Toyo Commercial M55 Tires

[KeithT]

Quick update. 2 tanks of fuel with the new tires. 17.8 and 18.2 mpg. My since new average is 17.785, so I'd say it's right in there with the historical levels. Last fills of the year historically resulted in 14.8, 15.9, 17.0, 18.4, 18.6 and this years 18.2. That's last fill in December 2002 - 2007.

I am using a correction factor of dividing the miles traveled by 0.9147 due to the change in circumference.

jb

JB,

How about another update? I am more interested in the fit of the 255s, road noise, winter traction, and how they handle towing? I am considering this tire maybe in a 255 85 16 or possibly 265 70 17. Also considering Goodyear Silent Armour ATs.

Thanks,

 

[john_bud]

Sure.

Fit. They do. I did trim the black plastic part of the bumper, but probably didn't have to. Also, cranked the bars up previously. Not way up, not even level. I think I made the front 1 to 1 1/2 " taller than stock, which is still 1 to 1 1/2" lower than the rear.

There is a bit of road noise when the windows are down. Not as much as a MT tire and not bad, but it isn't a freeway smoothy. Just a light hum. My wife didn't notice it until after I asked her about it.

Winter traction is good. Snow is real good, ice is good. Then again, few tires are really good on ice! It's slippery stuff.

Towing. I honestly can't tell any thing bad from the 245/75 size. The slight gear reduction should make take off harder, but the duramax hasn't noticed. The good is that the sidewalls are firmer and when the bed is loaded with wet oak and it's pulling a 5x10' trailer with wet oak the tires give a more solid ride than the factory tires. When towing a tractor on the freeway, the truck feels more stable than the goodyears ever were. Much more stable.

I have pretty much only been using the truck for towing, but there does seem to be an increase in mpg's. Not a lot, but around 1mpg maybe a bit more. That's nice as folks with 285's have reported a loss of 1-4 mpg. Don't want that!!

Personal opinion alert!

I would not get the 265/70 -17 tires. The short sidewall will make the truck ride like an empty log wagon. If they don't, then the sidewalls are soft and you may damage them on off road bumps, rocks, logs, etc. If your version of offroad involves the grass at the corner of the driveway, then I guess that doesn't matter! Soft sidewalls will also make the truck feel squirmy on the road, especially when towing. That's what the goodyears did. You had to constantly saw the wheel back and forth to stay straight ahead as the sidewal flexed and pointed the truck off in a new and unexpected direction.

I will NEVER buy a goodyear tire. EVER.

Hope that helps.

jb

 

[Builder]

Wow. I've never had anything but excellent service, handling, reliability & wear from Goodyear tires. I go out of my way to get them.

 

[KeithT]

Thanks for the update jb!

 

[john_bud]

Wow. I've never had anything but excellent service, handling, reliability & wear from Goodyear tires. I go out of my way to get them.

Yeah, just my luck to get the exact opposite! At 15k miles the tires were about 70% gone. That's 2 rotations front to back at the sellers place. At that point one tire had developed a severe "radial pull". It was a rear tire and when put on the front, it made the truck want to do a hard left. It was like the worst case of bad alignment you can imagine. I actually went back and told them they bent a tie rod! They didn't. It was the tire. As only one was "bad" they would only "help" with that one and only to the point of about 10 bucks off the price on one new tire. They figured that was the pro-rated wear. I told them that the tires were only 7-8 months old at that point and 4 months of that was winter driving on freaking snow! TS was the answer. Great! the tires originally had 17/32nds. They were 5/32nds at that point. At 3/32nds they are considered worn out no warranty. So, after 7-8 months there was 2/17ths of the warranty left. Or 11%. Fantastic value from those tires (not).

The tires were total (bad word) on the freeway too. They squirmed all over the place, right down until they had under 2/32nds left at 22k miles and 13 months. Yeah, one "good year" is all they had in them and that was not a "good" year.

The firestones that came on the truck lasted 45k miles and had more than 5/32nds left at that point, but I wanted new treads for the winter. You have to remember that on the diesel boards I tell people to drive like a grey haired granny to get better mpg's. I just drove back from my land at 55 mph on the freeway to save fuel costs. A hot rod I ain't.

The M55's on the same truck now have about 6k miles mostly towing 10k and no signs of wear. I'll be inspecting them more later this week when I rotate the tires, change oil, grease the chassy, etc.

One thing is for sure - I won't ever buy or tell anyone else to buy Goodyear products. A Very sour taste lingers ...

jb

 

[Skyco]

I agree....I posted earlier in this thread about my problems with not being able to get a set of Goodyears that were actually round. Overall in 40 years of driving I've had the best service from Michelins, although I admit I've never tried Toyo.

 

[2dedge]

back from the dead, any updates on these tires? I am in the market and leaning towards these.

 

[FredH]

Out West here in Oregon we have a regional tire place called Les Schwab .

They sell Toyo's , which is all I run on my Semi . The Steer tires last any were between 150,000 to 180,000 miles , while the drives will go 300,000+ miles .
The drives I never rotate , but the steers I rotate every 50,000 .

For light truck ( as on my '84 Ford F250 and '06 Dodge 2500 ) although it looks exactly like the Toyo Open Country AT :

OPEN COUNTRY A/T | Toyo Tires

They call them the "Les Schwab Open Country" . Basically made for Les Schwab by Toyo but without the Toyo name on side . Even with the Aggressive tread pattern , Still get way better than 25,000 out of them , like at least Double that .

Rotation like you are doing is good , Alignment is good ( 4 wheel is better than just front end ) , but something that many over look is optimal air pressure . On the Ford , I run maximum for that tire which is 80 PSI . Rides like a flippin Tank with the overloads on the back , but tire wear is pretty even at all times , Not much noise either . Experiment with air pressure run at maximum cold , ( whatever it may be ) for awhile then back off by 5 or maybe even 10 PSI , ( ONLY if you are running at least 60 or 70 psi not if you are only running 35 or 40 psi ) . You will be amazed at the difference that just 5 psi will make on tire wear .

On Semi , Its 110 psi on steers and 105 psi on drives .
Ford is 80 psi all the way around while the Dodge is happy with 65 Psi , ( mainly since I don't haul any thing heavy in it ) .

Fred H.

 

[Raspy]

Les Schwab is a great store! Their prices are a bit higher, but they have incredibly good service! Free flat repairs at any of their stores, free re-balancing whenever needed, etc.

I agree on the Toyo Open Country ATs. I am on my second set on my '04 Dodge. The first set ran about 60,000 miles and I have about 35,000 on my current set. They are not the smoothest riding because they are so stiff, but they are very round, do not need to be rebalanced and last a long time. Excellent tires! I'm running 285/75/17, but an even heavier duty one is the 285/75/17. Both in E rating.

On a heavy pickup, and especially one towing or with a diesel, get the E rating!
Pay no attention to the load carrying capacity of the D rating that is written on the side of the tire, there is a lot more to the story than that, like stiffness for cornering and the ability to handle torque. Get the E. Either one is really only a two or three ply sidewall, but the E is stiffer and far safer.

One more point. None of these tires for light trucks are "ten ply". They are ten ply "rated". This means they want you to think they are ten ply, but they are really two or three ply sidewall and three to five ply tread. Read your own sidewall for verification of this. Within this two ply world, there are very stiff tires and others that are not much more than inner tubes. For example, BFG load range D are very light duty and very easily ruined in the sidewall, while Toyo load range E are extremely stiff.

 

[john_bud]

Update after 39838 miles:

One tire bald in the middle, the other 3 still over legal tread. Traction still good on WI snow in fields, trails and roads. In fact, I had to pull the trailer from a 2009 Ford 1ton diesel because he couldn't make it out from our hunting area while pulling the trailer. (snicker snicker) He had mostly new tires, but highway tread.

Would I buy M55's again? Yes.

Would I pay the current going rate for them? (Now $335 incl ship each:confused2: was $200 incl ship.) Nope.

Now have Cooper's on in the smaller but cheaper 235/85-16 size. $167 each on sale.