Ok, now that I have your attention...

I posted this on D-web, so if you bounce back and forth...tough (get a life!). Uhmmmm.......I think I just slammed myself. Doh!

I'm shooting for some biggies in Moab last week and have an interesting conversation with the National Sales Manager of BFG. He's looking at the CrewCab and asking about my Dunlop Mud Rovers. We start talking about Dunlop and whatever else, and I tell him I have a small fleet of RRC's and they all have Dunlop Radial Rover R/T's on them.

He asks why I'm not running BFG AT's (I tell them I had a set and hated them, he appreciated the candor). I said I liked the center ridge for highway, with the slightly aggresive edge lugs for the nastier stuff. He had no answer, but raised his eyebrows and gave me that 'interesting...' look on his face.

I asked him why it's so hard to find Trac-Edges here in the states. He said "There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to find them in the US". I laughed, and several of the other LR people there did also. When we told him of the relative unavailability of the Trac-Edge in the US he didn't believe us. It took several minutes of conversation to convince him that they are indeed hard to find.

We suggested he look into it....

I remember several years ago that there were several Trac-Edge threads on varying lists and BBS's and the concensus was that they weren't worth the bother since the Dunlop Radial Rover R/T was so readily available.

A friend in Portland was running a set so I tried a set on my own truck and have been running them on my RR's ever since (about 4 years now).

This isn't so much a BFG vs. Dunlop thread (so don't go there please, if you come back with 'I chose Dunlop because BFG sucks' or vice-versa w/out any data or reference points you're a loser), but rather a 'if you could get the Trac-Edges easier would you have considered them over the R/T's' (Ok, so that begs the question of which is better, so what.)

Can someone please diagram that last sentence?

Just from a marketing standpoint I found it very interesting that the people I would have thought would know about distribution within their own company end up not knowing nearly as much as they thought (typical???).

Like I said, this isn't supposed to be a dueling-banjos type of thread, just kind of opening it up for discussion and input.

It doesn't surprise me that he didn't know they were hard to find, that's probably more on the operational side of things. I've always heard good things about the Trac-Edges, especially from Euro Cruiserheads and Rover fanatics, and all the LR magazines carry ads for them. My only experience is from a pair that came STOCK on a military trailer a buddy of mine scored, a late model 3/4 ton designed to be towed by Humvees, never used. He loved the tires, said he would run them on his Cruiser if he could find them.

Question for you, what sizes are the Trac-edges available in? Can you get, say, a 35" Trac-Edge or its equivalent? The ones on the trailer looked to be at least 33's, but I confess I never looked that closely.

Hey Cruiserhead,

Thanks for the response. Apparently these damn Trac-Edges (which are indeed the rage in Europe) are so rare here that no one even knows what the G I'm talking about.

You can bet I'll be on the phone to my guy at BFG next week to see what I can dig up.

We get the trac edges and dunlops here in Aus.
Tracs are only available here in 7.50R16 or 205R16 which is pretty lame.
Most of the Rover guys I know who have run Tracs (series and defenders mostly) have liked them but most now use 235/85/16 Cooper ST's and think they are a better tyre for all around conditions here.
Dunlops are relatively scarce so I couldn't comment on them.

Cheers
Daryl

i used to have 7.50x16 track edges on my old 110 here in the UK, but the "word on the street" is that BFG don't make the track edge any more.

there are as rare as rocking horse sh!t here, really hard to get hold of now.

What's a Track Edge???

:confused:


How was Moab?
Did the ARB boys get a hold of you befoer you waited in Pritchett?
I hope they did..
Sorry..

well I searched for a set once, and i couldn't get them, even through the biggest wholesale joint in the rockies.

j

When i bought my Disco, it had 235/75 Trac Edges. I blew the sidewall on two and searched for weeks to try to find extra tires with no luck. Needless to say i bought a set of Trxus tires and never looked back. Although i do have a brand spankin' new BFG Trac Edge mounted as a spare.

Brad

I ran 235/85 R16 Trac Edges on my Disco for 2 years and THEY WERE GREAT. As far as I know, that is the largest size they were offered in.

They were the ultimate 2-in-1 tire, with the close center tread, and the huge side lugs...However, that size is relatively small for me nowadays, and I'm benchmarking on the 36"SX.

At one point in 2000, I had blown the sidewall of my front passenger-side TSL Radial, and replaced it with my TE spare...during a climb out of a dirt track, the TE was doing ALL the work, while the TSL was spinning...no side slope, no difference in terrain and so forth!

I like BFG MTs, run them on the highway and off. Last set wore very well.

Originally posted by johnnyk
I like BFG MTs, run them on the highway and off. Last set wore very well.

Hey johnnyk, are those the old pattern BFG MT or the new MT KM ?

I was never to keen on the original MT's but have been told the new KM pattern is better.

I need a set of mud terrain type 255/85-16 and the only place I can find that size is BFG MT or Dunlop Radial Rover MT.

Damn - I wish that size was available in GY MT/R - I asked the GY guy at SEMA last year if they ever planned on that size and he laughed at me :flipoff2:

keith
:usa:

i have the tracedges on 235/85 and love them.

I haven't noticed any difficulty in getting them to hook up in similar terrain as BFG muds, trXus, or goodyear MT/R's which are all tires my wheelin' buddies run. in fact, on the many wet rock faces that we have on our trails up here i think the tight center lugs and all that siping is a benefit over traditional muds, which corroborates why most people sipe the snot out of their TSL's here in the PNW.

as compared to the dunlops it seems like the siping and center lug pattern on the TracEdge is tighter, and the outer mud-lugs are wider apart than the dunlop. air'd down in the snow they offer traction close to that of chains, and on wet pavement and freeway driving they stick like glue.

i do wish the sidewalls were beefier. i feel it's only a matter of time before i blow one and am running a mismatched set while i save up for 34's (i'll be saving for awhile, too!)

i had heard rumors that dunlop was to discontinue the R/T as well. that this guy was finding it hard to believe you couldn't find the TracEdges makes me wonder about a lot of things . . .

cheers,

isaac