Nissan Patrol 4x4 (Africa)

I suppose you could compare the tread pattern concept to the Cooper ST Maxx (some sort of hybrid/cross over between an AT and MT).

Ok so it has now been around 7,500km since I fitted the General Grabber 33x12.5x15 Muds on my Patrol and here is how I feel so far

Road Noise: 3/5
Road noise is very acceptable and is noticeably quieter than the BF KO2's I had on. It is a MT tyre so I guess it will never be as quiet as an AT, but it is really not loud and people don't turn around to see what is coming up the street anymore.....so I think it's above average in the class.

Ride Comfort: 4/5
The ride is softer than before and even with the beefy tyres I dont seem to have problems with steering wheel shakes or death wobbles. They do seem to add quite a bit of wheel weights when balancing, but it really feels good on the road. I was expecting a bit more tyre roll than what I had with the 305/70/16 tyres, but I cannot feel any difference. I run them on 2.2 bar unloaded and think that's the ideal pressure as my daily drive.

Tyre wear: ?/5
Over the 7,500km I have covered so far you cannot see any tyre wear so I think it might be a bit premature to really say. It did show a bit of heal/toe wear on the rear tyres which is normal for MT tyres, but it was so little that you could only pick it up with chalk while it rotates on the wheel alignment machine

Rocky terrain performance: 5/5
I was very impressed with the performance the tyres gave on an outing we did at Hennops 4x4 trail. With the KO2's I had on I had to engage diff lock on the rocky climb section as well as the very steep long hill obsticle. This time round I did the whole trail without diff lock as the Grabbers really have impressive grip. I think the biggest factor is the wider tyre (about 25mm) as well as the lower pressure I can run them at which creates an enormous footprint. I was very impressed to say the least, and could not find any fault.
Even when looking at the damage the rock does to the tyre, its minimal and very acceptable to me.

Sand performance: 5/5
Well here is where there are allot of opinions on MT vs AT and 3 ply sidewalls vs 2 ply, but again I was impressed. I somehow knew that they were going to be good in the sand, but they did better than what I expected. I could run the tyre pressure as low as 0.4 bar without de-beading them.
There was one dune which I could drive out where not one 4.8 could, and I think the tyres played the biggest role here. Dropping the preassure from 0.6 to 0.4 made all the difference.

Here is a video of attempt 1 starting in 3L and downshifting to 2L just before you reach the top.


Here is the 4th attempt doing exactly what I did in the first video but now running 0.4 bar on the tyres.


Overall I am really glad I bought these tyres. I think they are worth more than what I paid for them and you really get great tyres for the price.
Hopefully they will continue to impress me, but it is still early stages so lets see.

I will post my findings when they have done about 15,000km to 20,000km to get a better idea of how it wears.

Thanks for the write-up!!

Have you been able to test them on wet tar? I know this is not what they are designed for but is also the downfall of a lot of MT's as they become downright dangerous in this situation.

David, yes I know exactly what you are talking about.
I can only compare them to the KO2's I had on and they have more grip than those. I have had a couple of wet days where I actually did some brake tests and tried getting the rear out aroubd a corner, but never felt unsafe or dangerous.

It is still early days for the tyres and I thing as they wear a bit more I might see them fade in performance, but at this stage they are ok in the wet.

The new General grabbers are now available in SA
Check the load rating

Foto is te groot... Sukkel om oop te maak.

Been waiting for the Grabber X3's to hit.
What site did you find those on ?

X3's is available from i.e. Supa Quick - 3.9k each.

And you can buy bf for 3.5k??? They need to look at the price or guys are not gonna buy....