Rob81
New Member
Hi all,
After searching this forum and others, videos and such, I decided on Falken Wildpeaks for my new tire. As a 3 round veteran and lover of the Toyo AT2, I initially thought I would default with the new AT3... until I looked into them a little bit and learned that their new changes to become 3 peak snow certified most likely sacrificed sidewall strength. If I was buying a load range E tire this probably wouldn't be an issue, but I wanted an XL tire and the new Toyo AT3 XL has a weaker 2ply design than the previous AT2 (on the 117 XL load rated tire). XL load range suits my needs for highway, forest service roads and moderate towing. So, basically sidewall strength is important to me but I don't want to sacrifice comfort with an E rated tire. Falken has the stronger sidewall XL tire and equal or if not better user reviews of the Toyo on all my research. So I gave them a shot.
On to the review... (road only so far) After I got it out of the tire shop, I first set the tire pressure to the non towing spec for my vehicle (36-38 psi) tire shops sometimes put it to the max psi as if I was towing a 9000 lbs trailer lol. After setting pressure to something that lets the tire do its job, I took a test drive up and over a mountain pass to the other side of town, around town, ran some errands and here are my thoughts. I can feel what the contact patch and sidewall are doing through the feedback given to the steering wheel. The beautiful thing about this tire is that is has this feedback and responsiveness thing going on letting you drive with a lot less steering inputs. It feels tight, planted, and confident while letting you know what its capable of. They feel very intuitive. My previous Toyo AT2's were excellent tires and the comfort and tracking was there, but these tires offer more feedback and the right kind, which makes them very easy to drive. They absorb microshock vibration very well, it has a "greased bearing" feel to the road.. I was a truck driver for many years and I am finicky about tires, and pressures, steering linkages, etc and I like a safe and planted feel to how my vehicle rides and these tires do it well..
I am very happy with them and so far like them better for road use than my old Toyo AT2's even when they were new and I really was in love with those for years, Hec, I bought them 3 times. The AT2's were quieter, and that's the downside to this tire. But I'll say the trade off is worth it to me. The tire noise with this tire is not the nasty high pitch kind, its a low whisper white noise type that blends in with the air noise. You can speak normal to the person next to you doing 80. The sound actually reminds me of the sound when on an aircraft.
This video shows the tire noise going up a mountain (55-60) on a typical outer city road on a type of asphalt that typically creates a lot of tire noise. I wanted to show a worser case scenario of the noise you can get.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67xfHbfwUSY
Factory size: WILDPEAK A/T3WP 275 /55 R20 117T XL RBL
I can't wait to see how they do offroad, I do have high hopes, but we will see.
After searching this forum and others, videos and such, I decided on Falken Wildpeaks for my new tire. As a 3 round veteran and lover of the Toyo AT2, I initially thought I would default with the new AT3... until I looked into them a little bit and learned that their new changes to become 3 peak snow certified most likely sacrificed sidewall strength. If I was buying a load range E tire this probably wouldn't be an issue, but I wanted an XL tire and the new Toyo AT3 XL has a weaker 2ply design than the previous AT2 (on the 117 XL load rated tire). XL load range suits my needs for highway, forest service roads and moderate towing. So, basically sidewall strength is important to me but I don't want to sacrifice comfort with an E rated tire. Falken has the stronger sidewall XL tire and equal or if not better user reviews of the Toyo on all my research. So I gave them a shot.
On to the review... (road only so far) After I got it out of the tire shop, I first set the tire pressure to the non towing spec for my vehicle (36-38 psi) tire shops sometimes put it to the max psi as if I was towing a 9000 lbs trailer lol. After setting pressure to something that lets the tire do its job, I took a test drive up and over a mountain pass to the other side of town, around town, ran some errands and here are my thoughts. I can feel what the contact patch and sidewall are doing through the feedback given to the steering wheel. The beautiful thing about this tire is that is has this feedback and responsiveness thing going on letting you drive with a lot less steering inputs. It feels tight, planted, and confident while letting you know what its capable of. They feel very intuitive. My previous Toyo AT2's were excellent tires and the comfort and tracking was there, but these tires offer more feedback and the right kind, which makes them very easy to drive. They absorb microshock vibration very well, it has a "greased bearing" feel to the road.. I was a truck driver for many years and I am finicky about tires, and pressures, steering linkages, etc and I like a safe and planted feel to how my vehicle rides and these tires do it well..
I am very happy with them and so far like them better for road use than my old Toyo AT2's even when they were new and I really was in love with those for years, Hec, I bought them 3 times. The AT2's were quieter, and that's the downside to this tire. But I'll say the trade off is worth it to me. The tire noise with this tire is not the nasty high pitch kind, its a low whisper white noise type that blends in with the air noise. You can speak normal to the person next to you doing 80. The sound actually reminds me of the sound when on an aircraft.
This video shows the tire noise going up a mountain (55-60) on a typical outer city road on a type of asphalt that typically creates a lot of tire noise. I wanted to show a worser case scenario of the noise you can get.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67xfHbfwUSY
Factory size: WILDPEAK A/T3WP 275 /55 R20 117T XL RBL
I can't wait to see how they do offroad, I do have high hopes, but we will see.
