VANLIFE MUST HAVE? BF Goodrich KO2
Vložit
- čas přidán 25. 12. 2022
- Frankly I love the BF Goodrich KO2 Tyres, its Facilitated many crazy adventures in my self built campervan Rear wheel drive Ford Transit. I’ve been able to drive through deep snow and winter camping in the Nordic Arctic and all the way down to warm Transylvanian Alps and another 19 countries throughout Europe on my overland trips. My current set is half worn and I’ve decided to replace them along with some brand-new CC2 alloys courtesy of rogue alloy ready for the next Arctic winter snow adventure.
As I say in the video this is my experience with them on a heavy rear wheel drive transit, having them on a far lightweight four-wheel-drive / 4x4 car or even a front wheel drive hatchback or van may have different experiences. I’ve done around 37,000 miles on them which has taken them down to around 5 mm of tread depth from the original 11mm. Still plenty of legal life in them about you replace all-terrain tires because you want the thick tread not minimum requirements for legality. I use the 225/75R16 115/112 model. Both the tires and alloys meet the required weight limits for vehicle of my weight class.
 #Bfgoodrichko2 #overland #Mispronouncedadventures
_____________________________________
-----------
Gear up for adventure with these exclusive deals:
🔋 ROAMER BATTERIES! Elevate your journey - [Affiliate Link] roamer.com/?aff=16
🔥 AUTOTERM Discount Code: mispronounced5% - [Exclusive 5% off] planarheaters.co.uk/home
🚿 BOBILVANS Hot water ! - [Affiliate Link] www.bobilvans.co.uk/?ref=MPA5
☕️ Support the channel! Grab a coffee, beer, or diesel at: www.buymeacoffee.com/misprono...
🛒 Check out my curated Amazon Store for van build essentials: www.amazon.co.uk/shop/mispron...
Your purchases fuel the adventure. Thanks for being part of the journey! 🌟
Connect with the adventure on social media:
📧 Email: Alex@alexfrood.com
🌐 Expedition Photography Website: www.AlexFrood.com
📸 Instagram: / alexfrood
📘 Facebook: / alexfroodoutdoorinstru...
Stay in the loop and join the exploration! 🌍✨
Disclaimer: Some of these links are affiliate links where I'll earn a small commission if you make a purchase at no additional cost to you. Also as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.⚠️
____________________________________
Another nice vid, always informative. Hope you did well with the Christmas trees.
Cheers, from a warm n sunny New Zealand.
Glad you found the video useful and the Christmas tree business went well this year
Well, you can’t argue with a real world usage review!
Looking forward to seeing this new arctic trip 👍🏼
Thank you! I can’t wait myself!
@@MispronouncedAdventures fingers crossed for that-30 🤞🏼
I’ve had KO2s on a Freelander for a little over 5 years. They were great during the Beast From The East. I’ve bought a set for a van I’ll be using for a camper conversion. My MR2 (May-Sep car) had new Toyo tyres last year. They’ve done about 50 miles and won’t be seeing snow, or rain if I can help it.
We have just put a set of gc1 rogues on our relay. 225,75x16 ko2. Absolutely love them. Amazing service as well. Your van looks sweet.
Enjoy them. Great tyres and alloys and great people!
The new wheels look awesome 😊👍
Thank you Will
Inspirational, well-thought-out, in-depth, and witty content (I've been binge-watching) thank you, Alex. Can't wait for this year's arctic trip!
Great channel -- you deserve far more subs. Certainly has opened up my closed mind to what's possible! 👍
Thank you for subscribing, I’ve glad to hear have you enjoyed the channel and my style of content.
I put the same tires on my Ducato van in October and I am very happy with them. I have managed to drive just over 1000km on them, mostly on a European trip over the turn of the year. I got a lot of questions about the road noise from them but as you say... I can barely hear the difference between the KO2s and the regular tires I had before. Compared to the studded tires I have previously used in the winter, the noise level difference is huge. Where I live in Sweden (180km north of Stockholm) the winters have become warmer in the last 10-15 years, which means that it is often the autumn or spring situation all winter. Then you have to drive these tires with a certain amount of caution or put my studded tires on.
I also never notice any road noise increases. And I agree with the autumn springs weather. The last 2 winter I’ve been up at a good time for using the KO2
Looking forward to your Roamer battery blog.
Thank you. It’s been fun filming it and definitely dives into lithium batteries and low temperatures in general for normal use as well. But more to do. Going to be a few weeks yet
Huge fan of my ko2s on Renault Master conversion, felt like a suspension upgrade when I put them on.
Great to hear. The “suspension upgrade” upgrade feeling makes sense. More clearance with a big wheel and also potential little bit more bounce depending how have them inflated
Cool can awesome tires
Thank you
Sweet treads bud 👌🏻
Thank you
nice set of new boots.
Cheers :)
Thanks for this I have wondering what to have when my tyres need replacing on my transit custom sand we do a bit of gravel track driving on sone parkups and grass so wondered if ko2 would fit and do the business … will take a further look now
I think they’re great tyres and the they are a 50% on Road 50% off road tyre , so I would say within reason the best of both worlds and they look great in my opinion.
Now that you have an extra set of rims, ever consider winter/snow rated tires? They will perform the best at low temp and in various ice/snow conditions vs all-terrains. Perfect for your Northern adventures. Sounds like your van needs the cold to reduce the swelling issues discovered during it's checkup.
I’ve not considered the needs for a exclusively winter time for my van. I’ll being use the KO2 again from based on my personal experience they have been great in the Arctic winter and have all the ratings legal winter ratings to be up there as well.
The nuts swelling was also mentioned years ago when I first had a set put on. It’s apparently common on the Ford nut usually when they have been smashed on by a windy gun by a garage which doesn’t care.
Hi Alex, new sub to your channel. love the geeky content. keep it coming. have you done a video yet on the afterburner mod? btw, merry xmas & a great new year!
I’m hoping I will do one at some point thank you for subbing
had goodriches under suv and pretty much 3,5 years over 60k kms but in winter conditions lets say on snow supreme, if its solid ice then they are super slippery so must drive with care otherwise, strength and durability 5+ drove over rocks, smaller tree stumps etc did not cut into tire, where with normal one i probably would been stranded.
I’ve got use to the ice and snow with those tyres over 3 winter. I tend to avoid ice if I can. Snow I have no issue
Nice👌👌
Cheers
Hi again, Alex. Can't wait for the new Arctic adventure. Ever thought of overlanding? Do you know of Phil and Lynn from 'Our World Traveller'? Impressivly large MAN build on Jenna's latest Tiny House Giant Journey video. Reminds me of 'The Germans' rig that you met on your last Arctic trip. Bon Voyage!
I definitely think I’m going above the normal touring and into overlands. But yes if the channel could afford me to do it. I’d built a new AWD transits and take it from the top of nordkapp in winter down to Cape Town.
@@MispronouncedAdventures Sounds epic. Certainly will be an interesting build given the wide range of climates you're going to have to cater for.
Q. With all the tech you've implemented for the arctic adventures, have you got a SHTF backup kit packed just in case you're caught out at some point?
Due to the nature of my profession work, always got SHTF kit.
Most of the van systems have back up. Electrical I’ve got two batteries bank and not one large, plus a EcoFlow power bank as a back up inverter, 12v and battery.
Full spare diesel heater and engine pre heater.
Personal kit I’ve of my winter expedition kit including my high altitude sleeping bag
Hoping to go from the standard 205/65r16 tyres on my VW t6 to a 225/70r16 bfg ko2 on the standard steel wheel, luckily only need a load rating of 102 as the van is 3000kg gvm, I was thinking of the same size as yours (225/75r16) but it's a fair bit taller than standard so the van might struggle with a 10% taller tyre, however the 225/70 seems a good compromise 👍
Quite a few companies in the UK fit a lot of these tyres to all manner of vans. Rouge Alloy might be able to point you in the direction of the best size for your van in the KO2. You might have slightly smaller wheel arches, you wouldn’t want to have any rubbing
Fantastic video. FYI you didn’t have swollen nuts. They are fords capped lug nuts that they use for alloys. The nuts are actually 19mm . However with the chrome caps on them their 19.5 mm ( or something like that. standard size for wheel nuts used is 17, 19, 21 ect) Basically the guy wasn’t used to them and didn’t have the right socket size. It’s not a normal socket supplied with impact socket kits. As an apprentice technician this took me way too long to find out😅
Well at least I don’t need to go see the doctor then! Interesting they use a different size, but I’m not surprised there are some odd unique bolts sizes used throughout the van
@@MispronouncedAdventures it's simply a thin, chrome cap that sits ontop of a normal, tapered lugnut. Probably to make it pretty for alloys. However it's enough to mess up the size for technicians with standard impact sockets.
So yes, no need to see the doc😁 however I'm not sure how that affects what ever socket you have for changing the wheel in the event of a puncture in the middle of nowhere.🤷🏻♂️
Make no mistake an all terrain tyre and a winter tyre is a completely different beast the rubber compound in winter tyres is much softer than all terrain or summer tyres, they are designed to be more flexible below 7c , they also have surface perforated w patterns in the entire Fred surface this crucially breaks the surface layer of water between snow or ice and the tire, this is what makes true winter (not all terrain or even all season tyres do not have and the extra flexibility of the winter rubber compound allows more supple tyres more footprint on the ground for a comparable sized conventional tyre
They are different things and many many different models and rubber compounds
The KO2 while being a A/T which had a 3PMSF rating for Europe and Nordics winter . Have had very good personal experiences with in last two arctic winters down to -30c.
I did plan to swap do a dedicated studded winter tyre for Nordic arctic but have found it unnecessary so far with the performance over the last two winters. However everyone’s experience is likely to be different with different models of tyre on different vehicles
1:57 Skarvbergtunnelen! The tunnel is now filled in and out of use, since the new tunnel opened this spring.
I was up again last winter at Nordkapp. I remember there was construction and traffic lights going on in that tunnel.
Did you ever try them on wet ice (frozen compacted snow after rain)? There was a video when your car was sliding, was it with these tires?
Deep slush I had the van blown by the wind across a car park ( mad mad storm ) , as something you will have issues with and I did when the snow pack rotted out into 5 inches plus of slush. But driving on it was only. I also had to climb back out the hill on the slush and didn’t have much of a issues
You prob know this already, but if you increase the rolling circumferance of your tyres, you also length the gearing of your transmission. In effect this will lengthen every gear, so you will get better MPG but slower acceleration.
Didn’t think of it from that point of view
And get greater speed than what your Speedo shows! 📸 📸
@@OneManEngineering I mentioned in the video that this does make my Speedo completely accurate now opposed to the Speedo being slightly under
I'm looking at getting these for my 4x4. They get a lot of great reviews. They will be perfect with a set of 4x chains.
Great tyres on a heavy vehicle.
I just have to replace my 4x4 that I rolled 4 times off a Welsh hillside ;) Btw, I drive a Ford Transit during the week for work. Almost car like to drive. I guess Ford has such experience in Transits and the Rally World.
@@MispronouncedAdventures Absolutely. Those rear wheel drives transits are useless with no weight. The times I've been recovered on grass and mud. Although, I do tend to take it places I'm not supposed to. Did you ever think about a winch just in case? I use a hand operated Tirfor.
Yeah weight is key on any rear wheel drive.
I am looking into a hidden front bumper winch
@@MispronouncedAdventures Sounds ideal. Especially with your tech / electrical knowledge.
The uneven wear in front we call scalloping, Generally a microscopic bend in the rim, tie rod and Sometimes a bearing issue.
Have you tried forscan ? Lots of options to adjust transit ecu defaults including speed / tyres ratio
The speeds / tyres ratio got added in the last year I believe. I’m pretty happy with the speedo right now. But if I went bigger it would be an option to fix it now
What pressures do you run them at for Uk roads and what do you adjust them to for snow in the artic?
I used to run 48psi on the front and 65psi on the rear, now under rogue alloys advice, I’m running 65psi all round.
So far I haven’t dropped the psi on snow. But it’s always and option
That’s what I changed ours to a few weeks back. Exactly the same tyre and we are now getting better mpg. Used to have them at 55psi. On the chart it’s max 80psi.
Bf goodrich ❤
I agree!
Big fan of ko2 ....Have a Renault trafic camper van at mo,thinking of replacing tyres with the k02’s.Would you recommend? Worried about clearance and tyre rub ! Kind regards...
I used to own a Renault trafic myself, great van. One of my friends has ko2’s on his Renault trafic and hasn’t mentioned any issues. I’m sure they would fit. You just need to get the right size is likely slightly smaller than the ones I use on my transit
@@MispronouncedAdventures Hi ,thankyou for getting back to me ...
@kevinrichards8119 no problem
Hi ,how are you getting on with your tyres,what pressure are you running
Love them after 2 arctic winters and loads of other adventures. I run 65psi all round now
The every other lug wear pattern is probably a bearing issue or get a 4wd alignment.
Why did you keep the worn tyres? I can see keeping the wheels, but in the US they take the old rubber away for recycling.
Because they are only half worn. Selling the old alloys with those particular half worn will be relatively easy. Obviously the new owner be told of know the condition and miles ok the m. The new owner of them might choose to use them for another few thousand miles or get them change them
Hi Alex, i noticed you have a KO2 spare under your van. People say they don't fit well but your spare seems fine in the spare wheel carrier? Have you modded it at all?
Cheers
InTransit
Yeah I’ve also heard people say this, but it’s a tighter to fit but overall no issue at all. It is only a few millimetres of the diff
At times. As I use the common 225/75R16
@@MispronouncedAdventures Thank you Alex. Appreciate the advice. I'm running 255 70 16 on my Transit. Was thinking about the rear door wheel carrier as an option if it doesn't fit. Cheers and safe travels 👍
What mpg do you get ? Currently converting a mk8 jumbo transit, getting 32mpg empty
Depends what I’m doing. I only use premium diesel. I get about 25.6mpg and drops down to 23 with more urban. On the long drives I’m Europe I was getting up to 29.
I unfortunately don’t have many areas between before, and after of these tyres. But I didn’t notice a significant drop after I got these tires most of my mpg dropped, but because of the weight of the conversion.
@@MispronouncedAdventures I've not weighted my van empty but towing a 1800kgs trailer at 60 it does 23mpg, trying to convert it as light as possible see what it comes out too. but thanks for the comparison.
Ford has forscan to adjust settings on the computer like turning off the dreaded ford beeping.
I’m Yeti to play with Forscan I will at some point that seems I can do quite a lot in software
Can you get them for my 5 ton twin rear wheel ambulance?
Would you know
It can depend on the vehicle. That size I use have a single and double rating 115/112. It depends on the clearance between the wheels
5mm is legal minimum in Germany in winter - maybe other Euro places too. 2mm in summer :)
The uk is behind on these. It’s 1.6mm any time of year here
Same in Norway but these are classified as summertires so you might get a huge fine if stopped here in winter.
@@Lasse.Hansen yeah I think it’s ridiculous that the UK minimum requirement is 1.6mm all year round. The KO2 is recognised as the new acceptable winter tyre in the Nordics, European
North American winter as the have the snowflakes marking / 3PMSF rating. No issues using them in the Norwegian winter.
@@MispronouncedAdventures Its becouse its the wrong rubbermix.They are to hard for wintertime.Yes they would probably work on snow but if you hit ice then it can go very wrong.The reason its like this is becouse many have been killed by lorries coming to Norway with the wrong tyres.I beleve its 1.6 mm in summer and 3 mm in winter,and it has to be wintertyres that are much softer then the summertyres.Its frustrating for us aswell becouse we need 2 set on each car we got.
@@Lasse.Hansen the rubber compound on the KO2 is pretty good in the cold, even down to -30c it’s remain soft. They definitely don’t come across as a normal summer compound. Brand new they are around 10-12mm depth. Having used them for 2 winters in the Nordics & 10000 miles plus there ( in a heavy rear wheel drive van ) . they are great in the depths of winter snow and ice roads. Only issues are on days where it thawed to above zero where studs would of been way better on the wet rotting ice. But that’s nothing to do with the rubber compound. I was surprised this year to see good number of local Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish vehicles using them ( mostly 4x4s ) , and not just all the foreigners
Which size did you choose?
225/75R16 115/112
Very very cool ? What about a spare
I have a spare unused KO2 under the van in the original spare tyre holder.
@MispronouncedAdventures
Before you put any miles on your new tires, I suggest you check all your shocks (most likely) and possibly suspension.
The wear pattern one of you tires had is a sign of suspension "bounce" which will destroy your new tires in a very short order.
It’s seems talking with other it might be a under inflated issues. As it’s used to be on the front at 48 psi before I mixed it too the back. I now run 65 psi all round
Are MTs legal in Norway.
“MTs”? Not sure what you mean? Mud tyres? There are not mud tyre, there are AT’s “All-Terrain” which is a 50/50 On and off road Tyre and they are legal for Nordic winter
I love the KO2's - However they are Tanky tires and might increase fuel consumption. Grippy and Strong and over-priced, I believe others prefer the Wildpeak or another equivalent tire. All come close, however if you try and compare this to a cheaper tire, you will be disappointed.
True Story: As my Dad told it. He was so excited to get his new 'Chinese' Michelin tires, a few months later he regretted it badly, so bad that he took them off, too dangerous pulling a fully load caravan.
Price has changed significantly. my first set I put on just over two years ago were around £135 fitted per corner. They are around £190 now
@@MispronouncedAdventures I had put them on my 4x4 Ute (beach driving mostly) and I had the brilliant idea of increasing the height vs getting a lift kit. The increased height of the tyre/tire had increased the rotational mass, and took more engine power to do so - so my fuel economy took a hit.
My suggestion is to only in increasing tire/tyre size is to go out only - this is typical of chauffeur cars, that may hit their rims on curbs.
These tyres/tires are heavy, they are tanks, and you can increase other tyres/tires just fine with no penalty, but not with this type.
My 2 cents. I will buy them again, in the original specs
Why did you choose a rwd over 4wd
I didn’t choose RWD over AWD, it’s more AWD transits are like gold dust and a price to match. I am hoping for my next transit I will go for an AWD version
@@MispronouncedAdventures what about sprinter or t4/t5
The T4/T5 are too small for my needs. the Sprinters are nice but I prefer them new model transits
snow is really easy on tires, so not much of a real experience.
Thank you for your input, 37000 miles has included 19 countries, lots of dirt, gravel, forestry roads as well. During the main Europe trip, no asks about tyres, as for the Arctic, it’s pretty much the main question I’m always asked.
What made you choose 225/75/16 over 255/70/16
I went for 225/75R16 as they still fit in the under van wheel carrier. If I had gone for 255/70R16 I would of needed a rear wheel carrier.
I also have many friends who have boxes, relays and sprinters who 225 as well.
Also had a bit of mixed information on how well the fit was on on the transit the larger size. I don’t think it fit the chassis on full lock but I think the front mud flaps could rub on some part of a turn.
On top of that there was at the time ( not sure if there now ) software to change the wheel size in settings to correct the Speedo I think the current version of Forscan might have wheel change as an option.
Mpg as well. I’d like to see some mpg effects before I would commit to a larger size. But I do feel like the look of larger tyres.