|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 4,874
Campfire Tracker
|
OP
Campfire Tracker
Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 4,874 |
Thought I'd post this for anyone who hasn't heard of Joe Bacal. He's a professional test driver, former racer, and has consulted for various tire manufacturers. I believe most recently for Toyo, where he was involved with the new AT3.
Anyway, he doesn't have a dedicated website for his findings. And as a consultant, I don't know how much data he can share due to NDA, however he does post his opinions on his Youtube channel and some of those comments and advise have been copied and posted at various forums.
So, good info but you need to go looking for it.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 4,874
Campfire Tracker
|
|
OP
Campfire Tracker
Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 4,874 |
One interesting comment he made was that he preferred the Falken Wildpeak AT3 over the new Toyo AT3. He said it was one of his favorite tires and overall better than the K02 (now becoming an old design). However, he said the tread compound changed sometime last year and no longer likes the Falken as well. Now just a mediocre tire.
He's making these comments and suggestions based on actual performance measures, emergency lane changes, etc. Real testing, but also take it with a grain of salt because they can't test every use case so your needs may not be evaluated.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 4,874
Campfire Tracker
|
|
OP
Campfire Tracker
Joined: Mar 2011
Posts: 4,874 |
Looks like Joe Bacal goes by 'sand drifter' on ih8mud. https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/fa...pound-was-changed.1228525/#post-13794155Ok, let me clear this up for anyone that wants to know how I came to the conclusion on testing the Falken AT3W and the changes I found. First off, I am not employed by Toyo but a consultant and development test driver that was hired to help improve and develop the Toyo ATIII. I can tell you that if anyone asked me what the best ideal AT tire to purchase I would 100% say the Falken AT3W. Well I did ....I also have zero connections with Falken. Anyway, I will explain how we figured out we knew something was off. I was testing at a proving ground the new prototype Toyo AT3 against 7 competitors in the same class. I was shocked when the Falken was performing poorly knowing I tested the exact same tire in the exact same place on the exact same surfaces and speeds 1 year previosly. This instantly threw up a red flag for me. I could not understand what the heck was going on. I asked Toyo if I could test the same set from snow test from the previous year that was in storage (snow test tires get zero wear) to do a back to back 1 year apart same spec. I knew the older spec was extremely good and had to see if I could feel a difference with the spec I was currently testing at the track. Sure enough I was like " this is crazy, not even close to each other when they should be basically the same" We at that point did an investigation. Can't get into the rest but my subjective and objective data is pretty clear. You will not hear any dealer or Falken rep say they changed a thing? Happens all of the time .... yep this would be Joe ....
|
|
|
|
|
324 members (12344mag, 1lesfox, 160user, 22kHornet, 1badf350, 21, 33 invisible),
1,876
guests, and
1,158
robots. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
Forums81
Topics1,192,633
Posts18,493,112
Members73,977
| |
Most Online11,491
Jul 7th, 2023
|
|
|
|
|
|
