We’ve had the Toyo Open Country A/T II in an LT configuration on our Ford Everest for over 45,000km of driving now, and the vehicle has done a reasonable amount off-road, as well as on the Highway. In fact, we’ve done trips to Outback NSW, Northern NSW, Barrington Tops, Forster, The Wattagans, Queensland, Victoria, Lithgow, Newnes, and many many more places, often also towing the Tvan.

I’d say 15,000km would have to be off sealed roads, with about 20,000km highway driving and about 10,000km city style driving. To provide the right context, the Everest from factory weighs 2400KG, but on most trips would have been loaded up, meaning most of the km driven the vehicle (with me in it) would weigh between 2700KG and 3000KG. During this time, I have run tyre pressures at 36PSI cold. I found these increase to about 40PSI when they warm up, and the rear increase slightly more when towing.

I need to preface this by clarifying that my driving style is a considered one. What does this mean? It means I’m not a slow driver (I always drive as fast as I legally can), but I’m not a lead foot – I get a feel for the sweet spot for a car and its acceleration and deceleration and I don’t push the car unnecessarily. I don’t brake unnecessarily, I aim for a smooth driving experience, anticipating slowing down and speeding up. I plan and manage speed through corners, losing speed before a turn, but managing speed through corners (this often sees me move through a corner faster than most despite entering it slower). I’m sharing this to provide context for what comes next.

I thought I’d provide my view on the tyres and how they have worn, before I share the data from Toyo’s Quality Assurance team.

Overall

Overall, I have to say that I have been well impressed with the tyres. They have performed very well in pretty much all conditions, without a single puncture despite the off-roading. They have also worn very evenly, despite the fact that I have not rotated them as much as I should have. There is a little feathering on some of the tread, but it is minimal, and even more impressive when I admit that when I was on my first outback trip I didn’t even reduce pressures on the corrugations when I should have (about 2,000km on corrugated dirt roads). I suspect that the Tough Dog upper control arms we installed with our suspension lift have also contributed to the ability to keep the wheel alignment and therefore the even wear.

Out in the NSW Outback…

On-Road

I can’t fault the Toyo Open Country A/T II’s on-road. They are quiet performers, and do their thing very well. In the few times I’ve had to brake hard, they’ve been very compliant, and grip has been first rate. They also excel in the wet, providing a very very good experience all round. Toyo did recommend I run 40PSI cold for the tyres, but I did find that a little hard, so I’ve run them at 36PSI personally. A very good tyre on-road (and lets face it, most of us do 80%+ of our total km’s on-road).

Nothing but good things to say on-road…

Off-road

Despite their appearance not being quite as aggressive as some others in the market, I’ve found the Toyos very good off-road. Their grip has been good in most conditions. On Gravely roads they have felt quite planted, they have gripped well on rocky ledges, and even been pretty good on Sand (although the sidewalls don’t bag out as much as I thought they might when you reduce pressures). They definitely don’t perform as strongly in Mud, but they have still managed to grip well enough in muddy conditions for me to conquer local powerline tracks with slippery climbs as long as I have had some momentum going.

Extra momentum is needed in very slippery muddy or clay like conditions, but it didn’t stop us.

On the beach…

Fuel Economy

Putting the Toyo Open Country A/T II’s on the Everest also coincided with a change of wheels to Method Race Wheels Con 6 in black, and changing from a P55 to P35 off-set. This combination added about 6Kg per wheel to the vehicle, and also increased the contact patch as we moved from a 265 to a 285. We also increased the rolling diameter as a result, which again would have influenced changes in fuel economy.

Overall, this change alone resulted in the vehicle using about 1L/100km more than the factory wheel/tyre combination. I think that is pretty impressive given the increase in capability over the factory rubber.

Before and after adding Toyo Open Country A/T II’s and Method Race Wheels. It added serious capability and improved aesthetics too!

Toyo QA Results

Being a part of the Toyo Tires Australia QA program means that a team of tyre experts regularly reviews the tyres on the car, capturing feedback on where we have been and what driving we have been doing, as well as measuring and inspecting the tyres for the wear rate.

I recently had the wear measured, and the following are the results. These guys measure the tread depth in 4 places across each tyre.

If you are wondering, Toyo measure the tread depth across they tyre in multiple places as part of their QA program

Based on the current wear, Toyo estimate that the tyres will wear out at over 160,000km. This is one of the highest estimates that Toyo have ever recorded on a set of their Open Country A/T II tyres. They put it down to a combination of the highway kms, but also my driving style being very kind to the tyres. I must stress that the biggest factor affecting tyre wear, regardless of brand is driving style. Most wear happens when accelerating, decelerating, and cornering, and we all drive differently. Regardless of when the tyres do actually wear out, they are not even close to half worn at 45,000km which suggests they will do 80,000km + pretty easily and that is a great result for a tyre that performs so well in almost all conditions.

Verdict

I really can’t fault these tyres in any way. In my experience, they have performed to an excellent standard in pretty much all conditions except really wet muddy ones, and even then, I was still able to get through using a little more momentum.

I would go as far as to say they are the perfect tyre for the tourer because they offer rock solid on-road performance with very strong off-road performance. This means you benefit from great performance when on-road, without compromising off-road performance too much, and at least in my experience they wear very very well.

If mud is your off-road happy place, perhaps consider the Rugged Terrain or Mud Terrain variant, but if it isn’t your thing, then I wouldn’t waste your time on an M/T because the sacrifice in on-road and general performance and additional noise doesn’t justify the additional capability.

I hop you’ve found this useful. If you have any questions, please comment below and I’ll respond as best I can!

Aiden