Tire Test - Goodyear MTR with Kevlar

 

Walker Evans had some 40x13.50 R/17LTs sized on his new rock-climbing buggy and successfully challenged the Back Door Trail.

Additionally, each of the tread blocks that are adjacent to these voids have a slight pyramid shape so the base of the tread block is wider than the opening at the top edges. This makes the voids wider at the outside and more likely to release mud and leave biting edges exposed for better traction. Because the large mud voids open the tire to potential rock damage, the Goodyear designers added an extra strip of rubber across the center of each void for extra protection against cuts. The sidewall shoulder blocks have a cove cut out of alternating blocks to better expose the biting edge of the fuller, adjacent blocks to improve traction in both rocks and mud.
Where the rubber meets the rim, the designers included some extra material for rim protection on the outside and an extra layer of wrap on the inside that functions as a rim lock to minimize wheel slip.
It's clear that the Goodyear designers gave a great deal of attention to detail in the design of the Wrangler MT/R with Kevlar and our testing showed the design features are working quite well in the real world. When we left our base camp in Johnson Valley, we headed out across a dry lakebed towards the ridge of rocky terrain that contains the famous set of The Hammers trails. En route we tested the tires' sand capabilities on a large sand dune. In sand you want to maintain momentum with a tire that has plenty of grip without digging straight down and the new MT/R delivered.

The treads kept cleaning out when tested in this very sticky mud.

From there we made our way along a sidehill trail of loose sand and rocks and then made a fairly technical climb up a hogback in sandy soil peppered with small rocks and small boulders. This climb required good traction on the boulders in places to gain enough axle clearance and to keep the rocker panels off of the big rocks. We made the ascent without serious incident.
We followed the ridgeline and dropped off a very steep dune into a canyon trail, which proved to be the most challenging of the trails that we faced in our day of testing. Big rocks in the ravine meant we couldn't go more than a few feet without the help of a spotter. Negotiating the boulders required some tight steering, several sidehill climbs and more than one tricky balancing act. With the MT/R's pressured down to twelve pounds and the rocks often putting the tires in a pretty deep pinch, we saw very little slippage and absolutely no tire failure.
Later we headed over the ridge into another dry lakebed and had a chance to kick it into high range and get a feel for how the tires did on twelve pounds at higher speed.

If you've never tried this...its a lot of fun.

From there we climbed up a trail on a very different kind of sandstone rock where the opening was barely large enough for the Jeeps to fit through. It was one of those spotter situations where the tires must provide good shoulder and sidewall grip to keep body paint off the rocks.
After negotiating several more sand dunes and steep, rocky trails, we headed back down into the lakebed where we found some nice mud holes to test the MT/R's in conditions rarely found in the desert. The tires performed as advertised, cleaned out well, even in this very sticky type mud.
Hall of Fame off-road racer and rock climber Walker Evans showed up with a brand new buggy to test the new MT/R's on some of his favorite trails like the Back Door Trail. Several of us went with Evans to watch him climb it. After Walker went up through the Back Door climb he had a big smile on his face and he said, "That's the first time I've ever tried that climb on anything but special, sticky compound tires."

Back at our base camp, we aired back up to highway pressures and hit the road to Palm Springs. Out on the open highway, I listened again for the usual telltale noise of mud tires, but I never heard the drone. According to the Goodyear engineers, the reason this aggressive tire is still quiet on the highway is because of the angle of the main tread blocks. Rather than the full surface of the tread block hitting the pavement surface at once, it angles into it, which minimizes the sound. Bottom line, owners of the new MT/R will find it relatively quiet for an aggressive tire.
Goodyear achieved their goals for a good all around off-road tire that still performs well on the road. We put 120 tires on the trail in our day of testing in The Hammers, an area that's infamous for causing tire damage, without a single tire failure. The MT/R's performed well in sand, rocks, mud and even the open highway. Goodyear has a winner with the all-new Wrangler MT/R with Kevlar.