Falken Wildpeak A/T3W all-terrain tire
The rubber meets the road….
Having a set of proper tires for your vehicle can dramatically change not only its look but also the drivability of your vehicle. Whether you have a BMW with a low profile racing tire or a Jeep with 37″ mud tires, in both examples the tire is one of the most important factors of what the car can or cannot do. Unfortunately most people don’t see the need to buy a good quality tire and merely buy whatever is on sale at Sears. Growing up I’ll never forget my dad stressing the importance of having good tires on all of our vehicles. As I got older this stayed with me through the various vehicles I’ve had over the years and leads us here to today.
As you know I’ve been building an Overland Expedition vehicle based on a 2008 Land Rover LR3 which I bought in July of 2016. One of the first mods that was a “must do” was to swap out the practically bald, no name, “A/T” tires that were currently on the rig.
What tires to choose? ?
After a couple months of research digging through review after review of several brands and models of all terrain tires, I came across a handful of threads about Falken’s relatively be tire, the Wildpeak A/T3W. At the time the tire was less than a year on the market so there were no long term reviews to really go by however all the reviews I came across were very positive. The tires were designed for all season, all weather adventure travel with specs head to head with other brands. The Wildpeaks also had the deepest tread pattern in their class with an aggressive look that could be confused with a mud terrain. With the aggressive looks, deep tread and good sidewall protection and great reviews I was on to the next phase of my research.
Second factor in buying a tire: price.
This is where is was sold and ready to click the buy button. The price was considerably less per tire than the other big name all terrain tire used by overlanders all over the world, the BF Goodrich KO2. A quality proven tire, love by the masses with a high price to match. Being a Charactor myself and not wanting to just follow the herd, I made the decision to buy a set of 4 Falken Wildpeaks with enough money saved to buy a 5th tire for less than 4 KO2’s!
What tire size?
Now is where things get tricky. Getting the right tire size for your vehicle is an important thing to get right. Get the tire too big and you may spend more time trimming bits and pieces from your wheel wells than driving the rig. Get a tire to small and you look like you skipped leg day at the gym. Honestly it all depends on your application and how you plan on using your vehicle. Since the LR3 has an amazing air suspension system that I was definitely not going to touch, I wanted the biggest tire I could stuff under the car without needing to do any modifications. This lead me to choose the 265/65/18 tire size which works out to slightly less than 33″ in height and according to every post I could find, was the largest tire size that would fit the LR3 without having to modify anything. When the tires finally arrived the first thing I did was size them up compared to the tires currently on the LR3. WOW! I immediately made an appointment at Pep Boys to install the tires but realized soon after that they wouldn’t install the new tires due to not matching the factory spec ratings of the LR3. After a quick Google search I was able to locate a 4×4 shop nearby who would install the tires right away. I dropped off the rig, went to eat and came back to sheer delight at how awesome the tires looked on the LR3…what a difference!
Noise/Handling
The first test was road noise and handling. Within the first 5 minutes of driving I was again smiling as there was zero noise coming from the tires (at least that I could hear). The drive felt similar to before and with no change in the noise levels, it seemed that these would be a great on road tire. This was important to me as the LR3 is my daily driver and will see pavement 90% of the time.
Wet weather
Living in South Florida, there are only a few off-road tests I have been able to do. As it rains nearly every day during the summer in Miami, wet weather traction and stability was also very important. After driving in what seems as a million downpours, I can say without a doubt, the Falken’s get a 10 out of 10 for wet weather handling. Often times it rains incredibly hard for a brief time that all the streets flood causing treacherous conditions for motorists on the mean streets of Miami. I honestly can’t recall a time where I hit one of these puddles and hydroplaned or felt unstable.
Sand
Being land-locked in Miami, there hasn’t been any rock crawling for this LR3 so the only real test I could think of relevant to my area is deep sand. The first trip I took to Ocala National Forest was on the stock tires that came with the rig and frankly I was nervous the entire time fully expecting to get bogged down in the super soft sugar sand that was on all the trails. The LR3’s has an amazing traction control system tat definitely helped prevent this but I also new my limits and didn’t push it through the spots that looked like quicksand. After a couple more trips to the Florida Everglades and Ocala with the new tires, I almost immediately had much more confidence in the capabilities of the LR3. In fact on one of the trips I kept the on road air pressure and didn’t even air down as I never felt the need to. The last trip to Ocala was a bit different as it had not rained in quite some time causing the soft sand to become super soft and almost dust like. We were on the trails for a short time and I stopped to lower the tire pressure down to around 20psi to tackle the sand. After airing down we ran through every bit of sand I could find and if looked deep with ruts I went straight at it instead of going around. My confidence in the rig was now through the roof as we never got close to becoming stuck. Also considering that we were loaded down with around 1000 lbs of gear and about 600 lbs of testosterone, the LR3 with her new shoes did an amazing job carting us around the trails in Ocala
Conclusion
If these tires work half as well in snow, gravel and mud as they do on sand and in wet weather, you won’t be disappointed. The tires were rotated when they hit 5000 miles and currently the tires have around 8k miles showing almost no signs of wear. I look forward to having these tires for a few years to come and hope to do an update to this review after I hit some rocky, muddy or snowy areas.
Charactor recommended!
