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So I got the awesome opportunity to try out some tires for Yokohama that are not released for sale yet. They are the new Geolandar G003 MT's. I will check in regularly and report on the tread life, wear characteristics, ride characteristics throughout the tread, and answer any questions that may come up.
I got these in a 33x12.5R20. The actual measurements are a 32.6"x12.5". These tires look absolutely awesome, and got a lot of attention at Discount Tire when I took them to get mounted to my new 20x10 -19 Hostile Gauntlets on my 2016 F-150 Lariat FX4. I am running Rancho Quicklift struts up front and Boss rear shocks.
I will post tomorrow how much weight is on each wheel to balance, and the starting mileage as it is in the truck and I'm feeling lazy.
Preliminary comments (they were installed yesterday 6/13/17). They are a moderately loud tire, which I love. They are a little quieter than the Federal Couragia MT's I ran on the last truck, and a little louder than a Nitto Trail Grappler. In the cab of the 2016 F-150, it is a noticeable hum if the radio is off and the exhaust is settled. If the radio is on (even at 80mph), you really don't hear the tires as Ford has done a good job at sound insulation in these cabs.
The ride is a little rough at start and stop, you can feel the tread blocks grabbing the pavement which is standard on mud tires from my experience. At speed they are totally smooth, however they are stiffer than a P rated tire. If you are coming (like I did) from a P rated highway tire they will almost feel like you're riding on wagon wheels. From a MT standpoint, they're pretty standard.
The pavement grip is nice. The truck feels a lot more responsive to steering changes on pavement than it did while on the highway tires. Part of this could be attributed to the wider tire, and wider stance of the new wheels. There is a good amount of tread siping in these and I suspect they will perform well on wet roads.
The tires have an aggressive tread, and a pretty aggressive sidewall. This attributes to the noise they make on the road, and they look awesome. I can't wait to get them offroad and see how they perform. I hope to have them in sand in the next couple of weeks. July 22nd I will be making a trip to Marble Falls, TX to run around at Hidden Falls Adventure Park and test them further. Anyone that wants to come out, feel free to join!
Now, for the part everyone has been waiting for. Pictures. I will get more soon and update with more pictures throughout the thread.
These tires perform great so far, although they do hum like a Federal Couragia MT. I personally like a humming mud tire, but it's not for everyone. The ride is considerably rougher but I went from 18's with a ~33" passenger tire to 20's with a 33" LT mud tire, so that was to be expected. My mileage took a hit (about 2-3mpg highway), as this setup is VERY HEAVY. Tires are around 65 pounds each according to FedEx, wheels I'm not sure. Again, expected.
They don't seem to have taken a lot of weight to balance, and they're smooth at speed (even at 85mph). I haven't gotten a chance to get off pavement with them or in wet conditions yet to comment on that performance.
On my trip to Houston I got 16.1mpg on the way there and 16.2mpg on the way back according to the computer. I have 3.31 gears, 4x4, and the 5.0. All things considered, I'm okay with the mileage it showed.
Alright everyone. I've now had a chance to test them in the sand and they work REALLY well. However, I did get stuck. How you might ask? I was pulling on a framed out mustang on the beach. When I got stuck I was hooked to the front of a Silverado 3500 that was hooked to the Mustang trying to get more traction. Getting stuck was entirely my fault as I stayed on the gas too long and sunk. Lol. It took us a little over an hour to get the Mustang out.
Side note, TC SUCKS. It NEVER fully turns off! When I sunk I couldn't get the wheels to turn in reverse in 4Lo, and could barely go forward in 1st gear 4Lo. It was giving me a bunch of errors like "hill descent malfunction", "hill start assist malfunction", and "service advancetrac". Turned the truck off and back on, quickly cleared up.
I tested it out after that (rather violently) and it performed GREAT in the soft sand. However TC did kick in a few times and limit me to 3,000 RPMs. Before anyone asks, it was in Sport mode, I pushed the TC button once, then pushed the TC button again and held until it said "AdvanceTrac Off" (which is a flat out lie).
Howdy y'all! What an AWESOME event yesterday was! We had a total of three trucks, mine, a Silverado who was also demoing the tires, a new Jeep Wranger Sahara press vehicle, and a brand new Raptor press vehicle. Outside of that everything was jeeps except for one older 4 Runner. We pushed these tires and trucks to the limit on these trails and both performed excellent. Minimal issues with slipping, no body damage, no wheel damage, no tire damage, and everything (powertrain, electronics, etc) is still intact as well. My skid plates may have some marks, but I haven't looked yet. I did bend a step because I accidentally used it as a rock slider, but a quick jump on it back at the hotel fixed it right up.
Huge shoutout to the Jeep guys that were our trail guides/other participants. Halfway through the day we decided to ditch the trucks and hop in with them to see some more extreme wheeling. They were more than happy to have us along and show us how they do things. They were such a great group of guys and I sincerely hope to cross paths with them again someday.
I want to extend another shoutout to Yokohama for the opportunity to demo these tires, and for putting on the event. Huge thanks to the IB guys Nolan, Manuel, and Derek that helped put this all together.
More pictures are to come, I didn't bother with taking many as Manuel was running around taking pictures the entire day. I decided to focus on driving.
So, the tires did suffer some carnage on the trail. In the sides of some tread blocks there are some chunks missing, I don't see evidence of them hitting my fenders so I'm assuming it's from rocks. They still perform perfect, having the dirt on the tires helps to see how they're wearing and it's perfectly even across the tread width. I'll get some pictures up later.
Y'all, here's a link to the article that was written on our sister site about the trip. Has some sweet pictures of my truck in it that I have posted below.
Update time. So, I got a truck at work now so this one doesn't see a whole lot of mileage anymore unless I'm traveling for a weekend or after work. I've got about 4,000 miles on the tires, still no complaints at all. I can tell they're getting a little louder as they're wearing down, but by looking at them you still can't tell they're wearing at all. They're also great in the rain surprisingly (for an MT at least). The siping on them does great at providing traction on wet roads. I was recently in Pearland during the hurricane. We were primarily driving my truck as it is the highest truck we have in case we encountered water. The tires performed excellently, and have not given any issues with anything I've thrown at them. Still haven't gotten to try out mud, and probably will never have them on ice.
Here's some more pictures from the Yokohama Event.
06-14-2017, 10:56 PM
Yokohama Geolandar G003 MT Review
I will get more soon and update with more pictures throughout the thread.
