People buy BFG because of their reputation, not cost. If that's not worth it to you, then so be it. That's why there are other options like Falken.

I've seen my 35x10.50 Kenda Klever RT's go from $175/ea in 2020 to $250/ea in 2023 to now just under $300/ea. Would I change to Falken even if they were half the price? Absolutely not. Doesn't make the Falkens a bad tire, I just won't give up the proven performance and reliability that i've become accustomed to over the last 50+k miles. I've had such a great experience with these tires that the only way I would buy something else is if they got discontinued. I'm so confident in my Kenda's, that i've debated on leaving my spare at home. It's never been off the swingout in almost 5 years and well over 10k miles of offroad abuse. That's what BFG's price means to some people.

Is it worth it to you? If you have to be convinced, it's probably not. The people buying the BFG's are already convinced.

Hope that helps.

 

Don’t forget the extra horsepower the white lettering on the BFG’s gives you…….

 

It depends on the tire size too. In the 285/70/17 size that gap is only $8 per tire.

 

BFG falls in the same mindset of apple. They sell a crap load and the reputation is good enough (as @hoooogan pointed out) people will shell out the cash with the expectation it's going to work regardless of price. Means you make a pretty good product.

Same reason I pay the michelin tax. More than a similar tire in its range... but I have 100k miles on them with probably another 30k left before hitting the wear bars that says the extra $200 was well worth it to me. Others would scoff at $200 per tire (at the time) for a street tire.

 

When I googled that size it shows that Falkens are made in Thailand and the K03's are made in Alabama or Indiana.

 

I'm in the same boat with going up with the stockers to the Bison tire or the Toyo Open Country R/T Trail. Discount has the Toyos for $359 and the Goodyears for $228, a $131 difference, $524 total.

As for size, Toyo lists the height difference between the 35/12.5 and the 315/70 as 0.1" for an additional $17 per tire.

 

Not sure on the tire choice yet, but I think I've decided on the spare tire issue:
I'm going to keep the OEM ZR2 spare under the bed for use driving around town or even medium distance pavement drives (I have AAA if anything REALLY goes sideways).

For offroading or really long trips, I'm going to get another steelie and mount the 5th 35" tire on it and use one of those racing tire carriers in the bed. The carrier will be mounted such that it can easily be removed if I'm just tooling around town of if I need to haul stuff. The spare under the bed will stay on the truck fulltime so on the trail I'll actually have 2 spares if needed.

 

I'm probably a long time away from changing out my tires from stock and not sure at this point if I will upsize or not when I do, but most likely will put KO3s on it when I do unless I find a really good reason not to. I had KO2s on my 05 Colorado. Changed out the Generals at 700 miles then drove on 2 sets of the KO2s over another 19 years. I never once had to use the spare tire on that truck. That's enough to buy my brand loyalty.

 

Yeah, I'm sold on Michelin tires for my cars/current '25 CR-V, and use Metzlers for my sportbike. So, even with the price difference, I may end up with the K03's simply for the winter performance. Hopefully I can sell the OEM Wranglers for a decent price since there's less than 10k miles on them. It's just that with the big suspension upgrades that's a big chunk of change all at once.

 

According to the BFG site information, the 35X11.5R17 KO3 won't be available until 2026. This might impact your decision if correct and you're in a hurry.

 

Yeah, I saw that too, was hoping it wasn't true, so, I might end up with the Falken or K02.

 

When it comes time to change, if I get enough miles on the truck and plan to keep it my normal 8-10 years, I'll happily go with KO's (KO2 or 3) Had them on all my previous trucks at one time or another.
Around here, I absolutely hated them for winter and would never use them all year round.

 

FWIW, I'm very happy with my A/T4W tires. I've even done hard braking tests in the snow and packed snow on bridges, I never had any problems stopping like the TFL video showed.

 

Falken AT4W's on my '24 Bison all fall and winter here in British Columbia. Performance has been fantastic overall and great in the cold and snow.

 

there has to be other good tires out there like Generals or Firestone, Bridgestone Hancooks, Dick Cepak, Toyo Nitto's
Back in the day the Armstrong Tru-trac was the tire to get, then they quit making them, and a few years ago they started back up with the name. no idea if the tire itself is any good

the FJ clubs like the Iron Man tires

 

I do my tire comparisons on Discount Tires' website. Plug in your vehicle or tire size and see the listings of all tires that fit your match. Lots of info there and specs on each tire. The pics are great and you can zoom in on the tread design. You can also compare prices.

 

Yup! I've been reading those and since Tire Rack is part of that now, I'm looking at those. Gotta make a decision soon, and as the K03's aren't available and so far Goodyear doesn't make the DuraTrac in that size, that at least narrows it down.

 

It's interesting how consumers rate tires considerably different than the experts doing the testing in a controlled environment.
DuraTrac at the bottom of the list with the KO3's in the middle out of 12 mfg's.
I'm happy with the factory DuraTrac's that came with the truck, in ice and snow they performed pretty well imo and at the low replacement cost I wouldn't hesitate to run them again.

BFGoodrich All-Terrain T/A KO3 | Tire Rack

Tire Test Results : Taking Off-Road Tires On-Road - 2024 Test 9

 

It's interesting they ran the KO3s in an LT trim.

 

Look long enough and you find people buying tires because others are buying the same tires. So in researching tires, many folks never do any serious research but buy tires because everyone else is buying the same tires. So they read posts, reviews, etc. and go with the norm.

IMHO, there are many other tires from other MFGs which would probably be the best for my needs. So, I'll consider buying these tires even though they are not the ones people will notice when my truck is parked. I'm not status conscious and I do not want to be part of the conformist pack.

Same thing in my community. Lots of Lexus, MBWs, and other status vehicles. Other than some fake wood accents in the interior, the basic nuts and bolts are the same as the non-status vehicles. I'm a Chevy owner; but I see many GMC Canyons in the community. Why? Heck, its a status symbol.

 

In my opinion and based on my observations, you will find someone who really likes any tire you pick and someone else who hates that tire.

My 2017 Colorado 4WD WT came with Goodyear Wrangler HTs. Probably the most disliked tire on this forum. But for me, they did well for what they were - a OEM tire made to lower specs for reduced price. You can't buy that tire retail. But they were quiet, they rode nice, and had reasonable on road traction.

You hear very few people bad mouth a Michelin. But on our family GMC Acadia, the car came with Michelins. I'm sure they were a lower spec tire than normal Michelins. But on the Acadia, they were noisy, rode rough, and we only got 30,000 miles out of them.

Moral of my story - it's an unfair to compare OEM tires to retail tires.

One more thing: I'm biased toward products made in America by American companies with American workers. My next tier is things made in America by American workers. Personally, I don't have a need to buy things made somewhere by non-American workers and companies. I know it's difficult if not impossible to buy much of anything that is 100% American. But I do as much as I can to help our people. I'm sure this is going to antagonize some on here but it's just my opinion.

 

A couple of observations I've had with the multiple sets of KOs and KO2s in various sizes and load ratings. In the beginning they're great in the snow and rain, good hydroplanning performance, quiet etc. But it all goes sideways at the 40-50% wear life. After 50% they are dangerous.

I can say the same with the Wrangler MTRs that came on my ZR2, but they never felt as bad as the KO2s. Much noisier however. I also admit that performance degradation is also happening with my Falken Wildpeak AT3Ws but to a lesser degree.

The difference is I routinely got 20-25,000kms out of those first 40-50% on the BFGs and the Goodyears, and the Falkens have 30,000kms and only show 20% wear. They also start out with a much deeper tread depth if you go with C load or heavier duty. I never got more than 50,000kms on my KO2s until they hit the wear indicators. Right now it's looking like I'll get the same mileage on my AT3Ws before hitting 50% wear.

Very anecdotal, however lots of people I know have had the same experience with KO2s. They're good until they aren't, and "aren't" comes up rather quickly.

 

Thanks! If you ask what are great sportbike tires, or even ADV bike tires, or even car/small SUV tires, I could definitely give you pointers, but this is my first "real" 4X4 vehicle, so I'm a total noob at this. So, all opinions are appreciated! Truth be told, despite what TFL said, I'm kinda leaning the Falken direction. Are the sipes full depth?

 

To be honest I never looked at sipping depth between the two. I did look at tread depth from new, and KO2s were 14/32s whereas AT3Ws were 18/32s. Big difference.

Keep in mind we're talking about older models here. Likely all but impossible to buy these anymore. I guess what I'm saying is that Falkens perform as good if not better than BFGs that cost 25-30% more.

 

I know that Michelins typically have full depth sipes, I know they were on the Defender LTX M/S tires I ran for years, and they are on the Michelin CrossClimate2's I'm running now. So, that's one reason why Michelins are more expensive, because it's very difficult to have full depth sipes. The inserts in the mold are razor thin, and break and wear out often.

I'll see if Discount Tire might have some to look at or someone there might know.

 

The sipes are the secret sauce, I agree. And also probably why I didn't like the KO2s on road... they were not full depth and drove as such in rain.

 

The sipes are so small they really don't do anything in the rain, but in the snow, snow gets jammed in them and sticks, and it turns out snow embedded in the sipes sticks to the snow on the road, giving more traction. That's why pure rain tires really don't have the tiny sipes.

 

Wait till you hear this reason why I am going KO3 and maybe why they are so expensive. My Mother is almost 92 and she still gets insurance and a pension check from BFG/Michelin, and my Dad retired from BFG when they shut the Miami, Ok. plant in 1986. He worked in the lab there testing tires and I worked summers while going to school. Probably sounds crazy but they make a good product and they have taken care of my Mom!

 

That’s a perfectly valid reason to go that route and a good thing to hear about the company..

 

I've been lucky enough to have a number of different dailys with quite a few different tires brands and the KO2 has been the best all around performer for me in Colorado by far. Falkens AT3, Toyo RT trails, Procomp MT's, Toyo MT's, Goodyear territory MT's and so on they don't perform as good as the KO2. I have 315/70's on a stock ZR2 without any issues and they are a lighter tire than the other brands. Well, the goodyears are pretty light but once you get one off the rim, you'll see how thin the carcase is on those.

 

I tried the other day to price the K02's on Discounts site, but couldn't find the size I want (35X11.5R17) for some reason, maybe they sold them all...

 

I have Toyo ATIII on my Canyon, Duratracs on my F250 company truck, and Wildpeak AT4W on my FJ. No complaints about the snow performance of any of those. My work trucks are always super heavy and the eight or so sets I’ve been through all did good in the snow. My work truck is always the guinea pig for trying out tires. My experience is there all pretty good. I got the most flats and quickest wear out of Coopers. BFG KO2 tend to cup pretty bad as they get up in mileage. No experience with KO3, but really like my Wildpeaks. Saved $200 when I bought them, but never paid full price at Discount Tire. There’s always a promotion or price match to take advantage of.

 

Update:
I'm having to go with the Falken Wildpeak A/T4W in 35X11.5R17 since the BFG K03 isn't available for another year. The Discount Tire guy said that BFG decided to start producing the 20's for all the Mall Crawlers first, then work down to the 17's for actual offroad guys....pathetic. So, Falkens it is, by all accounts a great tire anyway. Ordered my OEM steelie for the spare for the 35 and keeping the OEM "33" under the bed for use in just pavement driving.

 

you could not give me KO3's, they are noisy and overrated. WildpeakAT4W are far more quieter and if you are considering gas mileage better than KO3's

The sipping on the Wildpeaks are the full depth of the treads so far that's the only off road type of tire that has the sipping that deep that I am aware of.

 

I love my Falkens, they're def better than KO2's I had before. Had them on for 4 1/2 years now, over 30K. I'm guessing I'll buy new ones the end of the year. They've got tread, but at this age, they don't work as well on icy surface, probably the same level a KO2's now, but they're still great.

 

Yeah, looks like the Falkens for me, the K03's aren't even available at all in the size I need. By all accounts a great tire, and at $111/ea (X5) cheaper, I may never go to K03's unless for some reason I really don't like them. I WOULD like to try the new DuraTracs, but again, not available in the size I need. Maybe next set.

Now I just gotta sell the existing OEM 285/70R17's I have...