The Best All-Terrain Tires: 5 A/T Tires Compared for Trucks and SUVs

Check the size before anything else. This listing is one BFGoodrich All-Terrain T/A KO3 in LT265/75R16, load range E, 123/120S. That is a light truck size on a 16 inch wheel. Read the numbers on your own sidewall and buy that size. The KO3 is sold in many sizes, but this page is only one of them, and a tire is bought by size, never by vehicle name.

The KO3 is the third generation of the tire that made the all-terrain category mainstream. BFGoodrich says it uses a new tread pattern and a new all-terrain compound aimed at durability on gravel, which is the surface that quietly destroys cheaper all-terrains. Gravel does not wear a tire evenly. It chips chunks out of the tread blocks and slices the shoulder.

The part worth paying for is the sidewall. CoreGard came from Baja racing, and the Advanced Deflection Design shapes the sidewall so that sticks and rocks slide off instead of catching. Sidewall punctures cannot be plugged the way a tread puncture can, so a torn sidewall means a spare on the rim and a new tire later. If you drive rock roads, forest roads or job sites, that is the feature you are buying.

BFGoodrich also updated the shoulder for mud and snow, using a serrated edge and mud-phobic bars that push packed mud out of the tread. Packed tread is the reason an off-road tire suddenly stops working. The listing does not claim the three-peak snowflake marking, so if snow is your reason for buying, look for the symbol on the sidewall or take the Atturo Trail Blade ATS instead.

The honest problem is cost and stiffness. This is a load range E tire, built to carry weight. On a truck that never carries any, that stiff casing gives you a firm ride, more road noise and nothing in return.

Start with the size. This listing is one Atturo Trail Blade ATS in 275/60R20 116T XL. That is a wide, fairly low profile 20 inch size, common on newer full size trucks and SUVs. Look at your own sidewall and match those numbers exactly. Atturo lists the ATS from 16 inch to 26 inch rims, so if this size is wrong the model probably still exists in yours.

What makes this pick different is the certification. Atturo states the 3-Peak Mountain Snowflake symbol for 2024 and newer production of the ATS. That symbol is a test result, not a marketing claim, and most all-terrain tires do not carry it. If you live somewhere that gets real snow and you do not want to swap tires twice a year, that is the single most useful line on the spec sheet.

The tread is built around three-dimensional sipes. A sipe is a thin slit cut into a tread block, and it opens under load to create a biting edge. Flat two-dimensional sipes get shallower and less useful as the tire wears. Atturo says these widen through the life of the tire, so a half worn ATS should still bite in slush.

Noise is the other thing the design goes after. Tie bars are small rubber bridges between the shoulder blocks and the center blocks. They stop the shoulder blocks from flexing independently, which is what makes an aggressive tread hum on the highway. It is a real fix, not a cosmetic one.

Two honest limits. The snowflake certification is tied to production date, so ask the seller or check the date code on the sidewall. And this is an extra load passenger construction, not load range E, so it is the wrong tire for a truck that tows near its limit.

This listing is one Armstrong Tru-Trac AT in 265/70R17 116T, extra load. It is a single tire in a single size. Read your own sidewall first, because 265/70R17 is a common newer truck size but it is not the only one, and the wrong size is the wrong tire no matter how good the price looks.

This is the pick for the buyer the whole all-terrain category quietly serves, the person who wants the look and the light gravel ability but spends 95 percent of their miles on pavement. Two numbers make the case. Armstrong publishes a 60,000 mile treadwear figure, which is the longest in this guide, and a UTQG grade of 560 A B. A treadwear grade of 560 is high for anything wearing an all-terrain badge. Aggressive tread and long life pull against each other, and this tire is clearly tuned toward life.

The construction supports that reading too. It is four ply rated extra load passenger construction, not a load range E light truck casing. That means a softer ride on an empty truck, less weight to accelerate and stop, and less of the hollow drumming a stiff LT tire sends through the floor. The load index of 116 still covers 2,756 pounds per tire as listed, which is plenty for a half ton pickup or a large SUV.

What you give up is information. The listing describes the sidewall, the construction and the warranty, and then stops. There is no tread pattern description, no siping detail, no snow certification. Compare that with the Atturo page, which explains its sipes and states the snowflake symbol. Here you are buying the category and the numbers.

Treat it as the sensible pavement answer. If your idea of off-road is a gravel driveway, a boat ramp and a forest road twice a summer, this tire does that and then lasts.

This listing is one Lexani Terrain Beast AT in 215/75R15 100T. Fifteen inch wheels and a 215 section width point at older trucks, small SUVs and cheap trail rigs. Check your own sidewall. Lexani sells the Terrain Beast AT in bigger fitments too, including LT265/70R17 and LT235/85R16, so search the model name plus your exact size if this one does not match.

The reason this tire is here is arithmetic. All-terrain tires get bought four at a time, and the gap between the cheapest and the most expensive pick in this guide is large enough that a full set of these costs less than two BFGoodrich KO3 tires. For a lot of people the real choice is not premium versus budget. It is four budget all-terrains now or four bald tires until spring.

For the money the tread description is better than you would expect. Lexani calls out full-depth siping, which matters because shallow sipes stop working once the tire is half worn. It also describes angled tread blocks with open shoulders that push mud, stones and dirt back out of the grooves, and a unilateral center rib. That solid rib down the middle is the part doing the on-road work. It is what keeps an open-shouldered tire from wandering under the steering.

What is missing is any measure of life. There is no treadwear warranty, no UTQG grade and no load range in the listing. Budget tires often wear faster, and without a published number you have no way to compare. Assume less life than the Armstrong figure and be pleasantly surprised if you get more.

Lexani is also a value brand without much independent testing behind it. That is fine on a second vehicle or a trail rig. It is a different decision on the truck the family rides in every day.

Read the size first. This listing is one Thunderer Trac Grip M/T R408 in LT265/75R16 123Q. That is a light truck size on a 16 inch wheel. Match it against the numbers on your own sidewall before you order four.

Be clear about what this is. The R408 is a mud terrain, not an all-terrain. It sits in this guide on purpose, because plenty of people shopping for all-terrain tires actually need more than an all-terrain can give, and plenty of others need much less. Seeing a real M/T next to the others makes the trade-off obvious instead of theoretical.

The whole design is about the gaps. Thunderer describes open tread lugs that prevent mud and sand build-up. On soft ground, grip does not come from rubber touching dirt. It comes from the tread scooping material out and flinging it clear so fresh lug edges can bite. Big blocks with big voids do that. Fine siping and closed tread do not, which is why an all-terrain tire in deep mud turns into a slick within a few yards.

The costs are just as clear. Fewer, larger blocks mean a smaller contact patch on pavement and longer wet stopping distances. The gaps that clear mud also slap the road surface and make noise, and the noise gets worse as the blocks wear unevenly. Soft compounds meant to conform to rock wear quickly on asphalt, and this listing states no treadwear warranty to argue otherwise.

The listing itself is thin. Three feature lines, no load range, no UTQG grade, no snow certification. Buy this one for what its shape does, not for what its spec sheet promises, and only if the ground you drive on is genuinely soft.