Help me pick new tires for my Ford Ranger 4x4

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Trying to decide between the Firestone Destination A/T and the BF Goodrich Rugged Trail T/A. The size in question is P245/75-16. The vehicle is a 2001 Ford Ranger 4x4 with the Off Road package that sees mostly highway use, with some occasional snow.
 
I'd look at some Coopers on DTD. Plus they have some rebates going on. Decent price and performance.
 
Among those two, there is no comparison. The BFGoodrich Rugged Trail T/A is an OEM tire that is best avoided if at all possible. Now, if you mean the relatively new BFGoodrich Rugged Terrain T/A, then that's a solid choice, though not quite as aggressive as the Firestone Destination A/T.

Personally, if I'm looking for an all-terrain tire, the shopping begins and ends with the BFGoodrich All Terrain T/A KO. It has pretty much been THE de facto A/T tire for decades, and for good reason. It's very capable off-road (though doesn't self-clean in mud particularly well), has excellent road manners for a tire of its type, and is generally reasonably affordable.
 
I wholeheartedly agree about the BFG All Terrain TA K/O! I have those on the truck now, I've gotten over 80k and 8+ years out of them. I doubt I'll have the truck long enough to justify the expense or to get the service out of the tire
 
BFG says that the Rugged Terrain is an on-highway tire and I'm not sure that I'd be comfortable with the tread pattern for that use. There's not a whole lot of tread siping, nor large circumferential grooves for water evacuation. Granted, the All Terrain T/A KO doesn't have those things either, but at least you get excellent off-road traction.

Given what you've said about your needs, give a hard look at the Firestone Destination LE2. I think it'll do what you need and provide better on-road manners than any of the tires mentioned so far.

Of course, there are also other brands as well. Cooper was mentioned previously. Goodyear has some good tires in this category, as does Continental, etc. Yokohama is also worth a look. Where do you plan to buy? Local tire store who can order pretty much anything? Or a place like Sears or Costco, etc?
 
Probably Ken Towery or Discount Tire. The Destination LE2 doesn't look like it would be very helpful in snow
 
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Some of the best winter tires don't have aggressive-looking tread patterns, but they're well-siped. Siping goes a very long way towards delivering that kind of grip. The LE2 has a good amount of siping, though to be fair, much of it is not full-depth.

I'd say that one of the best tires you could buy for on-road service with snow capability is the Michelin LTX M/S2. It has a deceptively "tame" tread pattern, but it has an outrageous amount of tread siping, which makes it an animal in snow. I owned a set of the original LTX M/S and can attest to how well it does. It's not severe snow rated (the BFG All Terrain T/A KO is), but for a typical M+S tire, it does extremely well, probably as well as or better than any of the tires previously mentioned.

But they're expensive. You get what you pay for, but they are expensive. If you don't think you'll keep the truck long enough to get the life out of them, you may not want to invest that much money. How long do you intend to keep the truck (in terms of miles, not time)?
 
Based on my experience with Destination LE (not 2) in this exact size I will probably never buy another Firestone tire. That may not be fair, but it is how I feel... The LE2 is fairly new, but I would strongly advise paying special attention to any reviews of it with significant mileage on the tire because the LE's went away badly after about 50% wear... they were pretty good to start with and pretty awful on any thing but dry pavement toward the end ... MUCH more-so than any other tire I've ever owned.

I don't have any experience with the A/T though. A friend of mine just put a set on his Jeep and he works at a dealer that sees a lot of tires so they must not be too bad - price is a major factor for him though...

I think GM "Certified Service" has a 100.00 rebate on 4 tires installed right now that covers BFG and Firestone so that might be worth looking into, otherwise try to catch one of the 70.00 rebates on Michelins maybe?
 
I'm looking for some reasonably priced A/T's that would give me say 3-4 years and 30-35k, while providing good wet traction, decent road manners and decent snow traction. If I was going to be driving the truck longer (I'm going to get a Civic or something similar for a DD), I'd just buy another set of the BFG A/T KO's. They are hands down the best [censored] tire I've ever owned, they just wore a little past the siping and are starting to crack between the treads due to age. I'd recommend them to anyone but just won't get the life/mileage to justify the cost. The goes for the Michelins too
 
Originally Posted By: PW01
I'm looking for some reasonably priced A/T's that would give me say 3-4 years and 30-35k, while providing good wet traction, decent road manners and decent snow traction.


Cooper Discoverer A/T3. $125 each, free shipping. Then subtract a $40 discount on 4, and subtract an $80 rebate on four.

http://www.discounttiredirect.com/direct...d=16&cs=245

I'd call that a VERY reasonably priced A/T.

I have a set and am very pleased with them.
 
If you prefer to buy locally, I'd get the Destination A/T (hand-down). I really liked them on my previous Mariner. I've read great things about the Cooper AT3s. I'm considering them for my Grand Cherokee, because you can't touch DTD's price locally (for any other tires).
 
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