Hi,

There’s a lot of chatter on the forums about the Mickey Thompson MTZ tyres lately.  They are quite a good tyre BUT.

The but is that they are made by Cooper Tires of America and so suffer from the same problems they do – chipping.  There’s also another reason for the chipping and that is that the sipes, the little thin slits in the tread blocks go all the way to the bottom of the tread.  This is great for ice, snow and wet roads, but these sipes actually weaken the tread blocks and thus you see a lot of chipping when the vehicle is used in real 4WD situations.

I have run BFG M/T and lately the Maxxis Bighorn on some serious 4WD tracks and both these tyres receive very little chipping (if any at all).  My brother, you may know him as the presenter of Going 4WD on channel 31, has been running the MTZ’s for a short period and on just a couple of trips they were far worse than my 25,000km Bighorn’s.

The Bighorns have sipes, but they only go about a third of the way down the tread blocks, so there is still plenty of strength in each block and the BFG’s have no sipes at all.

On a couple of trips with my brother, the MTZ’s performed well, but I would be dubious in putting them on my Prado becaus of this chipping.

See you out there!

Doug Johnston

Tip:

If you're like the majority of 4x4 Drivers, you won't be able to change the diff oil until you get home, because you won't have spare oil and a sump pump to change it. If you suspect contaminated oil (a deep water crossing without extended diff breathers or perhaps you have leaking diff seals) then you can try and remove the water by draining the diff until only oil comes out the drain hole. Do not drain too much and leave your diff short of lubrication. Collect this oil and water emulsion as you should never dispose of oil into the environment. Save it till you get back home and dispose of it properly. Its not only diffs that can have water contamination, but also your gearbox, transfer case and engine oil. However, it is usually only when a 4x4 is stationary in deep water that these components are contaminated.