Don't have any pics right now, but I just put 255/55-18 Nitto Terra Grabbers on my 2004 D2. Looks really sharp, and it's absolutely amazing how much softer and quieter the ride is. Good price too.

 

Hey guys, I went out an bought my tires and they are going to be installed tomorrow. It started snowing where I'm from and my tires are worn out. I ended up buying the Toyo Open Country A/T which are the same size as my original tires 18" except these ones are beefier. I ordered 255/55/18 to match. I'll post some pictures sometime this week. Thanks everyone for all your feedback and comments.
Tanya

 

Oh and I was told the General Grabber ones are sold out thoughout the country for another 3 months or more. Thats when I went a researched the Toyo's.

 

Ok, so after driving our 03 Disco for a year, it's time for new tires (OEM rims on an SE, so we're looking at 18" tires). I've read all the threads I could find on tire choices in this size, but I think I my priorities may steer me towards different tires than some forum members, and therefore I'd value your opinions.

By way of background: since buying my first car in college, I've always run perfomance summer times from April - November and run real snow tires (on a separate set of rims) for the winter rather than go with an all-season throughout the year. We've done the same on some my wife's cars (a Miata, for example), but have stuck with all season tires for some of her other cars (Acura Integra, Audi A4 quattro). I don't mind paying more for tires if they're worth it (in my book, tires isn't the place to skimp given how important they are to safety). That said, I've never owned anything but a car (and a manual transmission/stiff suspensioned/performance oriented car at that), so I'm still getting used to this truck thing (I tried to talk my wife into a 5 series BMW wagon or A6 Avant instead of the Disco but lost).

Our Disco is intended to be a third vehicle in a few years but is currently my wife's daily driver. It's driven year round in New England, and as much as we talk about doing some off-roading in it (with some of the local clubs) the reality is 99% of it's life is spent on paved roads. We currently don't have another set of rims, but I'm considering them after the snow we got last winter.

So my priorities for a tire are (in priority order):
- good handling in dry (most of our driving)
- good handling in rain (much of our driving)
- good handling in snow/ice (if we get another winter like 07/08, much of our winter driving)
- no noiser than the truck already is
- good wear (the OEM goodyear's were so cupped that we effectively had a speed limiter of 70 mph - anything over that and the truck shakes)
- ability to go play in the dirt/mud

Also, we do tow with the vehicle, so I don't want a tire that will reduce the tow rating.

The OEM(?) Goodyear Wrangler HPs (with legal but not great tread depth) were amazingly poor in the winter compared to similar all season tires we had on my wife's A4 quattro with similar tread depth. I suspect the extremely wide tire widths on the Disco had something to do with this. Coming from an Audi A4 quattro with much narrower all-seasons, will I be happy with the snow performance of new (but wide) all-seasons in the Disco, or should I just bite the bullet, pick up some used rims (size/width?), and get some real snow tires?

So bottom line: based on these priorities, any recommenations for:
- 1 set of year round tires
- summer tires and winter tires

Thanks as always!

 

Well I just replaced the tires on the new to me 99 Disco with 18" wheels, because the Disco is 100% street/mom driven and because I live in Socal (semi-desert) where it is very dry I went with a Nexen Roadian tire - I know most of you have never heard of them but I had some on my 97 Volvo 850R Wagon and they were great, I got a set of 4 on ebay for $388.00 - treadwear 460 / temp 'A' / traction 'A' that's value in my book after seeing what the 'big" tire companys wanted for an 18" tire for our vehicles. Just my opinion but I would use them as your summer tires in a heartbeat, you won't be dissapointed.

This set on ebay has a buy it now for $355.00

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/18-In...QQcmdZViewItem

 

Thanks for the tip - you're right, I've never heard of them , but I'll check them out.

One other question - I'm familiar with treadwear/temp/traction ratings and tire sizing numbers, but I'm new to worrying about load ratings on truck tires.

Based on some helpful info here and looking in my workshop manual, it appears that my OEM tires (255/55 R18 Wrangler HP 109H) were load rated at 109H, so I'm assuming I just have to verify that any tire I consider has that or higher rating - is it that simple?

Thanks
James

 

Granite,

Much of the difference you have seen between LR and Audi in inclement weather is a function of AWD systems. For all weather street/track driving Audi's Quattro system is far superior to any system you are going to find on a SUV. Plus sheer mass is working against you on ice and snow. I grew up in PA and ran performance tires year round on my Audi and had no problems but my father always switched to Blizzaks on their RR for the winter and left all seasons on their Audi year round.

The OEM Wranglers are terrible in any weather condition let alone snow and ice, nearly any other tire is going to be an improvement. I really don't even think going with a snow tire is going to give you the confidence you are used to with your Audi. That being said, ideally I would go with summer & winter tires but a good set of all seasons will make a HUGE improvement but nothing is going to do better on ice than snow tires. Also remember that most people do go with an A/S year round and are fine. It just depends on your personal expectations.

 

Thanks very much for the insights.

Ok, so now I'm curious - how does the Disco AWD system differ from quattro? I'm familiar (at a high level) with the difference between quattro, BMW's AWD system, and VW's synchro system, but I'm not up to speed on the Disco. Is there a fixed torque split f/r, or is it RWD until slippage occurs (or other)?

And glad to hear that any tire sounds like a huge improvement over the OEM tires. Makes me wonder why LR chose the Goodyear's as an OEM if they're that bad, but then again I've had lousy OEM tires on other cars as well.

 

Rather than AWD, the Land Rover system is probably best described as full time 4 wheel drive. The x-fer case is an "old school" design and puts equal amounts of power front and rear all the time and basically each wheel equally. We don't have any sort of built-in mechanism to account for different wheels traveling at different speeds (other than the differentials) or slip in the x-fer case. Our system was designed for the off road demands of an AWD/4WD system while VW/Audi/Porsche et al were designed with rally/on-road performance in mind. Rallies and on-road performance just happen to demand a similar set of characteristics.

Def a bit of an over-simplification with details omitted but I figure you can fill in the blanks.

As for the GoodYears, the only thing I can figure is that when the bid went out GY came back with one hell of a deal. I'd sort of understand if they were at least good at something - wet traction, dry traction, cornering, comfort, noise, treadwear but they suck at literally everything.

 

I totally agree... ANY tire you buy will be better than those stock Goodyears.