Tires for my Excursion Tow Rig/Daily Driver
 

Fellas -

The tires on my 4x4 2003 7.3 Excursion have seen better days. It's my daily driver and tow rig, and I'd like some tires that will last a while and be able to handle a decent load.

I pull an 18' trailer fairly often and have a few cross-country towing trips (Texas to Washington DC) planned this summer.

Not too worried about price; I don't mind paying for good tires. Will be mounting these on the factory wheels, but might try to get something a bit bigger to fill out the wheelwells a bit, but nothing that would need a lift or cause interference issues. I'd be more comfortable with a recognized brand name tire.

Thanks in advance for any input.

Scott

tires
 

good year silent armors are the best out there load range E.
i have a set of 5 factory bridgestone duravis 245/75/16 for sale with 18k miles that came on my 2006 yukon xl 2500 if you are interested $400 for the set

Michelin's are hard to beat for long wearing, quality tires. I had a set on my 06 Duramax and they were great.

Check out... http://www.thedieselstop.com/forums/f13/ for better info on that truck and tires.

I can tell you what not to go with.

I put a set of the Cooper Discovery ATR on my F-350 dually.JUNK,or in other words,they suck!Rear of the truck wonders on corners.I did some research,and it seems they have a softer sidewall.Just wonderful!

The truck handled great when it had the original Generals.

Our customers swear by the Michelins.

Thats what I`ll be buying next.

Mark.

i just replaced tires on my ram 1500 4x4 with uniroyal larado.i have a friend that just put them on his excursion and was really impressed with them. they say they are made by michelin. you can get them (e) load rated. very very happy with the ride and handling on these tires. we just bought a 27 ft camper (6000lbs) and it tows great with the uniroyals. the michelin ltx would be great also but are more money and i think they are close to the same tire. bought them at national tire and battery .

Thanks, Mark. That's good to know. I've had tires with weak sidewalls before - Bridgestones - ruined several tires by hitting bumps while going too fast.

Scott

I've always had good luck with Michelins. Checked out their website and saw a few tires that should work.

Thanks,

Scott

Good info. I'll check these out.

Thanks,

Scott

I was pretty happy with the Pirelli Scorion STR-A tires that I put on my last truck. The original tires on it had real soft sidewalls and had too much movement with a loaded trailer. I put on the LT rated Scorpions and it was rock solid. They are somewhat of a highway tread but open enough to not be useless in snow or mud.

They are one of the original equipment tires on both the Dodge Ram 2500/3500 and F-250/350. The price is real nice on them too, I paid about $120 each for LT265/70R17.

I've tried several different 235/85-16 load range E tires on the two Dodge diesel trucks we've owned. Those trucks are heavy, solid front axle, and very hard on tires. If I get 30,000 miles out of a set, I'm happy.

Anyhow, we tried a set of General Grabbers.....JUNK.

Firestones no name brand, decent.

Bridgestones, JUNK, and by far and above, the WORST tires I ever purchased.

Goodyear H/T's, very good tires.

Kelley Springfields (currently on the truck), very, very good for the price.

You always hear that Michellins are the best, but I just can't bring myself to spend over $800 on tires, when I can get 4 Kelly Springfields for $117 each, mounted/balanced.....Cliff

scott, i got 60k out of the original bfgoodrich rugged trail t/a's that came new on my excursion. had no complaints at all out of them. they wore very evenly and still had some tread left.

Look into Continentals. I use http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....TR7CCLX#Survey

It's a great site to compare brands and has feedback from actual users and owners. I've had a couple of sets of Continentals. I've owned 4 or 5 sets of Michelins over the years and have been disappointed in their noisiness (especially in our minivan) and don't think they are worth the 50% price premium over Conti's or other premium tires. In the comparisons the Conti's are the highest rated tires.

When I was looking for tires for my Yukon, many folks with full size SUV's said to get BF long trail T/A's. Decent price but in my size they were rated Traction B whereas other sizes were Traction A.

I looked at the ratings on tirerack and decided on Michelin Cross Terrain because they had good ratings and reviews, and Costco carries them (they have the best tire prices around that I've seen).

Nice handling, good traction tires for the Yukon; don't know if they would be good for your usage, tho.

george

FYI - The traction, tempature, and tread ware ratings are determined by the tire manufacture so comparision between brands are inaccurate. Tread ware is you would see the biggest differance.

Also the traction rating is for "wet braking" so I can see why differant tires size could be rated differantly.

You should be able to go up to a 285/65/16 from your 265/75/16 without any problems. I would make sure whatever you get you stay with an "E" load rating.

I have a 99 F-350 diesel I bought used, it had brand new Firestone Steeltek tires on it, they lasted me over 70k miles and most of those were pulling my 20' fiberglass boat or 3 place snowmobile trailer.
When I needed a new set of tires I asked for them and they changed the name on them, they are now called Transforce, I have been very pleased with them...over 60k on the set that is on there and they are still in good shape.

I had Bridgstone duelers on a previous truck...they were okay...didn't seem like the tread lasted as long as the Firestone's have.
JB

Fellas -

Thanks for all the input. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Scott

I like the Michelins that I put on my 96 Suburban 2500 4x4. They're E rated and tow great.

I wasn't as impressed by the tires on my 93 Suburban 2500 4x4. They're BF Goodrich Long Trails. I believe the side wall was softer than the Michelins. The rear end felt a little twitchy in curves when towing a fairly heavy open car trailer with a car on it. Both vehicles were set up identically (454 4x4 4.10 gears 4L80E trans). I won't buy a set of BF Goodrich again, and my next tires will definitely be Michelin.

Mike

Be careful changing tire sizes.... you are messing with more things than you realize. Your PCM, ABS both read the vehicle speed sensor.... meaning it will effect your fuel economy and performance, your speedo will be off and the vehicle will never be traveling at the speed that the PCM thinks it is. If you have a handheld programmer, make sure you reprogram to allow for the tire size change.

I have BFG Rugged Trail TA's, E-load range on my Avalanche. Ride is nice, and they are tough.

The correct size in a previous post was 285/75/16, not the 65 series. BTW at the Ford dealer I work at we charge 1/2hr ($40) to reprogram the bigger tire size in.
I seem to like the Bfg's lately especially the Long Trail t/a, I don't care for the Continentals or Generals. Michilins are nice but expensive.

Good info on the size and computer issues.

Priced Michelins today in Round Rock, Texas. $196 each for the E load rated ones. Forgot to ask if that included mounting and balancing, but I'm guessing that it did not. Lady I was talking to said she got 90k out of a set on her truck.

Scott

The correct size is 265/75/16..... we never put a 285 tire on an Excursion or SuperDuty in the factory.... and they need to be load range E. That's what the tire recall was for on the Excursion a couple of years ago... factory tires were D's.

I said the size he has now was 265/75 16 in an earlier post, but he wanted to upsize the tires and I posted 285/65 16 and was making a correction.

I drilled holes in the sidewalls of alot of good tires when that recall came out.

I ahd 2 flats going in and out of stone quarries on my new 06 GMC. The tire shop where I hang out,John said the oem tires(basically passenger car tires) were not the best for my 1500, advised me to go with Kellys'.They are 17",10 ply.The sidewalls seem strong.towed the race car to Norwalk twice.They are not noisy on the road,seem to do well in the snow(2WD).the only downside is they pick up small stones in the quarries where I work.they were about $330/a pair.I do feel safe.John has never let me a stray.

Tires for my Excursion
 

I have a Duramax 2500 Quad cab 4X4 and was looking for tires for it. I went on the Duramax BB and the Yokohama Geolander was highly recommended. My truck had 265 Michelins on it and I thought that they rode a bit harsh. If I was going to use the bulletin board for answers, then I felt that I would take their suggestion. I went with 285's and couldn't be happier, smooth, quiet ride, hauls my car trailer extremely well, to the point where you sometimes forget you are towing a trailer. They are great in the snow. I have over 35000 miles on them as we speak and very little tread wear.

Just took a close look at the tires on it now - they are C load rated - and I've done plenty of towing with them. Yeah, I know, not real smart. Coming off this weekend. Going with Michelin 285s (E load rated, of course).

Thanks,

Scott

1st thing Michelin Is French owned NOT Bridgestone they are japanese owned and also own Firestone , I use Bridgestone M773s (commercial) on my C3500 SRW Chevy (245/75/16) and tow a 14K tag trailer , these are the same tires that U-haul and Ryder is using they are a steel belted 10 ply load range E , you have to run them at the pressure listed by the tire manufacture not the vehicle manufacture to make them last long ( I run all 4 at 80 Psi like Bridgestone recommends not 45/65 that chevy recommends which is for a pleasent ride ) and have 65K miles on this set and have half of the original treaddepth , the last set lasted 40k miles at the Chevy pressure settings they ran HOT and the front tires severly cupped out and the rears wore the sides of the treads out ( this is with HD KYB gas shocks and rotated at 10 k miles ) and now the truck doesn't wiggle when pulling a trailer going around curves and on ramps like the uniroyals that where on it originally which lasted 15 k miles , I rather spend the extra dough instead of risking my toy and the truck and most importantly mine and my familys life to save $200 bucks on a set of tires, I also learned if you go to a semi truck tire place you can save about 30 bucks a tire for E range tires the M773's are around $200 each .( I have been running Bridgestones on my semis for years this is one of the reason for my decision that and my tire guy wouldn't want to loose my business )

Michelins are holding up fine. 285s are a good fit; fill up wheelwells, but only have a slight rub at full lock at the back of one of the wheelwells.

SDW

Glad you liked them, they were great on my truck.