I've run them. Would NEVER do so again.
They have incredibly weak sidewalls. In AZ's sharp rocks, I managed to run 16 years on my last Tacoma without a flat with different tires. About the third extended trip out I lost 3 Duracrap tires to sidewall punctures and gashes during the course of a one week elk hunt. Lost one to a pencil diameter wet stick through the sidewall. Bought them when they were still a new tire and didn't have a lot of information out there about them. My bad. They seemed like a perfect compromise between an AT and an MT.
Those were the "c" rated tires. Sidewalls were incredibly thin and flimsy. As thin or weak as the Bridgestone "HT's (Highway Terrain) I took off the truck which were factory tires. Not sure how much (or if) the "e" rated tires would fare. But if you google "duratrac weak sidewalls" you'll have all the info you need.
They also got quite noisy as time wore on, showed excessive chunking and cupping.
I've run BFG AT's (long time ago), Goodyear Duratracs, and more recently Goodyear MTR's, Bridgestone MT's (previous go to tire), Firestone MT's (bought reluctantly after Bridgestone discontinued the MT in my size), and am currently running Cooper Discoverer ST Maxx.
Of all of them, the ST Maxx has turned out to be my favorite tire, and I see no reason to go any other way from here on out. If they keep making them, I'll keep buying them. Like the Duratrac, good compromise between an AT and an MT, siped, and ready to accept studs if you want them. Of all of them, I believe them to be the quietest aggressive tire I've run (with the exception of the BFG AT's when they were newer). They do well in rain, highway, dirt and mud....but no experience in snow or ice yet. And they take a beating in the rocks well.
A bit stiffer since they're only available in "e" rated, but don't even notice anymore.
If you're not going in the dirt, I think the duratracs are a good road and snow tire if you rotate frequently. But they will get noisier even with that.
If you get off road, and in places where you're hard to get to or where tire failures mean being stranded or a long walk out, I would pass.
not trying to be rude...but everything you wrote was a waste of time....you are comparing a c rated tire you had to the new e rated tire you have now......of course the sidewalls are stiffer on an e..
bob
Well thanks, but let me clarify for you. The POS Bridgestone HT's C rated tires that came on the truck did several thousand miles on those with zero like issues to the Duracrap. Have also run E rated Firestone AT's as an emergency replacement which were just as poor as the duratrac C's for sidewall thickness, but presented no like issues with punctures. So all E rated tires are not the same. Nor are all C's. I've run C rated BFG AT's that took a pounding and had no related issues.
The load rating does not determine how well a tire will handle sidewall damage and punctures. Plies construction, rubber compound, thickness, etc., does.
And any tire not on a Prius that takes a failure to the sidewall from a wet pencil sized stick does not belong on anything that sees more than pavement.
I thought maybe I got incredibly unlucky (but the picture of that soggy stick through the sidewall of a fairly new tire never left me), and when I got back I did the research. It became quite clear, quite quickly, it was a tire model issue, not a tire load rating issue.
And as far as C vs. E is concerned, the debate about that can (and does rage on) forever. Load rating has little to nothing to do with puncture resistance. Sidewall construction methods and materials do. Sidewall stiffness or added plies does not automatically equate to puncture resistance, tear or cut resistance. There are plenty of guys out there having the same issues with E rated Duratracs.
Search the off road forums. Plenty of failures. More than any other common use off road tire than I've heard of.
This is a blast on the Duratracs, not Goodyear. Goodyear makes some great, tough tires (MTR's for example), but there are a lot of better options out there than the duratrac for a similar type and application tire.
At the end of the day I don't need to be a tire engineer or get into debates about load ratings, numbers of plies, etc., to know they're crap, they wore horribly, and were noisy as hell after a few miles (noisier than the Bridgestone MT's I took off). Nobody to blame but myself for buying a new unproven tire, but learned a lesson I did. They're usually "just fine" until they suddenly aren't. Just passing it along, along with the advise to search out on the internet (specifically) Duratrac Sidewalls. Buyer beware, but if you run them, and take the truck off pavement, you can't say you weren't warned. I'm just one of many with similar experiences, load rating be damned. Plenty of solid C rated off road tires out there. The DC isn't one of them. Plenty of weak assed E rated tires out there as well. The DC seems to be (as gathered from off road forums) is one of those... I checked, because I considered going the E rated duratrac after my previous C rated duratrac failures. The experiences of a good number of those who ran the E rated DC tires and also had the same type of failures showed it was NOT a load rating issue.
