VAIL, CO - We seldom ever need the most extreme version of anything. You don’t need a room-size industrial dishwasher for your house, you don’t need an expensive carbon-kevlar kayak for your occasional camping trip, and you don’t need a rock-crushing mud tire on your commuter crossover. However, we do like knowing whatever we have has a healthy degree of advanced capability, a peace of mind in the event that we find ourselves on a detour from monotony. That’s what the new BFGoodrich Trail-Terrain T/A+ tire is for.

BFGoodrich chose to host the launch of their updated daily-driver terrain tire against the backdrop of the 24th annual GoPro Mountain Games in Vail, Colorado, where a picturesque off-season ski town is overrun with people who live and love the outdoor adventures. The whole point was to highlight that this is an ideal choice for most people to get to and from life’s adventures. 

Where does the plus in Trail-Terrain T/A+ come from?

The Trail-Terrain T/A+ is an update of the original tire launched in 2021. Much like the Michelin X-Ice Snow+ that was launched this year, the tire its replacing was already a very competent product that didn’t leave much on the table, so all the changes are sort of invisible.

While the signature tread pattern remains unchanged, all of the performance improvements come from a new rubber compound, infused with more silica, among other things. Updates to their production facilities in the US have enabled the mass production of these smarter chemical blends that were previously unfeasible, enabling meaningful gains without compromise.

Compared to the outgoing, visually identical tire, the new tire has the following advantages:

  • • 25% increase in wear resistance, with a longer treadwear warranty to match
    • 10% improvement in wet traction, which was the outgoing tire’s weakest trait
    • 5% reduction in rolling resistance, for improved fuel economy

Better than a KO3?

This is from the same company that famously makes the gold standard in specialized off-road rolling stock, the All-Terrain T/A KO3 tire. It’s such a well-known tire that it’s almost got brand identity locked down in the same way that Kleenex has become synonymous with tissues, but there are compromises that come with a tire built with such a specialized focus, like the most extreme version of anything.

The more broad-purposed Trail-Terrain T/A+ nullifies those compromises, providing much less noise, better ride quality, better fuel economy, better performance on the pavement we spend most of our time on, and they last longer, too - the treadwear warranty now stretches out to a whopping 105,000 kilometres on these, versus 80,000 for the KO3. This isn't a compromise, its in all likelihood it's actually a better tire for your real-world use case.

Snow and stuff

The existing tire was already great. I own a set of them, and I’m very happy with them. My only apprehensions before bolting them on were increased noise over the milder tires I had on before, and their ability to stand up to nasty Canadian winters. Noise proved to be a complete non-issue, and they allowed me to soldier through blizzards without drama.

These updated tires have the same solid cold-weather performance, and all replacement Trail-Terrain T/A+ tires bear the 3-Peak certification symbol for severe snow use - so you can run these year round.

Evaluating normality

Our “testing” of the new tire was admittedly rather undramatic, but that’s sort of the point: it’s hard to demonstrate a tire’s middle-of-the-road ability in any really compelling way. We spent the day tooling around Colorado in a mix of the crossovers and light trucks these shoes are made for, and like the lives those vehicles lead, we spent 90% of the day on dry pavement, because that’s the real use case we all deal with. 

They’re quiet on the road, and have none of the highway howling you’d expect from a chunky terrain tire. In normal situations they... behave normally, which is what we all want. They did fine in gravel, and they enabled all these commuter-core vehicles to tackle a moderately gnarly snowmobile trail without making an event out of it. 

Tough Trivia

It’s worth noting that while these aren’t meant to be as indestructible as their spotlight-stealing KO3 tire, they are still extensively tested for durability, specifically against cuts and chips from sharp gravel, like the trails on the way to trailheads these are likely to see. Vehicles are fitted with these tires at BFGoodrich's own 4x4 school; they can absolutely handle some serious silliness.

Wrap it up

The Trail-Terrain T/A+ represents a broad use case, where you and your vehicle spend the overwhelming majority of the time commuting and running errands, and these can do that boring stuff without compromise. The trick of them is being able to handle life's mundanity as well as they do, as well as being able to make any curveballs you may come across also feel mundane. It’s nice knowing a weekend adventure is as easily dispatched as a weekday commute.

The BFGoodrich Trail-Terrain T/A+ launched in most common sizes on June 1st, so they are already available right now. More sizes are coming in August this year and March next year.