From the outside, watching an off-road vehicle climb seems very surreal.
"A vehicle should not be able to do that, right?" You find yourself wondering.
The thrills of off-roading happen at a crawl — a terrifying, white-knuckles gripping the steering wheel, crawl. Maybe nowhere else in mobility does a driver become so knowledgeable of his tires than on the trail.
When you're in the driver's seat, and the horizon disappears under the front of the car as you roll over the top of a hill, you can feel each little twitch or slip of the tires.
If you really want to know whether you've found a good set of off-road tires, note how your hands feel after you get off the trail. It's easy to hang on too tight when you're really rock-crawling, where your tires are way aired down so the aggressive sidewalls are put to use grabbing rock.
The stressful situations of crawling where no vehicle should be able to crawl — the white-knuckles on the steering wheel part — actually has a name: driver fatigue.
It's safe to say, if you exit your Jeep after a long day on the trail, and your hands feel great, then you've probably found a fantastic tire.
- The story was first featured in the Sept. 9, 2024, edition of Tire Business.
Then there is another side of the off-road tire coin, a group that avid rock crawlers would refer to as "mall crawlers," or vehicles that aren't really going off road, but look really cool in the mall parking lot. (And let's be honest, even real off-roaders are only off road a small amount of the time.)
Of course, we always view things through the lens of the tire shop owners, so in these terms rock crawlers and mall crawlers are equally as welcome.
Light truck tires need to keep drivers safe. They must perform — you can't get stuck, obviously. And they should look really cool.
Consumers, the data show, are spending more each year on their vehicles.
According to recent Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) data, the most aftermarket money is spent on pickup trucks, followed by SUVs (which include Jeeps) and CUVs. Tires are the top expenditures for pickup owners and second for SUV owners.
An interesting fact to note is that the age group that spends the most in the aftermarket is 16 to 29. So, if you think the popularity of light truck tires will dim, think again.
Did a "rugged terrain" tire even exist five years ago? In a short amount of time, the market for all-terrain and then the even more aggressive rugged terrain has boomed.
We encourage all tire dealers to do yourselves a favor and get out on the trail at least once to test out your steering wheel grip.
Consumer appetite for these products is going to continue to grow, so buckle your seatbelts.
