30,000 mile tire wear analysis General Grabber ATX

[BudgetBronco]

Back in August of 2021 I was one of the first to mount 285-75-R16 tires on Base steel wheels. See full post linked here. At the time a lot of people noted that these tires might not wear properly because they are designed to fit on a rim width of 7.5 to 9 inches, and the Base steelies are only 7 inches wide. The thinking is that compressing the beads inward will cause the middle of the tread pattern to bulge outward a bit, and cause uneven tire wear.

So now that I have 30k miles on the Bronco and all 5 tires have been through a full cycle of tire rotations, in the words of Project Farm, we're gonna test that!

I used a tread depth gauge to measure each tire in three different places around the circumference, and at each testing point I measured the tread depth at the inner tread, middle, and outer tread. Here is the table of measurement results:

My calculation of 'Bulge' shows the average difference in tread wear between the inner/outer tread and the middle of the tread. So sure enough, the tires are wearing a little bit faster in the middle, about one and a half 32nds of an inch over the 30k vehicle miles so far (each tire has about 24k road miles since I use the spare as part of my rotation pattern). I guess the real question for this audience will be, is this amount of increased tread wear acceptable? In my opinion, it is.

Also by using the rate of wear so far, I can project that the tires should get to 60,000 miles before they wear down to 4/32 of tread left at which time they should be replaced.

See below with video of full results and let me know if any questions

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[Headsong]

I'll say that mine are at 40k, and I can't tell! Best tires I've ever owned. I also rotate every 5k.

 

[Steve_In_29]

I'll say that mine are at 40k, and I can't tell! Best tires I've ever owned. I also rotate every 5k.

On what wheels?

 

[Steve_In_29]

Back in August of 2021 I was one of the first to mount 285-75-R16 tires on Base steel wheels. See full post linked here. At the time a lot of people noted that these tires might not wear properly because they are designed to fit on a rim width of 7.5 to 9 inches, and the Base steelies are only 7 inches wide. The thinking is that compressing the beads inward will cause the middle of the tread pattern to bulge outward a bit, and cause uneven tire wear.

So now that I have 30k miles on the Bronco and all 5 tires have been through a full cycle of tire rotations, in the words of Project Farm, we're gonna test that!

I used a tread depth gauge to measure each tire in three different places around the circumference, and at each testing point I measured the tread depth at the inner tread, middle, and outer tread. Here is the table of measurement results:

My calculation of 'Bulge' shows the average difference in tread wear between the inner/outer tread and the middle of the tread. So sure enough, the tires are wearing a little bit faster in the middle, about one and a half 32nds of an inch over the 30k vehicle miles so far (each tire has about 24k road miles since I use the spare as part of my rotation pattern). I guess the real question for this audience will be, is this amount of increased tread wear acceptable? In my opinion, it is.

Also by using the rate of wear so far, I can project that the tires should get to 60,000 miles before they wear down to 4/32 of tread left at which time they should be replaced.

See below with video of full results and let me know if any questions

Have you tried adjusting tire pressure to mitigate the bulge?

 

[Blackcat]

Nice hearing from you @BudgetBronco ! I just put on 265/75/16 Grabbers on my 22 Base, a touch smaller than yours, but I love the look. Good to hear an in depth wear report!

 

[illverado]

30k miles over almost 5 years. Sounds like they’ll be aging out, not wearing out. I’m jealous

 

[23OBX2.7]

I sell my tires at 10-15K miles or two years and get new ones.

 

[RR25HB]

Back in August of 2021 I was one of the first to mount 285-75-R16 tires on Base steel wheels. See full post linked here. At the time a lot of people noted that these tires might not wear properly because they are designed to fit on a rim width of 7.5 to 9 inches, and the Base steelies are only 7 inches wide. The thinking is that compressing the beads inward will cause the middle of the tread pattern to bulge outward a bit, and cause uneven tire wear.

So now that I have 30k miles on the Bronco and all 5 tires have been through a full cycle of tire rotations, in the words of Project Farm, we're gonna test that!

I used a tread depth gauge to measure each tire in three different places around the circumference, and at each testing point I measured the tread depth at the inner tread, middle, and outer tread. Here is the table of measurement results:

My calculation of 'Bulge' shows the average difference in tread wear between the inner/outer tread and the middle of the tread. So sure enough, the tires are wearing a little bit faster in the middle, about one and a half 32nds of an inch over the 30k vehicle miles so far (each tire has about 24k road miles since I use the spare as part of my rotation pattern). I guess the real question for this audience will be, is this amount of increased tread wear acceptable? In my opinion, it is.

Also by using the rate of wear so far, I can project that the tires should get to 60,000 miles before they wear down to 4/32 of tread left at which time they should be replaced.

See below with video of full results and let me know if any questions

On the 30K mikes driven to date, do you have any estimated breakdown of the miles by percentage driven by road usage total ([1] easy mall crawling, [2] serious highway miles at speed) and off road usage ([3] easy/soft trail miles, and [4] hard, rocky, rigged terrain miles covered)?

Thanks for the analysis andcdara.

 

[BroncoChallenger]

General Grabber ATX's are, in my opinion, some of the best tires on the market for AT tires. I've been using them (General Grabber AT's) since the AT2's were available, and they have had great grip in all environments/surface composition, and yet are pretty forgiving - you can go +/- about half an inch on the rim width and they'll still mount and balance fine. And still give pretty good tread life if kept rotated and properly inflated.

 

[BudgetBronco]

Have you tried adjusting tire pressure to mitigate the bulge?

I had been running them at 35-36 psi so for the next 30k miles I might try to keep it more like 33-35

 

[BudgetBronco]

Nice hearing from you @BudgetBronco ! I just put on 265/75/16 Grabbers on my 22 Base, a touch smaller than yours, but I love the look. Good to hear an in depth wear report!

Looks great! And you will probably get 1-2 more MPG than I do

 

[BudgetBronco]

30k miles over almost 5 years. Sounds like they’ll be aging out, not wearing out. I’m jealous

For the first 2 years of ownership I worked from home and had two vehicles, so that was when I really didn't put many miles on. For the last three years I was commuting and using it as my only vehicle so closer to 10k per year. But ya, not a ton of miles compared to many of you out there. I do plan to own this truck forever so that is not a bad thing.

 

[BudgetBronco]

On the 30K mikes driven to date, do you have any estimated breakdown of the miles by percentage driven by road usage total ([1] easy mall crawling, [2] serious highway miles at speed) and off road usage ([3] easy/soft trail miles, and [4] hard, rocky, rigged terrain miles covered)?

Thanks for the analysis andcdara.

I'm going to guess something like less than 5% off road and most of that would be on the easier side of things. For the paved driving I am probably 50/50 highway and city driving

 

[drive21bronco]

I put 82K miles on mine. They still have some depth to them as well. Could have made it to 90K but I had an opportunity to get some near new take off's of the same tire so I replaced them. A lot of conservative highway driving. Great Tires.

 

[wjtinfwb]

I'll say that mine are at 40k, and I can't tell! Best tires I've ever owned. I also rotate every 5k.

I've had General's on a couple of cars now and gotten good life and service out of them. Now that they're owned by Continental, I believe they're building better products than their old days. Looking at them for my BB Sas when the GY's expire

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