Well, I spent some time talking to a guy who lives far out in the country like I used to, who spends more time off the pavement than I do because he lives on a gravel state road, and drives gravel roads around the farm that cross areas that must be graveled to make a solid road bed. He has always ran BFG All Terrains. The KO's and now he runs the KO2's. He was able to do a really good job of explaining to me the changes they made... why they were for the better for him, but probably not for me. He said really the only issue the KO ever had (for an AT tire) was that the rubber compound was hard and started to pit and chunk from running on a lot of gravel and rocks. He said they fixed that with the KO2 design and compound. But that was why people weren't getting the long mileage out of them running down the pavement.
I didn't really like the looks of the KO2 (I know I'm in the minority). I just didn't like the way they narrowed the tread and rolled the shoulders into that sidewall tread. And I really didn't want to get less mileage for the money either.
I ended up making a tire choice that I really did not expect to make at all. I ended up ordering Kelly Safari TSR's in 225/75R16 which was the stock size on my Jeep in the beginning anyways. These are an E rated tire, which I have always avoided trying. I may be sorry but I decided to give them a whirl because I liked the difference between the P rated and D rated KO's.
When it came down to me having to decide because I have to replace them before long, I decided I didn't want to go 235/70R16 really. I only had 3 choices off the shelf available in 245/70R16 which were BFG Rugged Terrain Kelly Edge AT or Dextero All Terrains which were all P rated. So I went to look at ordering instead while I still have time. All the choices that were not P rated were all 225/75R16 size. General Grabber ATX in XL, Falken Wildpeak AT3W in E rated, Goodyear Duratrac in E rated, Kelly Safari in E rated, or Kelly Edge AT in E rated.
I looked at the weight, tread depth and tread void of the BFG KO's coming off and compared the 5 choices to that. For what it is worth, the Kelly Edge AT I saw in person, and it looks better in person than in pictures. But was the tightest tread void. So I started there. For me, picking up pea gravel and other similar rocks is a complete nuisance. Stopping to pick them out solves the annoyance and related problems. But stopping costs me time and therefore costs me money. So I cut the General's and started comparing the remaining 4. On tread void I was pretty much at do I go with the Kelly Edge and maybe not have the issue, but will they just pack up with mud, snow? So I cut those (maybe unfairly). Next I cut the Duratracs which were very similar to the Kelly Safari but some of the center tread looked just perfect to collect these little ear drilling and tire drilling rocks.
So I ended up having to choose between the Falken Wildpeak AT3W's and the Kelly Safari's. I couldn't really judge rather the AT3W's would want to hold those little rocks or not. So I looked at the weights and tread depths and in the end I chose the more open tread void, deeper tread and lighter weight of the Kelly Safari's. So that is how I got here.
The tires arrived today. I had never seen Kelly Safari's in person. Now that I have seen them in person I am not sure I made the right decision. Don't get me wrong... they look absolutely awesome so on looks alone I don't know why I have never seen them. But in looking at them in person, dang they look more like a mud terrain in person. Way more aggressive tread than a BFG all terrain.
I am a little concerned about how these are going to sound and wear. I guess we will see. Size wise I believe these are going to mount and air up at exactly the same size as the KO's were new. Right at 30" tall. They are a little bit narrower than the old KO's though on contact patch but it's not way noticable to me. Won't really matter I don't think because I run the stock steels on my KJ which are not a wide wheel anyways. As far as weight these are a full 10 lbs each lighter than the KO's I am taking off.
Looking forward to getting them on and trying them out, but more so hoping I didn't make a bad choice. We shall see in time....
