On compressed snow we managed to play around, where other trucks had to use chains. Snow: We only made a short trip into the snow, but again we were pretty impressed. As we were testing at an altitude of about 10,000+ feet in the Andes, they developed so much grip that at one point they managed to stall the engine in 1LOW…(engines loose a lot of power in this altitude, especially when running oversized tires…) Again, we were extremely impressed with the grip they developed in loose dirt. As a matter of fact, you can literally “play” with them, working them between 90 and 100% of their traction (its actually rather funny to see your tires spinning at about 3mph while your truck is moving at 2.5mph). Overall, the Grabber A/Ts give you excellent feedback on what’s going on below your floor panel, and if they break free, they do it in a way that feels very controllable. Loose dirt: If aired down to about 12 PSI, the tire bulges nicely, thus being able to work his shoulder lugs into the ground. Maybe with a stronger engine and higher revs they would sling a bit more hash, but don’t expect too much here. However, we feel that mud-performance was way within our expectations for an A/T tire. Although rather aggressive, the lugs could not self clean themselves as we have seen from other aggressive M/Ts. Mud: OK, here we came to the limits of this tire pretty fast. They did not “wheel-spin” as fast as the Wranglers did, thus they don’t dig into the sand as much, leaving you stranded. We were able to go places the Wranglers could not take us before and while climbing up dunes in low revs, the Grabbers did really bite in the sand, as they bulge very nicely at 8 PSI, thus providing us with excellent flotation. Sand: We aired the Grabbers down to 8 PSI and they performed much better than we anticipated.

Wet roads were no problem at all, due to the rather pronounced exit channels within the tread that can dissipate more water at a quicker rate. Also braking behavior improved, leaving us with an increased feeling of safety. One thing we did notice is that the Grabber’s stopped nearly all of the understeer our truck had with the Wranglers. The Grabbers didn’t tend to squeak or rollover as fast as the Wranglers did. This is especially noticeable if you go up narrow, snaking mountain roads or take narrow turns in the city. Extremely tight turns can be taken faster (or equally fast with more margin of error).

Our first set of tires were Goodyear Wrangler A/T’s and compared to these, the Grabbers are definitely a step forward on-road.

Follow along as we test the General Grabber A/T’s in a variety of situations in South America. Typically, these are good for street type driving conditions like braking, steering and acceleration.

Nevertheless, the interior lugs in are small enough to allow for a good amount of rubber to be contacting the ground. The first thing that strikes you when looking at the tire is the aggressiveness tread pattern, especially that of an “All Terrain.” This raised our expectations for its “off-roadability”. Additionally, the LT stands for Light Truck use. This translates loosely into an 29 X 9.5 LT tire. This means, the tire is 235mm wide, the wall-height is 75% of its width and they are fitted on 15″ wheels. These tires have been around for quite a while now and as the A/T in their name indicates, they are designed to work well in all terrain situations. This brings us to our next tire test, the GENERAL TIRE Grabber A/T’s. If you’ve been one of the poor souls that have made a poor choice, you could be stuck with your not-so upgrading purchase for as much as 30,000 miles or whenever your pocket book can support another purchase. There are lots of examples out there, where a poor tire-choice actually “down- grades” your rig. But lets face it… not all upgrades really “up-grade” your truck. For many of us, tires were, and still are the first performance upgrade.

General grabber x3 vs at2