When the Rubber Hits the Trail

 

At about 15-psi (the manufacturer does not recommend this) the M/T has a nice inverted-mushroom footprint and the semi-aggressive tread provided a good balance between digging in, and floating across the surface. The tight bead tolerances did a great job of keeping the tire on the non-beadlock rim. You still need to be careful when cornering or you could peal the bead off the rim and find yourself in a pickle. Give and take: If your rig is not a trailer queen and you drive it to-and-from the trail, it's nice to run tires that can address the pavement with decorum (especially a 900-mile haul to Moab), yet have an affinity towards the dirt once you get there. The curf groove, or sipping, adds additional contact area to a given footprint, and running 15psi provided good traction on the slickrock, yet allowed us to maneuver between the trail and town each day.

Mile 11,000: As early winter rains fell in Northern California, we went hunting for mud. While we don't get the bottomless gumbo goo of the southern states, the XM/T did a pretty good job of cutting through slop and spitting it out.

Extreme M/T sizes run from 31-to38.5-inches, 15-to 22-inch wheel sizes, and can carry up to 3970lbs per corner. Our 33x12.5x15s were load range C, had an overall diameter of 32.8-inches and a maximum load rating of 2205lbs. Check out this link for full specs: www.procomptires.com/xtrememudterrain.html

In reality, you can't make a tire that is the best at everything: rocks, sand, mud, and the blacktop. But the crossover style of the Extreme M/T provides a good balance. After a half dozen long-

haul road trips, twenty-plus days on the trail and 12,000-miles, we had burned through 6/ 32ths of original 18/32ths of usable tread. Check out Tire Composition 101 and the cut-a-way image for details on the XM/T's construction, and keep your eyes on Off Road Adventures; we may be back for a 24,000-mile update... down the trail.