good call! i think it might not be enough....

 

Did you find a tire? Just for convenience of what is available at my local tire shop I am leaning towards to the Scorpion AT plus or Michelin Defender. BFG K02 is also available but I am afraid it is more aggressive than I need and I would be sacrifice ride and noise comfort.

 

Be aware, when it comes to AT or more aggressive tires, people tend to (in my opinion) grade on a different scale when it comes to the noise. I am really annoyed by tire noise and love how quiet the LR3 can be. If you put any kind of AT tires on, they WILL BE louder than a less aggressive tire. Some of the ATs are definitely quieter than others, and they will probably all seem not too bad at first, but they get louder as they wear down.

The BFG KO2s are WILDLY popular right now and are probably a great tire for a trail rig but i've had them on two different trucks now and was pretty disappointed in the noise levels on both occasions. On one truck i switched from Michelin Defender LTX (very quiet, really a fantastic tire, just doesn't look cool) to a half worn set of KO2s and they transformed my previously very quiet GMC Yukon into a howling humming thing... but they looked cool. I got tired of the noise and switched to a set of also-half-worn Toyo AT2s and they were a lot quieter than the KO2s but not as quiet as the Defenders. It was a pretty substantial reduction though and makes me question the popularity of the KO2s. I think somehow they have just become the 'official cool tire of #Overlanding'.

I sold the yukon and got my LR3 which came with half worn KO2s. Again the noise bothered me. I switched to new Toyo AT3s and they are pretty quiet, maybe even quieter than the AT2s were. I'm sure the Defender would be quieter still but I'm not able to keep my vanity in check and had to have something more aggressive looking. So far i'm pretty happy with the AT3 other than being disappointed that the size i wanted wasn't available in an LT tire so i had to get the P tire, which is only just barely sufficient for weight rating.

 

Great insight and feedback. Much appreciated.
I am still deciding on replacing my tires, waiting for a possible black Friday deal.

 

Love my Falken's too. Noise is really low for an A/T. Honestly everything is great about them, although since the Landy is broken down in my driveway so often I haven't put that many miles on them yet lol. They have a good mileage warranty, around 50k or so, if you keep them rotated. Discount Tire did an online price match for about $155 a tire - that was a couple years ago.

 

@Troysmith80 In your synopsis of the tires you experienced (Michelin, Toyo, BFG) you mention their noise levels and whether or not they "look cool" or not. What about actual off-road performance? Did you put those KO2s in the dirt and see why they might be so popular amongst the overlanding crowd? For me, you can't have good off-road performance without more aggressive tread and that means road noise. You can't have one without the other, to some extent.

I had Michelin Synchrones on the LR3 a long time ago, as my road tire. They were good at eating concrete, but that's about it.

 

I'd agree about AT tire performance. My Falken's are as good or better off road than any other's I've had, including BFG's. And they're by far the best in the rain of any I've owned.

 

I'm not sure exactly what you're stating. Which Falkens do you run, and what other tires have you compared their off-road performance against? ....and the discussion was about noise versus off-road performance, not rain performance. So are they quiet?

 

I'm talking about the only Falkens that have been mentioned in this thread, and I said above how they are offroad, and how the noise is, which is excellent all around. Noise is no more than an A/S tire. The rain performance you might say is a bonus for an A/T - which BFGs were fairly bad at in my experience. I haven't run BFGs in over 8 years though, so maybe they're better now, but not according to the stopping data I saw when I researched a couple years ago. Personally I won't consider a tire that isn't excellent in the rain since I'm in a 55+ inches of rain a year climate. No reason for a modern AT to not perform well in the wet.

Obviously with tires everyone's got their own experiences and opinions though.

 

Hi, good point /question) For the OP off road performance was rated as a lower priority than noise. It is for me as well. Most of my off road time (which if I'm lucky is 5% of my driving time) is in dry, rocky terrain (high desert and summer forest) and aggressive tires aren't that important (though durability is). I did run both tires off road and both were fine. YMMV, particularly if you live somewhere muddy.

I'm sure it's more difficult to design and build a tire that is both quiet and delivers good traction, the KO2 design is getting a little old. I believe the toyo has better performance in rain and snow and I'm not sure if it gives much up off road, it might but it probably won't matter for the OP or me.

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