When a tyre company launches a new product, it’s pretty standard for them to host an official launch. Usually, this is nothing more than a highly-controlled carnival ride, where the tyre shows some of its strengths, and you never really have an opportunity to expose its weaknesses. BFGoodrich, on the other hand, dismissed the usual dog-and-pony show for the launch of their latest, fourth-generation All-Terrain KO2. They sent me to Mexico’s Baja Peninsula and let me loose with the new KO2 and a Baja Challenge race buggy – clearly, they have a lot of faith in me, err…the tyre.
With little supervision, too much horsepower, huge amounts of suspension travel, and the famously rugged Baja 500 race course as our playground, BFGoodrich set their tyres up for failure. But after two days of what could only be described as torture, I couldn’t make them fail. I slid them around rocky, high-speed turns at ludicrous speeds. I hit the sidewalls repeatedly on jagged rocks, and drove hundreds of kilometres of rough tracks that would have made lesser tyres fail. Even getting them airborne (repeatedly) and landing on rugged terrain wouldn’t kill them. Ladies and gentleman, I can unequivocally say that I couldn’t kill the KO2. It beat me.
At first glance, you’ll notice that the tyre appears quite a bit more aggressive than its comparatively understated predecessor. However, while the shoulder and the tread pattern are completely new, they still look like the BFGoodrich All-Terrain we’re all familiar with. The new sidewall keeps the signature three ply design, while at the same time upping the strength by as much as 20 per cent. A lot of this sidewall strength comes from BFG’s use of computer-predicted object path design which pushes puncture-causing objects away from the sensitive parts of the tyre. Essentially, some incredibly smart people figured out how sharp objects make sidewalls fail, and then designed the tyre’s shoulder around deflecting those objects away from the tyre.
One of the most significant changes to the new KO2 is that BFGoodrich was able to increase tread wear on gravel by a staggering 50 per cent through the use of a specially formulated rubber compound that resists chipping. If you’re spending a lot of time on Unsealed 4×4 tracks, this will translate into significant value over the life of the tyre. The tread pattern of the KO2 also incorporates stone ejectors, decreasing tyre wear, and saving you the annoyance of having a rock stuck in your tyre once you hit the bitumen.
The proper measure of a good all-terrain tyre is that, as the name suggests, it is appropriate for all terrains – which means the bitumen, too. In the limited amount of on-road driving I was able to do with the KO2, I could say that it’s just as good as anything on the market. Without further testing, I wouldn’t call it the best, as there was nothing to baseline it from. I will say that it was fairly quiet for how big of a performer this tyre is.
At the end of the day, it all comes down to what you’d put on your own vehicle, and personally for me, that’s always been BFGoodrich tyres. I liked the All-Terrain KO, and I like the KO2 even more. After years of being beaten down the ladder of All-Terrain tyres by their competitor’s innovations, BFGoodrich has finally climbed back towards the top. We’ll be getting a set to road test further and we’ll let you know our final thoughts in a subsequent Gear Guru feature. Prices are yet to be announced in Australia.
What Matt Liked:
Aggressive, modern design
Surprising mud traction
for an all-terrain tyre
Incredibly durable
What Matt Didn’t Like:
Bulky tire shoulder might
be ‘too much’ for some.