not be enough to warrant it.

Take a look from out in front of the truck and see if it looks like the tires are tipped out at the top. If so, get it aligned. If you don't get an alignment, keep an eye on tire wear of the outer edges and rotate frequently.

Thanks Craig.

Get it aligned. Any change in suspension and ride height will change your alignment, even if it's slightly....then it's slightly out of alignment. Do you want to tear up your new investment prematurely? Rotate every oil change on a four wheel drive and with that aggressive of a tread you'll want to do it to keep the noise down. Fronts to rear and cross the rears to the front unless you're rotating a spare in the lineup. Then you would put your spare starting at the left rear and put your left front to the spare, continue with same rotation.

Confused? Good. Enjoy your new traction.

Do you think that means I shouldn't do broken arrow tomorrow, without an alignment?

Unless you somehow really whack the alignment (which I doubt you did), you should be okay to do one outing.

I raised my front end about 1.25" from stock and didn't get an alignment on my X a while back. Drove it that way for 2 years and my tires wore evenly and I had zero problems.

I know I probably had a little luck on my side, but I wouldn't cancel a trip over 3 turns of the t-bar adjusters. Just get the alignment when you get back. See you tomorrow, yes?

I'm doing it without an alignment!

All my life I've been told I was a little off, I'll see ya' at 4 sons.

Mike, your statement of "any change even if it's slightly" isn't completely accurate. The reason being is that all alignments have tolerances and if you turn your torsion bars "slightly" but don't take the specs outside of the minimum and maximum tolerances then there is no reason for an alignment.

Now granted, you would never know if you are inside tolerances or not without the alignment since you can't tell this with the naked eye.

Here are the precise camber specs for the Xterra for those visual types.

Camber
Degree minute (Decimal degree)
Minimum 0'03 (0.05')
Nominal 0'33 (0.55')
Maximum 1'03 (1.05')
Left and right difference 45 (0.75') or less

As you can see there are substantial variances between minimum and maximum so its possible someone could be at one end and after a couple turns be close to the other end.

Hey, you're the expert, why don't I pick you up and go for a run? Broken Arrow sound nice today Craig?

Very true what you're stating and valid points.

Can you see any of these tolerances by eye or know where they were before changing them without measuring with accurate piece of equipment? No. Is it possible to still be "within specs" after a change? Yes.

I suggest the alignment because of the money spent and possible loss without proper maintainence. Yes, it might still be within specs but I wouldn't bet $400 worth of tires on it

Mornin' Mike. What IS this piece of accurate eqpmnt? Is it like the plastic strips you use to measure tolerance when installing crankshaft bearings? Is it electrical like a timing gun? Can I use a bent hanger and some used chewing gum somehow?

An alignment rack and computerized analyzer. My guess is around $50k if you want to pick one up. Now you can understand why it runs about $59 for an alignment.

- edited to add -
My suggestion would be as follows:

- If you plan on leaving your ride height as is, then Mike's right you should get an alignment.
- You may want to hold off on the alignment if you plan on putting on shackles, a lift kit, a steering system, or turning your t-bars anymore within the next month or so, or a couple thousand miles, since you would need another alignment after doing any of these things.
- If you were thinking about these things, but it's down the road (say several months or after more than 2k in miles) then you're better off spending the money on an alignment so you don't wear out your new shoes.

Sorry, no can do today. Thanks for the offer, maybe another day.