i'll have to vouch on the Nitto Terra Grappler. they perform grea toffroad for what i do, they are quiet, decent on gas milage and aggressive enough to know they are aftermarket so far in the snow they have been okay too

 

That leads me to another question. Apparently if I want 33" tires, I'd be looking at either a 285/75R16 or a 305/70R16. I assume that the 305/70 profile tire will reduce mileage due to increased friction. What's the general understanding on this?

 

Be careful on the tire you pick. From the factory your JK came with a P metric tire. Most 33's are LT tires and are rated D and E. This will affect the ride quality. I you look you can find P metric tires in a 285r70/17 size.

 

Why would you not consider a 12.5 wide tire?

I got a set of 33x12.5R17 on my Sahara and I lost about 0.5 MPG going from the stock 32" Duellers (10.5" wide tire) to the 33x12.5 Cooper STT.


I would not even consider a P tire just for the sake of greater chance of side wall punctures if you go off-roading. Stick with at the very least a LT tire.

 

Ditto ... 33" Destination MT's

x2 Which I did with the stock SRA's....sneaky rock

 

Please hear this...

If you want a smooth ride, long wear and price is no object then the Toyo Open Country A/T is the one.
It is, without a doubt, the smoothest riding A/T I've ever encountered.

If an inexpensive A/T is your more your match... As much as I love the Nitto TG's
(Too soft) the Firestone Destination A/T will last forever. I've seen 50k+ on a Chevy 2500 in a "D" load tire!
BFG A/T's, although a great all around tire, are over priced and ,on average, hard to balance.

BUT... for the best mix of milege and traction... I'd put my money on the Pro Comp Xtreme A/t's or the
Mickey Thompson (4 rib) ATZ's.

Good luck man.

 

Micky ATZ's used to be all the rage... I haven't seen them on a truck out here in 10 years. Kinda funny. The guy that ran the offroad shop here back in the day swore by them.

Anywho. I've never been impressed by the road characteristics of the BFG A/T. Traction in snow was horrible. Tread wear on both my yota and my fathers zr2 was very poor (bald under 35,000 miles) But hey.. everyone has thier preferance.

As for your 285 or 305 milage difference. Your tread design is going to have more effect on your milage. The wider tire has the possibilty to last longer because of the more surface area to distribute the weight of the vehicle.

I've run lots of different rubber. Not that I'm buying A/T's any time soon. But, if I did I would go back to the Dunlop Radial Rovers. I put 70,000 miles on a set of those(33x12.50 16.5) on my lifted chevy 1500. Yeah I ran them to the tread wear bars. My wife put 30,000 (305/70 16) on her silverado 2500HD lifted and then sold them for 35's. The friend who bought them is still running them 20,000 miles later.

As for the load rating D on the 16's. I was concerned about this when I bought my first set of 305/70 16's for my Jeep. It was the same brand/model tire that was on the Silverado only 2" smaller(315/75 16's on the silverado). The Chevy was a 3/4 ton HD Diesel lifted 6" with a glass cap/ roof racks/ and all sorts of stuff. Very heavy for Load D's. The were great. I ran them at about 35lbs front and 40lbs in the rear. After buying the 305's for the Jeep we had to play with pressure a bit. Ended up finding 30lbs front and 33lbs rear was perfect. And the ride was awsome. I ran them between 10-15 lbs. front and 12-18lbs rear when wheeling. Very very happy with the load d's. Man can these sidwalls take a beating. If you run the Load D's overinflatted for your application it will be like riding on bricks.

 

OK, any of the AT type tires will give you a fairly good highway ride and still give you great off road ability in everything except mud. Most AT's still do OK in the mud, but you know you are going to get a pretty noisy ride with MT type tires. You can also go with something like the factory type SRA's, which are really a street tire, but really don't do too bad off road, except they have weak sidewalls which can get punctured off road and don't do well at all in the mud. They will give you the best on road driving and MPG.

Now you were saying you would like to go up to a 33" tire. You should be aware that while a 33" tire will fit without a lift, it will rub when at full compression. You should consider a lift of some kind. You did not mention the tire width though. If you go with a wider than stock tire, you will need to think about new rims or at minimum wheel spacers. Wider tires on the factory rims will rub your anti sway bar and maybe other places.

If you do consider factory tires, you should look around for a set of factory take offs. You should be able to get a complete set including rims for less than it would cost you to buy just the tires new. Plus they are already mounted and ballanced. They are for sale all over the place because so many Jeep owners upgrade their tires and rims.

 

The ATZs never existed 10years ago. I rate it better than BFG AT or Copper ST.

 

I should have mentioned that I have 16x8 Cragar Series 397 wheels. (these have apparently been discontinued, or, if nothing else, are much less available as quadratec and others don't have them listed anymore)