After seeing our Bridgestone Dueller AT 697 tyres getting low on tread on our Dmax, and the tyres on our Reconn R2 being almost dead (and then having one fail on the way to Shark Bay), I’d been looking around for a new set of tyres, and ended up with 6 brand new Toyo Open Country RT tyres.
I’ve run the Toyo Open Country AT2 tyres on our Dmax before, and despite them wearing faster than expected I was quite happy with the performance. However, I really wanted something with a bit more traction when towing our Reconn R2 off road, and you can only go so far with the all terrain tread.
Our Dmax isn’t built to be a serious competition style 4WD. It’s meant for touring, and for dragging our Hybrid Camping Trailer around, and whilst this is relatively light in the scheme of things there are times when its wet or slippery that it struggles. We recently fitted a rear diff lock which has been hugely helpful, but I hate spinning the wheels too much for fear of breaking a CV, so any additional traction via better tyres is hugely welcome.
About the Toyo RT tyres
A couple of years ago Toyo came out with the RT, which stands for Rugged Terrain. These are almost a hybrid between a mud terrain and an all terrain, and like the Toyo MT, receive hugely positive reviews. They aren’t quite as heavy as a mud terrain, or as aggressive, but they are quite a bit chunkier than a normal all terrain and I really liked the idea of them.
If you haven’t ever looked into tyre weight before, we did a bit of digging to see how much they vary, and the results are very interesting.
Buying the Toyo Open Country RT Tyres
Regardless of this, I decided to get two new Toyo RT’s for our camper trailer (they only had two left, and they are super hard to get at the moment), and I had them fitted by Tyrepower in Cannington (who were the cheapest I could find, and also did our previous Toyo Open Country AT2’s for the best price), and then went back a few months later and got 4 more for our Isuzu Dmax.
Now, like all of our reviews, you get to know where the product came from, and in this case (and in most cases) we paid full retail price, with no sponsorship, gifting or any sketchy marketing going on. If the tyres turned out to be rubbish, I’d happily (well, I wouldn’t be happy) say that.
Toyo Open Country RT review
As an estimate, our camper trailer has probably done about 30,000km on these tyres now, and our vehicle has done around 25,000km. It’s worth noting that we only have 4 of these tyres for the Dmax, and asides from rotating them there is no spare in the mix, so they will wear faster.
The Dmax had the Toyo Open Country RT’s fitted at 81474km on the odometer, and its climbing at a rapid rate as we continue our Lap of Australia.
In short, I’m absolutely wrapped with these tyres. We have punished them incredibly hard off road on every possible terrain, ranging from sharp rocky country in Arkaroola to the beaches in South Australia, mud in the Flinders Ranges and inevitably, lots of bitumen driving.
I love the fact that they are stronger than a normal all terrain, and we’ve had zero punctures or issues with them. They deflate well when on the beach, and I’ve had them down at 10 PSI on our Dmax, which is starting to push the friendship.
The extra traction though, has made me so much more confident off road. In combination with a rear Eaton Locker, the Dmax is substantially more capable than it was before, which is hugely helpful when you are towing a 2.3 tonne hybrid camper behind.
On the Dmax they have worn a fair bit, but given the fact that we’ve done a huge amount of off-road work, and that there’s only 4 of them I won’t complain. At a guess, I’d say the rears are down to about 50% (with less wear on the outer edges) and the fronts are at around 65%.
I love the fact that they are chunky, but not full on mud terrain tread, which makes them lighter, quieter, but still has plenty of traction.
On our hybrid, we had an issue with scalloping tyres, and having the tread blocks closer together than a mud terrain (why you’d run these on a trailer is beyond me, but everyone does), and the Toyo RT’s have worn substantially better on the trailer as well.
Compared to the Dmax, on the camper there is much less wear. That said, for some reason (despite wheel alignments and balances) the camper still continues to wear the inner 50mm of both tyres much more than the rest, which resulted in me getting a tyre shop to flip the tyres on the wheels.
These tyres are performing so much better on our hybrid camper than the Achilles XMT mud terrains that we were previously running, and I suspect this is a combination of a less aggressive tread (mud terrains on a trailer are often a bad idea), and the fact that the Toyo’s are a better quality
I don’t really want a mud terrain tyre
As much as a mud terrain tyre works well in mud, they are worse in basically every other scenario except for puncture resistance. I don’t want the noise, the extra weight, extra fuel consumption and the wear issues you get from a really aggressive tyre, and the Toyo RT’s seem to hit that balance exactly right, and I’m seriously happy with them.
Would we get them again?
Yep, I think so. There’s a couple of other similar tyres on the market, but Toyo make good tyres, and I’m really pleased with the Toyo Open Country RT’s for what we do. Of course, you might use your 4WD differently, and they might not suit, but we’re really happy with them, and its a big credit to Toyo for coming up with a great hybrid design.
With our lap of Australia clocking the kilometres up, I can see we’ll need new tyres in the not too distant future. I’m toying with the idea of getting the camper Toyo RT’s put onto the Dmax, to try and get all 6 tyres to wear out at roughly the same time, and get a better deal on a new set, but we’ll see.
I’ll certainly shop around and see what other options I can find, but so far, I’m super happy with the Toyo RT’s in terms of performance, puncture resistance and traction, and slightly less impressed with wear (but it might be pretty normal given what they’ve done!).
Do you run Toyo Open Country RT tyres? Are you happy with them?
