SUV Tire - Light Truck Tire Review

Finding the best tire tests

Part of our three-part series on tires, this report covers all-season and all-terrain tires for SUVs and light trucks. We have a separate report on tires for cars, as well as a report on snow tires, which includes winter tires for all vehicle types.

Tire Rack is a retail website that sells tires, but its staff also conducts rigorous tire tests and hosts head-to-head comparisons, using roads, racetracks, highways and even ice rinks to grade tires. We were extremely impressed by the editors' depth of knowledge and by the fact that they release negative results about the products they sell. However, Tire Rack does not test as many SUV tires and truck tires as it does car tires, and staffers don't perform any off-road, mud or loaded-truck testing.

Tire Rack does encourage owners to rate SUV and truck tires, and editors compile these ratings into detailed tables that rank the tires from best to worst within each category (all-season, all-terrain, etc). These surveys are more up-to-date and comprehensive than Tire Rack's expert tests, but they still do not include extreme mud tires. The best sources of reviews for those are two enthusiast magazines, Petersen's 4 Wheel & Off Road and Four Wheeler. Both test mud tires in swampy, hilly mud pits. See our What to Look For page for more on mud tires.

By far the most thorough, expert and unbiased source of tire ratings is Consumer Reports. Editors there test 34 all-season and all-terrain tires for light trucks and SUVs on dry, wet, snowy and icy roads. Each tire's braking ability, hydroplaning resistance and snow traction is measured, and editors judge each tire's quietness, comfort and handling feel. Consumer Reports is one of the few sources that tests tires' rolling resistance, or the amount of drag they create; less drag can result in better gas mileage.

Not content to blindly believe manufacturers' treadwear ratings, Consumer Reports conducts its own accelerated-wear tests of light truck and SUV tires for the first time during its most recent evaluation. The results show substantial differences between the tires -- and sometimes, the manufacturers' treadwear ratings are wildly out of line with Consumer Reports' findings.

That said, experts caution buyers against choosing tires solely because they'll be long-lasting or boost fuel economy. Sometimes, those good qualities come at the expense of safety. For example, the all-terrain General Grabber AT2 (*Est. $95) is rated in the top two percent of all tires for tread life at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and it carries a 60,000-mile tread life warranty. But in one top test, the Grabber AT2 gets the worst scores for braking on any surface -- even dry roads.

Another durable all-terrain tire, the Goodyear Wrangler SilentArmor (*Est. $145), carries a 50,000-mile tread life warranty and gets high marks for treadwear in reviews, but a leading test shows it brakes poorly on ice. Our research did turn up a few tires that combine good performance with good tread life, including the Best Reviewed all-season General Grabber HTS (*Est. $95) and all-terrain Pirelli Scorpion ATR (*Est. $125).

Unless otherwise noted, our price estimates for truck tires and SUV tires are based on a tire size of 235/70-16 (or the next-closest size, such as a 245/70 or 235/60 when 235/70 is not available). These common sizes are found as original equipment on popular SUVs such as the Honda Pilot and trucks like the Ford F-150.