Tire Buyer's Guide

Don't judge a tire by its type. Mud tires have been known to kick some serious butt on boulders, and rock rubber can surprise and do major shoveling through goo. Sure, an all-terrain could pull a fast one and be less "all" and do slightly better in one area, but its goal is acceptable performance across the board-including on the highway. Meanwhile, a more aggressive mud- or rock-oriented tire is probably not going to be the picture of peace, quiet, and on-road comfort. Therefore, decide what you really need (as in, how big is simply show-off big?) for your type of wheeling (especially on a truck that's also your daily driver). But no matter what the four-wheeling task at hand, tires are now built for pretty much all kinds of abuse, thanks to super-thick sidewalls and tread patterns that can claw at what you want and spit out what you don't. Here's a sampling of who has what.