Today is day number 178 of extreme tyre abuse for us and I thought it would be a good time to discuss our findings:
My name is Dawie du Plessis and my wife, Catt and I left Pretoria on 1 April 2010 to embark on an epic journey through the continent of Africa, traversing 13 African countries.
Our journey so far has taken us: through the extreme desert heat of the Ais-Ais/Richtersvelt Transfrontier Park with its rubber eating rocks, the Cedarberg and desolate Tankwa Karoo in the Western Cape and through no less than 13 off piste mountain passes in the Eastern Cape.
In Zimbabwe we encountered a non existence of roads in Gonarezhou Transfrontier National Park, extreme potholes of the road that used to be in Hwange National Park and the tyre destroying, vehicle wrecking road from Victoria Falls to Mana Pools along the southern edge of Lake Kariba.
Zambia offered us mud and dust and the biggest pot holes I have ever seen. Kafue National Park was still mostly under water and the eastern road from North to South Luangwa National Parks had more dry and wet river crossings than we care to remember. South Luangwa’s flood planes covered us in clay soil and kidney destroying corrugations lead us from Mfuwe to Chipata.
Malawi gave us a breather with mostly good tar surfaces, but unexpected cloud bursts turned them into torrents and rivers. Nyika Plateau National Park covered us in fine powdery dust after we negotiated deep ruts in between them and the mountain tracks to and from Livingstonia was littered with razor sharp volcanic rocks.
Tanzania became synonymous with road works, bad gravel, pot holes and corrugations. The main routes, in between the pot holes and road works were fantastic and easy. The dirt roads in the Usambara Mountains were wet and slippery and took some concentration to navigate. Tarangire National Park offered river crossings and sand with more powder dust from Lake Manyara, Low range driving on slippery rocks in and out of Ngorogoro Crater and the worst corrugations known to the planet through the Serengeti National Park.
Rwanda had fantastic roads and little traffic outside of the cities and Uganda, on our route, did not seem to have any tar at all. The high altitude mountain tracks from Kisoro to Lake Bunyonyi gave us rain, rain and rain with slippery muddy slopes. The off road tracks through Queen Elisabeth National Park was covered in ancient lava flow and moss and the footpath we chose to drive to Nkuruba Crater Lake was covered in banana leaves, grass and clay. Murchison Falls National Parks gave us buckets full of rain and a new found respect for the word “Mud” while watching Buffalo wallow in the middle of the road we attempted to drive. The forest road we drove to Kampala felt like driving on ice and that all brought us back to suspension sheering, rubber eating pot holes which seemed to hide in and around the city.
Today we have reached Jinja, the source of the Nile at the edge of Lake Victoria. We have covered some 48 000km in the last 178 days of which no less than 8 000km was completely off road, 21 000km was dirt road and the remaining 19 000km was a mixture of pot holes, road works and good tar surfaces. We would like to offer the following as our opinion on our chosen rubber:
Firstly it has to be said that because these babies have a profile of 75, they are actually slightly bigger than the standard road tyres we were used to. This had the added interesting effect that our speedometer became 100% accurate in terms of speed and distance which mistakenly made us think that our fuel consumption decreased a little. The truth however was that our instruments became accurate and accordingly, the chunky rubber studs of the aggressive profile had no influence on our fuel consumption at all.
Secondly it has to be said that our poor 1996 Land Cruiser 80 series has been loaded very close to capacity for every kilometre we drove. As one can imagine, this does not help tyre wear that much at all, especially on rough surfaces.
Tar Roads
I have to honestly admit that I was expecting a dramatic increase in road noise compared to the road tyres we were used to. I also expected a certain lack in stability or road holding since my analytical mind saw less actual rubber touching the tar. I could not have been more wrong. The noise levels were not noticeably more at all. At our normal cruising speed we still managed a comfortable conversation at reasonable decibels and the modest stereo in the car still provided sound that was more than loud enough for any occasion. Road holding, despite the heavy load never made me feel unsafe and to date I have not locked up the wheels by sharp breaking despite the numerous attempts by goats, chickens, cattle, donkeys, wildlife and the abundance of bicycles and children I successfully avoided.
My experience on wet tar has been similar. It goes without saying that because of the narrow roads, the volume of pedestrians and once again the load of the vehicle, I adjusted by driving according to weather conditions. In sharp turns where roads banked the wrong way I was understandably nervous, but once again, the tyres held fast and I can not report any loss of grip in any wet tar situation.
After some 24 000km we rotated all the wheels and ended with the best two tyres on the rear, the second best on the front and the two who showed the most wear on the wheel carrier. What was most noticeable was that the two tyres that used to be on the rear took the most hammering (Not entirely surprising) There was no “chipping” or missing pieces of rubber. This did surprise me simply because of my experience with other brands of tyres. The wear was quite severe, but the damage was limited to artificial cracks and cuts on the studs as well as in between. The sidewalls showed a few minor bruises, but no cuts. The worst two tyres lost about half of their tread.
Dirt Roads
You do not buy a Toyota Land Cruiser and have off road tyres to drive on tar roads! Through our travels we always opted for the road less travelled and dirt roads became the order of the day. Not surprisingly, the tyres loved the looser surface of the dirt and gravel and made the car feel solid and under control at all times.
I obviously adapted my driving style according to the quality of the roads as well. The wide, open and surfaced “Namibia like” roads we took in our stride and drove around 80km/h on. The potholed horror roads along the bottom of Kariba we drove slowly and carefully, still not noticing a hole or two and impacting them pretty hard. In fact, at one stage in Zambia we hit a hole so hard that the rim started leaking, but the tyre held fast and is still in use.
Gravel unfortunately provided us with our one and only puncture of the trip to date. (Touch Wood) this was in the Tankwa Karoo with its razor sharp rocks. If I am honest I also have to say that I was driving too fast and bottomed the suspension our through a ditch and immediately knew I had punctured a tyre. We managed to have it fixed with a gator and re-instated it as a back tyre in Malawi. I have an unscientific theory that the gaps between the lugs allowed the sharp rock access to the more vulnerable part of the tyre and that perhaps an All Terrain Tyre would have survived the same conditions.
In Tanzania’s Usambara Mountains we encountered our first wet gravel roads of the trip. It was raining at the time and I was simply too lazy to get out to lock the hubs and use 4 wheel drive. The road was very convex and very slippery with dense indigenous forest on either side. I am fairly convinced that our tyre choice saved our bacon and kept the car on the road. We reached Uganda in the rainy season and averaged about 250km of dirt roads on every driving day. These roads, although surfaced, formed a muddy crust that responded like ice when the wheels broke through it. In most places, without 4 wheel drive, you could point the front wheels in any direction you wanted without any effect on your driving direction. The roads were incredibly convex and it took much concentration to keep to the middle and not slip off the side. There I was not too lazy to engage 4 wheel drive and that made a massive difference. I drove a section of this road in the dry at 80km/h without issue and the next day, in the wet, I did not dare drive faster than 40km/h in 4 wheel drive. The tyres, caked in compacted mud from the trail we had come from, shredded the chucks of red clay while flexing through the rotations and bit into the slippery surface incredibly well. I saw many places on this section where previous vehicles had literary slipped off the road, but we managed the 150km without incident. I had a new found respect for our tyres!
Corrugations
Oh Man! Of all the possible road surfaces Africa could offer, I hate this one the most! The most frustrating thing is when you are on a wide open road with no traffic and the corrugations are so bad that you can’t drive fasted than crawling pace. I can not think of any tyre in the world that could give you better stability or road holding on the roads we had driven. In the Serengeti it was so bad than 20km/h had us bouncing and vibrating off the side of the road. 10km/h had us, and the car feel like driving up and down every single bump. My one brave attempt at driving faster resulted in such a violent vibration that I could not keep hold of the steering wheel. I reluctantly gave up on our eta and spent the rest of the journey driving through the bush on the side of the road.
Corrugations did however cause a huge increase in tyre wear as the rough and uneven surfaces bashed into the rubber on every tiny bump and the wheels hit the sharp rocks and gravel with much more force than on a smooth surface. From the Richtersveld to the Serengeti and every long stretch of corrugation in between we did find noticeable signs of wear on the tyres. I am fairly convinced that that is where the cuts and bruises came from. However, there was not a single puncture apart from the Karoo.
Sand
Prior to this adventure I had gained an almost unhealthy amount of experience in driving in sand. This was not limited to any specific kinds of sand and included many river beds, sand dunes, extreme powder dust and fine Kalahari Desert sand. I once spent three days in Low Range 4x4 dragging the diff of our trusty Hilux though Kalahari sand in Botswana but never on tyres offering the almost super natural ease of these Mud Terrains. Before our trip I researched and chatted to people and some had a theory of the aggressive tread digging into the sand so much that it would actually make the vehicle “sink” to its chassis. I found the complete opposite.
I started getting so cocky on these tyres that river bed crossings and sandy tracks stopped warranting the simple task of engaging 4 wheel drive. From driving in river beds in the Northern Cape to the Baviaans Kloof, Mana Pools in Zimbabwe and the dry patches in the Luangwa Valley in Zambia and beyond I did not once deflate the tyres and only used 4 wheel drive a hand full of times as a precaution. More importantly, despite being loaded so heavily and being so lazy, I did not get stuck once either. In my experience, these tyres floated so well on the sand that their performance with normal pressure could be compared to the performance of severely deflated all terrain tyres.
Mud
Mud is the surface that scares me most and I have the least amount of experience with. Although I have driven through every part of Botswana in every season previously, I always successfully avoided the black cotton soils and getting stuck there. On this adventure we found a few places where it was simply not possible to avoid the bad stuff!
My theory on mud had always been to be over prepared and keep momentum. I always engaged 4 wheel drive and often used Low Range. In the Luangwa Valley in Zambia, momentum was rarely possible as your approach and departure angles were so steep and insane that you had to come very close to a complete stop in the middle of the obstacle. On more than one occasion I did in fact scrape my tow bar on the ground as we left the ditches, but somehow, miraculously, we always managed to drive straight through.
In Murchison Falls National Park in Uganda we started our day at the bottom of a mountain after the single biggest rain storm I had ever seen. The muddy track still had torrents running down them and made small rapids over the previous ruts caused by other vehicles. The mighty Mud Terrain Tyres made this easy and there, close to Murchison Falls and after almost 48 000km of use I gained an absolute new respect for them. I honestly do not believe that any lesser tyre would have seen us to the top of that muddy hell. We were, at times, slipping and sliding with wheel spinning on both front and rear axles, but managed every incline and bump and muddy hole on the first attempt.
Rock
In Namibia’s Kaokoland I witnessed many a tyre come to its fatal end on rocks and boulders. Our current adventure did not take us that way, but still offered a fair share of boulder climbing and rock driving in different parts of the continent. The aggressive tread of the Mud Terrains meant that there was also ample grip regardless of the size or shape of the rock in our path. The angle of the vehicle did not seem to matter that much either. I once saw a few skilled drivers do some rock crawling in specialized vehicles and was astonished by the abuse the tyres had to sustain. For us, with a 4 tonne Land Cruiser this abuse was significantly more.
On the shores of Lake Tanganyika we drove onto a pebbly beach to camp for the night. Another driver asked me how I managed to get my vehicle where it was parked and when I replied that I simply drove it there, he could hardly believe me. The round, smooth, tennis ball sized pebbles, according to him, offered so little grip that he could not make it more than one car’s length onto the beach. Using 4 wheel drive, I managed a U-turn and unceremoniously drove off the next day.
I believe our most treacherous rocky driving was in Uganda’s Queen Elisabeth National park on a route taking us past numerous volcanic crater lakes. We literally spent a day driving on ancient lava flow with knife blade rocks facing up at us and sharp corners and stones on every meter of our journey. We took it slow; I saw the rubber mould around the sharpest parts and the tyres took another hard day’s abuse in their stride. We did not suffer a single puncture or issue.
Conclusion
From the southern tip of Africa to the equator and from the deepest valleys to the highest peaks, through rain and shine, mud, tar and rocks, our Bridgestone D673 Mud Terrain Tyres did not fail us once. There is no situation I can think of where I regretted our choice of rubber for a second and it is with confidence and conviction that I can honestly recommend these tyres to anyone who needs great looking, quality tyres for all occasions.
