Advice on winter tires for JL Rubicon

[Torero]

Ahh , maybe because jeeps are off-road trucks with a locking center differential and in some cases front and rear axles? Why are suggesting someone buy street tires for an off road truck and waste their money. When they can buy a tire that excells in all conditions of snow, mud, sand, dirt and pavement.

Not going to sit here and let you reccomend a street tire that belongs on a subaru outback to clueless people on this thread. They dont even make those tires in 33”. And further more those tires arent better than a ko2 . They are Not!

You are actually funny.

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[Vedder]

1. 90

You are actually funny.

I’ll 2nd that.

 

[XJrider]

1. 90


I’ll 2nd that.

Of course you guys would think that , because im right.

 

[XJrider]

You are actually funny.

Ok so where did i go wrong exactly?

 

[Torero]

Ok so where did i go wrong exactly?

We were talking about tires for a daily driver. Someone who’s not planning to to go off-roading in the winter and worried about driving RWD on the highway and city on ice and snow.
You went on a tangent. Nobody doubts the capabilities of the KO2. But to go on and on saying that it is better on pavement than a dedicated winter tire is a stretch.
We all said that the KO 2 would be fine, but if the OP wants even better for his DD, there are still better options for ice/snow ON THE ROAD.
Bringing into the discussion Subaru and mud tires was just silly. Getting on the high horse that you have to stop us from spreading false information was even sillier. The OP is not going to kill him self because of my advice.
I will rest peacefully with my advice.
It’s just a forum, with a beer I am sure we could have a good conversation, here it is rather difficult to measure attitudes.
I hope you take it for all it is, just amicable conversation.

 

[FUHL]

We were talking about tires for a daily driver. Someone who’s not planning to to go off-roading in the winter and worried about driving RWD on the highway and city on ice and snow.
You went on a tangent. Nobody doubts the capabilities of the KO2. But to go on and on saying that it is better on pavement than a dedicated winter tire is a stretch.
We all said that the KO 2 would be fine, but if the OP wants even better for his DD, there are still better options for ice/snow ON THE ROAD.
Bringing into the discussion Subaru and mud tires was just silly. Getting on the high horse that you have to stop us from spreading false information was even sillier. The OP is not going to kill him self because of my advice.
I will rest peacefully with my advice.
It’s just a forum, with a beer I am sure we could have a good conversation, here it is rather difficult to measure attitudes.
I hope you take it for all it is, just amicable conversation.

Excellent post.

 

[Eloib]

Blizzaks would leave K02’s behind in every catagory. Acceleration, deceleration and lateral grip, snow, ice and slush.

https://news.pickuptrucks.com/2016/03/winter-tire-test-some-treads-are-better-than-others.html

 

[Carlton]

The KO2 will be fine in most conditions. The Goodyear Duratrac will be better. The Duratrac is great in winter and deep snow.

For ice the Blizzak or Nokian will be better, but will be worse in deep snow.

 

[ALRUI]

The KO2s are the best tire you can buy for the snow short of a full on snow tire.

-Eli

I 2nd that! I had several sets on my F150 & theyre hands down the best tire for a 4 wheeler thats also driven on the street IMNSHO.

 

[MinorInsanity]

Having driven on studded winter tires and Blizzaks, we now run Blizzaks on all our vehicles, even the JL.

 

[Carnut12]

I live in New England and the KO2's have been more then fine for getting through the winters. I used to have dedicated Winters for my Cars, but not needed for the Jeep as far as I am concerned.

 

[Vedder]

I live in New England and the KO2's have been more then fine for getting through the winters. I used to have dedicated Winters for my Cars, but not needed for the Jeep as far as I am concerned.

I think some confusion can occur unless we consider where lives and drives. For example, it sounds like New England winter road conditions are mild enough to not require high performing tires to maintain ultimate traction on their particular average road conditions. And New England temperstures are warm enough to not have to worry about your tires turning into hard, frozen slippery hockey pucks in the snow. (Which KOs will do at -40) And finally if your Jeep doesn’t need winter tires.. then ya.. neither does any other vehicle on the road. So your all good.

 

[FUHL]

Here is a good example why I would change out to a snow tire. The tire on the Rubicon are WIDE! This distributs the weight out and is not good for low traction, great for high traction. If you snow ski, you know the longer the ski the faster you go because it is distributing the weight over a greater area.
In this video the truck with the wide tires looses traction. As you can see the other vehicles are not sliding as much. And no it isn't because it's a Ford.

 

[J0E]

Having raced on ice in Montanta for many years, nothing comes close to studs on ice. Just don't go over 110 MPH or it sounds like a machine gun as the studs go flying.

In a similar line of questions... what are the proper steps for driving in deeper snow? Do you still air down? Or do you want to cut through the powder and get to the packed down stuff underneath? Do I need to air back up before putting on chains? I haven't lived in a place before that had readily available deep snow until this year.

My F-250 tall boy with factory (skinny) tires easily out performed wide tires in deep snow. As someone else mentioned (and other 4x4 forums mention), you don't want skis, you want to get to the ground.

When I drove my F-250 to Las Vegas no one had seen studded tires before. BTW, studded tires give you far less traction on dry roads.

Lockers are only available in low range.
.

Best way to end up in the ditch is to use lockers on ice.

On ice my wife’s Volvo AWD with winter tires is excellent.
Last year we were caught on I 70 on a storm. There were cars on the ditch everywhere and she made the comment: how come most of the cars on the ditch are lifted 4x4 trucks? Hum. That was a fact.
My assumption is two fold: most of them run mud tires AND they think they got the upper hand with their 4x4.

Volvo AWD with studs can't be beat for ice racing. Having pulled out several dozen 4x4s out of the ditch, I'm pretty sure it's mostly.

they think they got the upper hand with their 4x4.

They notice they can accelerate 2x as two-wheel drives and ass-ume they can stop.

 

[Chris_Maine]

Hello out there in the internets world.
Moved up to Vermont for a two year stint (possibly more ) and brought my JL with me. I thought that the tires that came with my Rubicon were sufficient for the winters up here, but I keep hearing “you need to get some winter tires on that thing...”
So I’ve been going through Quadratech, just for jeeps, etc looking and seem more lost than before.
Anybody have any suggestions? Thanks for your help

I live in Maine, so similar weather to you. I’m running on the K02s right now but since I only stick into 4H on snowy or icy roads, and am in 2H vast majority of the time, I can feel the rear end sliding out a fair amount when a little icy. My FWD Accord with winter tires slides less. However, when in 4H, the K02s seem to pull through couple inches or a foot of snow well. I’m going to see how handles this winter - maybe get Blizzaks or similar next winter if makes sense.

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