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My Ford Endeavour 4x4 gets BFG off-roading tyres: First Impressions

18th July 2022, 16:33 by Rahul Nagaraj

They are considered among the best when it comes to off-road traction and I am sure I will make good use of this.

BHPian Ace F355 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

It happened sooner than later. Decided to take the plunge for BF Goodrich tires now that they are sold officially in India and backed by warranty etc.

If you recall my earlier posts from this thread, I had mentioned our regular tire guy used to import all the fancy brands including BFGs, Toyo Open Country, Cooper, Mickey Thompsons, and Goodyear Wranglers with Kevlar - you name the tire and he had it. The only issue was these tires being Grey imports never had the aftersales support, hence I had decided to get Falken WildPeaks back in the day on the delivery day itself.

The current odo of the vehicle is 88k km plus and even with this many km, Falkens had >3.5mm tread left. Apart from odd punctures here and there, my overall experience with Falken WildPeak AT3WA (don't confuse it with WildPeak AT01 which is a different model) rubber has been fantastic. I would highly recommend them to anyone looking for a brilliant all-terrain tire for their SUVs in India. Then why BFGs you say... which are heavier, relatively noisy and known to take a toll on the fuel efficiency of the vehicle.

Well, I believe my use case qualifies for BFG application, point #1, because of the off-roading that I do with my Endeavour, and considering I am inching towards one lakh km on the odo, it is likely that this would be my final set of tires for this car, so why not get the best that is out there - that's point #2. Anshuman and a couple of friends from my offroad circle are already using BFGs and swear by the toughness and traction properties of this tire.

With these ideas kept in mind, decided to get BF Goodrich KO2. Got in touch with Chirag of Dawn Auto in Delhi and he confirmed the stock availability with him. Freshly imported, 2022 manufactured and with ISI markings. With all that out of the way, sent my car to him and it came back with new shoes in less than 2 hours. Chirag is a wonderful person to deal with and I would highly recommend his store for anything related to tires (he deals in alloy wheels, tires and similar stuff for all high-end cars including big 3 Germans, JLR, Bentley, Porsche you name it).

I have already clocked 300+ km on these tires and will share my comprehensive feedback once I have some decent mileage on them.

Impressions so far - Adding dead unsprung mass in form of heavy tires (over 5 kg each when compared to Falkens BTW) is absolutely felt from the driving seat. Having said that, the sure-footedness feeling of these tires is brilliant. They are considered among the best when it comes to off-road traction and I am sure I will make good use of these properties of this rubber. For now, please enjoy the pics below.

The car was sent to Dawn Auto in the afternoon, work began promptly and wrapped up quickly.

Another option that I contemplated - Maxxis have almost similar tread pattern as BFGs and with 285/60 size I could have gained a few extra mm of GC and my wheel wells would have filled a bit better. However, since the stock size has been working so well for me - we felt there was absolutely no need for a tire size upgrade. Hence the decision to stick with stock size BFGs.

Fresh Rubber!

A comparison with Falkens, they have worn out well, my off-road usage seems to have taken some toll on them, but overall I would rate Falken 4.5/5 for an AT tire.