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| The bold asymmetric design of the MT/R with Kevlar will make it an easy tire to recognize. |
When the guys at Goodyear told me they were introducing a new off-road tires, I hopped on a plane, flew to Palm Springs, jumped into one of their Jeeps, and drove out through the huge windmill farms to The Hammers in Johnson Valley. The much celebrated rock crawling area known as The Hammers also has dry lakebeds, not so dry lakebeds, sand dunes, undisturbed open desert and disturbed open desert with plenty of whoops. It's a good area to test an off-road tire.
Before we started throwing rocks and sand, the Goodyear engineers explained about what went into developing this new tire. In summary: Few of us have any idea what it takes to bring an innovative off-road tire such as this to reality.
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| The open tread block design of the MT/R with Kevlar pushed plenty of sand to keep our Jeeps moving. |
Out in Ohio, the Goodyear guys had been talking about improvements they could make to the Wrangler MT/R in light of developments in tire materials and in computer modeling technology for design, development and testing. For example, they were already using Kevlar in their Eagle line of performance highway tires, which got them thinking about how the added toughness of Kevlar could help the serious off-road enthusiast.
When they started using some of the newest technology to develop this tire they also decided to get feedback from serious off-roaders, like us readers of ORA. They consider the off-road crowd to be no-nonsense, committed to quality and tech-savvy. That's why throughout the development process they were able to get online feedback for several different versions of the tread design.
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| Good grip and sidewall strength comes into play when inflation levels are low and sidewalls get tested against the rocks. |
They also had an opportunity to employ some of the most powerful computers in the world, which are used by Sandia National Laboratories to test such things as nuclear weapons, military technologies and the cutting edge developments for our energy resources. With Sandia's technological capability they were able to use computer models to test several different features of the new tire before building prototypes. Some of the physically innovative characteristics of the tread design can be attributed to the computer models of mud compaction, which, by the way, proved to be very accurate in real life testing.
The use of Kevlar helps protect the sidewalls of the new tire, which resulted in making it thirty-five percent more puncture resistant than the previous model. Not only did the Kevlar help make the tire sidewalls more puncture resistant, they improved tear resistance as well.
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| The Kevlar fortified tires handled that common pinch between obstacle and wheel. |
Goodyear's extensive testing demonstrated improvements in sidewall traction (especially during rock crawling), off-road handling, mud traction, mud steering, wet handling and wet braking - all without giving up performance in handling on dry surfaces.
Visually, the Wrangler MT/R with Kevlar is a very distinct tire because of its tread design. My first impression was that there are three distinct tread zones but upon closer examination I counted five. What was designed as the outside portion of the tread (you can also mount it to the inside) is a set of two columns of tread blocks that create angled ribs with large voids.
About 25% of the tread pattern, from the center towards the inside, is a set of small tread blocks, with lots of notches and biting edges. The inside portion of the tread pattern is a row of medium-sized tread blocks that correspond to the outside set of blocks but smaller and with more notches.
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| The new MT/Rs were just what was needed to climb this rock-strewn ridge. This diesel-powered Cherokee has the tires mounted with the large blocks to the inside. |
In addition to all the little notches that increase the biting edges, the tread blocks are made of an advanced silica rubber that increases traction for both off-road and wet conditions on the street.
The wrap around tread, which extends up the sidewalls helps with mud, sand and rock traction. The sidewalls themselves include Kevlar reinforcement and employ Goodyear's Durawall rubber for extra toughness that also helps resist sidewall cuts and punctures. In addition, the three-plies sidewalls have slightly opposing cord angles, which also enhances sidewall cut, and puncture resistance.
Goodyear gave a lot of attention to making this tire work well in the mud, which is mostly about large, self-cleaning voids in the tread design.
