The Best Tires for Off-Road Adventures: A Discussion with Ryan and Alex

When it comes to off-roading, having the right tires can make all the difference. In this episode, we discussed the best tires for a vintage Forerunner like the one featured on our show. Ryan, who has experience with off-roading, recommended the 235/70R15 tire, which is mild treaded but aggressive enough to handle sand and other challenging terrain. He also mentioned that the tire wears well, which is important when it comes to longevity.

The Forerunner, a second-gen 4 and maybe dave can throw up a picture of the third gen that i have in my garage, but...it's clear that this vehicle has a lot of character and would be a great addition to any collection. The owner's question about the impact of constant inflation deflation and cycling on tire performance is a great one. Ryan explained that modern tires are incredibly strong and engineered to handle flexing and deformation, even when they're not fully inflated. He noted that letting out some air to go on the beach or in other low-traction environments wouldn't significantly degrade the tire.

However, if you do choose to drive in these conditions frequently, it's essential to research and determine proper pressure for your specific vehicle. Ryan also mentioned that fluctuation in temperatures can affect tire performance over time. The sun, rain, wind, and temperature fluctuations all contribute to wear and tear on tires, which can lead to aging and degradation.

In terms of maintenance, the best thing you can do is keep your tires out of direct sunlight when not in use. This will help slow down the oxidation process and extend their lifespan. Most vehicle manufacturers recommend replacing tires after 6-8 years or 10 years, regardless of usage. And as Ryan noted, looks can be deceiving - a tire may appear fine but could actually be nearing the end of its useful life.

Ultimately, finding the right tires for your off-roading adventures requires research and consideration of factors like terrain, climate, and vehicle usage. By choosing the right tires and taking good care of them, you can ensure a safe and enjoyable off-road experience.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi and welcome back i'm mike quincy i'm alex nizik and i'm ryan fizzlekowski so the two questions that i keep getting almost every day are i want to buy an suv which one should i get and i want to get something with good fuel economy which brings us to what we're driving this week we're going to talk about the 20 kia sorento hybrid which recently joined our test program sorento was recently redesigned and while we've already tested the regular model we also went out and got this hybrid version it's powered by a 1.6 liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine making 227 horsepower and hooked up to a six-speed automatic transmission epa fuel economy estimates estimates are 36 miles per gallon city and 33 highway standard active safety and driver assistance systems include forward collision warning automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection lane departure warning and lane keeping assist ours is an all-wheel drive ex model which comes pretty loaded the 10.25 inch touchscreen infotainment system heated front seats and second row captain's chairs we added the extra cost sunroof package and floor mats price came to 40 975 dollars uh these are our first impressions and i'm gonna steer this to ryan um it's great i i always liked the sorrento um i the you know the 2.5 turbo that we have um it's fantastic this is another one of those examples of uh where the hybrid in my opinion is slightly nicer than um the the gas the straight gas counterpart i thought it rode a little better i don't know um it might have a little more weight to it so it's got a little more heft sometimes that helps to ride um i haven't i didn't look into the wheel entire package but however handling is a little bland but for this type of suv i was not um put off by it at all um it feels uh confident and um capable for what it is it's just a nice suv to jump in and drive um you know they did change the shifter has a little rotary shifter you know that kind of a dial if you will which doesn't overly bother me i think that's an okay setup you know the touchscreen is nice pretty straightforward you know and the powertrain itself is nice i mean it it's not a space shuttle by any means but it's got a nice linear smooth power delivery there's a slight delay i think initially but um once you get by that it's not it's nothing nothing bad about it i was just kind of happy i just got in it drove it home and i was like this is a great car this is another one to add to the list to tell people who are looking for a like you said a decent size suv that's good on fuel i mean we don't know yet exactly how it is on fuel but uh i'm going to go ahead and assume it's decent and alex you know you do a lot of real specialized work here at the track about uh uh uh infotainment and controls and and and and all kinds of usability uh and as you can you jump from from kia's and hyundai's from one to another they're all pretty simple to figure out wouldn't you agree yeah they are um they do a good job um just making things pretty straightforward laid out it's kind of when you're talking about the infotainment system they've got this um these pages with tiles and apps that you swipe through it kind of feels a little phone-like but it's everything's spaced out and large enough to actually work well in a car it's responsive easy to read um yes they do a good job there most of the other controls in the car are the same other than the shifter that ryan mentioned are the same as the other sorrento that we tested which is a good thing there's a lot of physical buttons for everything everything's pretty much where you'd expect it to be they do have this um hyundai and kia are moving more towards these touch capacitive controls uh particularly for the um for the climate system so below the touchscreen there's this panel and thankfully there are specific controls for the climate they're not buried in a menu or anything like that they're right there but generally you find these touch capacitive controls just less than ideal just because they're harder to kind of decipher while you're driving i i struggle with those buttons they don't they just and i'm push i push hard i find i'm just pushing too hard just go light touch it light but it's distracting it's distracting to me i like a physical button it takes a little more and you know in a in a stationary environment environment you're like yeah this this works just fine but when you the cognitive load of driving a vehicle and then you have to be more precise with it's just not really yeah and you're trying to just hit it you're trying to go quickly because you're driving right you want to keep your eyes on the road and like i just if you don't touch it just right i just the other thing worth mentioning with this sorrento the hybrid specifically it's so right now it's only coming in two trim levels and both of those trim levels the ex and and the other one come with the larger 10 and a quarter inch system that you mentioned mike and it's great and it works well like we were saying but like other hyundai and kia models still when you get this larger system other sorrento models not the hybrid that are lower in the trim spectrum they get an eight inch system it's smaller still works well those have wireless apple carplay and android auto when you step up to this larger ten and a quarter system which is your only option with the hybrid version for some reason you lose out on that wireless uh connectivity and what yeah that is that isn't that bizarre it's just counter-intuitive and i think it's just not what people would expect and i'm not claiming that you can't get by with wired uh carplay or anything but it's just no putting it out there is something to to know that's that's interesting that's like an oversight to me wow yeah i don't know the technical reason why they're not able to implement that with that specific version of their system but it's definitely um notable and it is a loss so and i i think one of one of the benefits of of working here at consumer reports test track is we're getting in and out of cars on a regular basis and we see some of these patterns that that you guys are are mentioning and when you guys talk about the the nuisance of touch capacitive buttons another trend that we we can see is that you have to bring up a climate screen to get to the seat heater controls and you're driving you're trying to make the seat either warmer or cooler uh and and and that's you know an extra step uh the the sorrento hybrid i drove the other day it was it was kind of cold and there's these physical buttons right there for the seat heaters you can see it very very clearly what level you're on and you can get to it easy and and i know that we all kind of love technology except when it requires extra steps yes listen listen to us complaining about buttons that heat or cool our seats that's like these are luxuries that just where i mean 20 years ago they would never thought about this stuff and now we're uh we're here it's kind of funny but i don't like those touch capacitive buttons i can i can agree with that well listen this is this is uh our kind of our first impressions of the kia sorento hybrid uh check back to consumerreports.org as we get more miles and more experience with this suv we definitely liked the uh the the the regular sorrento so we're going to be really excited to see how this hybrid model works out especially when it comes to fuel economy testing and that brings us to our audience question that we have uh for today we love your questions text video keep them coming to talking cars at icloud.com that's talking cars at icloud.com we've got a video question this is jamie from massachusetts this is my father's 1995 toyota 4runner besides resting in the garage with a fresh coat of wax it's used to pull a boat trail the michelin ltx tires are 10 years old have plenty of tread but we're worried about deterioration what tires would talking cars recommend the tires are routinely dropped to 15 pounds psi must be flexible with limited aggressive tread to float on the warm soft sand of cape cod thank you so when this video clip uh came across uh our our emails before we're having our pre-production meeting for this podcast i was like oh man ryan's going to love this because it's about tires alex is going to love this because it's about old forerunners and like super producer dave abrams boy you really nailed this one um so let's let's let's stick to the to the real you know nitty gritty here and that's tires and ryan you are like one of the premier tire experts in the entire world so take it away no no no um yeah so yeah awesome video awesome uh truck those are those old trucks i love those things right i mean they just don't make stuff like that anymore it seems like but he mentions yeah he's got um those old michelins on there um and i say old because they're old 10 years old as you if you approach you know as you approach 10 years old you got to get those tires off off the car i don't care if they have full tread the the rubber what happens is over time the rubber degrades right there's oxidation that happens just being out in the element the sunshine the air the water everything that eventually dries the rubber out it beats it up it might look beautiful because you have your tire shine i mean you can see in the video those tires still look beautiful right i mean the only thing that looks old is the lettering and i'm a tire nerd so i know what those tires that was that's what the lettering used to look like it was very simple right um so i could tell you those are old just by looking at them from here but um otherwise you know the average person would look at that be like that's got plenty of tread no big deal yeah could you still drive on it yes but it's not worth it because they're just they're dry they're drying out they don't have the um the strength that they used to have i'll say that you know so well and in terms of replacing them so you mentioned he goes off-road a little bit onto the beach you know he lowers the pressures that you know that shouldn't be an issue with um any any tire that he chooses really um lowering the pressure to go on the beach and the reason for lowering the pressures on the beach is you know you kind of make that footprint wider so you don't sink into the sand as much it gives you a little more floatation and that's very common on the beaches up in the cape cod area they actually require you do that you have to actually a lot of these beaches you have to bring a little kit with you if you get stuck a little shovel a strap a couple other things and they have little compressors like for when you leave to inflate your tires back up so you take off because you do not want to drive on an underinflated tire on the right way home on the roads but as far as replacing those tires michelin makes the um defender um ltx m s which is basically the new version of that tire that he has on that vehicle um if you're you like the michelin you're still gonna you're gonna love these um they're you know it's a simple um all-season tread it's not a real aggressive tread the the other thing you could go with would be a um there's the continental um terrain contact ht uh that's a top-rated tire by us it's very similar to the michelin it's gonna wear it's gonna wear along it's a simple tread it's nothing crazy you might pay a little less for that tire you'd have to shop around but um it's it's a great great tire and then the one that i would actually put on it and i'm saving this for last just because it's a different type of tire it's an all-terrain tire is the carrane continental terrain contact at now this is an all-terrain tire without being um super aggressive some all-terrain tires have a really luggy and loud and you know they're they have poor rolling resistance meaning they they suck up more fuel um they're noisy they don't handle as well sometimes this is a kind of in-between um all-terrain tire it's got a a mild tread for all-terrain tires but it's aggressive um for you know going into sand and those types of things it also looks a little more aggressive which might look cool on a you know kind of a vintage forerunner like that so that would be my my choice to be honest um you know it wears fairly well which by the sounds of it treadwear isn't an issue because that vehicle still has a lot of tread there so um you know you're not putting the miles on so i would i would be uh i would recommend that one to be honest and alex i'm not necessarily up on my cpr uh certification but i i know when you saw this truck you just about had had a heart attack that's a that's a nice looking forerunner really clean looking second gen 4 and maybe dave can throw up a picture of uh the third gen that i have in my garage but so ryan i have a question for you actually um as somebody who likes to to off-road a little bit in this forerunner and maybe it'll help uh jamie as well i'm curious if the constant inflation deflation um and that cycling back and forth uh to deflate the tires to go on the beach and then inflating to then go back driving on the street is that degrading the tire any faster or taking any you know life out of the sidewall or the tread or anything like that over time um not a measurable amount a tire is incredibly strong um and and highly engineered um you got to think even when your tire is fully inflated and you're rolling down the road every time the tire rolls through the contact patch where it's touching the road the tire deforms the side walls are constantly moving they're designed to take that that flux right so now you take you know in this situation you let out a bunch of air you can't let out too much air you know it depends on your situation but you let out some air to go on the beach um you're on the beach but you're driving slow so you're really not um you're not harassing it that much um and they like i said they're they're just they're they're sidewalls are built to take that flex millions and millions of uh revolutions right when you drive a tire through its entire life you know these cut these times going out on the beach um and then re-inflating it you're not you're not hurting it not not a measurable amount um you know you you obviously if you go too low on the air you could run into some uh into some issues but right um you know you'd have to do some research and figure out what the proper pressures should be for what you're doing in the vehicle you're driving and and ryan you know getting getting a look at this forerunner and and the age of the tires i think he said that the tires are 10 years old and i was looking at where he he he's living he's out in massachusetts my question is with with a vehicle that like this 400 probably gets very limited use it's probably just like a seasonal car but it's but it's sitting in a garage or whatever does does the fluctuation in temperatures also degrade or age a tire it's hot it's cold it's hot it's cold every season sure i mean that's part of the when i say the elements uh you know the sun the rain the wind everything um you know the fluctuation in temperatures up and down um it all it starts to beat up the tires it oxidizes the materials um and a lot of that has to do with the fluctuation of temperatures you know the best thing the best thing you can do you know once a tire is mounted on a car and it's in service and you're not using it all the time is to keep it out of the sun at least you know in a garage um keep it away from the sun otherwise i mean a tire that's been mounted on a vehicle that is considered in service you know a lot of a lot of vehicle manufacturers will say six to eight years we say no matter what after 10 years or you know just at 10 years you got to get them off the car it's just not worth the risk right and and and looks can be deceiving they can be good looking and they can seem absolutely like they're fine but they're but they're much older than than they would appear absolutely well this is a great question great vehicle um and and sadly it's going to kind of do it for this episode as always check the show notes for more information on the vehicles and topics we discussed and a reminder please keep your questions coming especially your questions that have these great cars keep sending them to talking cars at icloud.com thanks so much for tuning in we'll see you next week\n"