KM2's -whats your experience

Chuckman

Chuckman

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 9, 2005
Location
Huntersville
as the title says, Im looking for a 38" ish offroad tire that is 'round'. I run my rig on the road and Im tired of 1~2" out of round swampers shaking my guts out. looking at the KM2's- who runs big ones and what are your thoughts?
:popcorn:
 
I think you would like the MTR's better, never ran the large Km2's but don't like the smaller ones. Like the MTR's much more.
 
i got a friend running 35s, and another running 37s both on the street and they wouldn't run anything else, and they work very good off road. I sale alot of the 33s and 35s with no compliants
 
levellinebrad said:
I run 37's and love them
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I hear they work best on mall crawlers :flipoff2:

I'm runnin 32in KM1's I like them except for the fact that they don't clen out verry well. Are the KM2's any better?

Plus, the luggs are closer together than say a swamper, makes them ride better, but seems to hurt them in the mudd.
 
I run a set of 35's. Ride great on the road and work good on the rocks. Weak side wall and dont clean out to well in the mud is the only complaints from me.
 
400hp will clean out the lugs in the goo, but thats the first I heard about the weak sidewall. back up to top
 
I run 35s. They're awesome on the road but I'm not a fan of them on rocks. I went from swampers to km2s and definitely noticed they don't hook up as well. They ride 100% better on the road though. It depends on what your priority is I guess
 
I have personally owned 2 sets of KM1s and have 2 buddies that run KM2s.....in all 4 sets we have experienced weak sidewall, HORRABLE in the mud and not to great on the rocks.....

My buddy has a set of 33x12.50 KM2s on his S10 and he kept getting stuck in the mud and had trouble on rough rocks, he tried my claws out one weekend and LOVED EM!
 
pgaloustian said:
I have personally owned 2 sets of KM1s and have 2 buddies that run KM2s.....in all 4 sets we have experienced weak sidewall, HORRABLE in the mud and not to great on the rocks.....

My buddy has a set of 33x12.50 KM2s on his S10 and he kept getting stuck in the mud and had trouble on rough rocks, he tried my claws out one weekend and LOVED EM!
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What he said, except the km1's are better in the mud than the 2's. I had a set on my truck and have no love for them at all.
 
I have a set of 255/85 KM2s on my 4runner. I've had them in sand, snow, mud, hard pack, lots of gravel, and obviously pavement. They're a pretty good all around tire for these conditions, if you can stand running a "mud" tire on the pavement. However, they are on my DD and not on a rock rig. I doubt that I would get a set for my crawler just because they aren't THAT aggressive... if I was looking for something with better road manners and still aggressive I would probably look at the new style MT/R. I will be changing to a set of Nittos after these wear out, which is close. It's not that I don't like the tire, I just want to run a different size and compare a terra grappler to a KM2 in the snow (muy importante!).
 
they suck that bad, huh?
glad I asked.

Yager, do you run them now?
 
re: "weak sidewalls" - compared to what? For a radial tire it's probably as good as you're going to get. It's not really fair to expect Swamper level performance from a tire that is intended to be relatively road friendly.

If I could afford them, this KM2s are what would be on my 4Runner right now.
 
'run them now' is a relitive term. Yes I pushed the jeep outside 2 times. So maybe 20' of hard core use... So far holding up fine.... :D

I'll know more when i get rolling and i'm prepared to modify them, sipes, cut lugs, chemicals etc...
 
Another thing to keep in mind about larger tires sizes in the relative size of the lug void, to the tire size. I'm running a ~34x10 on my daily driver and the lug voids are definitely sized for the street. However, I'm sure that a 37"+ would have noticeably larger voids. That said, if you can afford a KM2, I think the money would be better spent on the new MT/R... or blue label krawler.

Something like this:
ai482.photobucket.com_albums_rr187_xtreme_450_2_2019_2011_20Sn24baac782ebb71f5a274e0bda58f6ca0.jpg


I think if you take the sipes down to the carcass of the tire, and then sipe the outer lugs as well, they would be pretty bad ass tires. Obviously you'd kill them on the road a little quicker, but hey you'd have some pretty tires in the mean time.
 
once again, the problem is the rims. H1s are limiting my choices. cant get blue crawlers in that rim
 
cj777 said:
I run 35s. They're awesome on the road but I'm not a fan of them on rocks. I went from swampers to km2s and definitely noticed they don't hook up as well. They ride 100% better on the road though. It depends on what your priority is I guess
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I respectfully disagree with this statement. I think they hook up better than a swamper in the rocks. I wheel with alot of people who run the swamper and as far as "sticking" to a rock, I feel that the KM2 is by far the superior tire. They need to be aired down to 10 psi max to get decent mud clean out. As far as the sidewall weakness. This is true. The sidewall flexes so much even when aired up that you can tell the sidewall is not as tough. I have punctured 1 tire in the last 4 years of running them. That was at golden mountain Tn in the rain. I have wheeled that place, Mountain City, Harlan Ky, Flats, Gulches, The Farm, URE and numerous fire roads and love the KM2. It is damn sure not as good as a swamper in the mud and also depends on your wheelin style. If you are high HP and like spinning your tires fast, I would not recommend them. I have run them against the MTR Kevlar and I think they out perform the Mtr in wet conditions but the MTR is a better riding road tire. Also the MTR is truer to size than the KM2. Sidewall strength for punctures are ALOT better on the kevlar than the KM2 but they can be cut just as easily. There is no perfect tire but for driving on the road and still kicking ass off road, The KM2 is an awesome tire and the MTR Kevlar is a damn close second in my opinion.
 
Ok, clearly you're going to have to figure this out on your own. Buy four different tires and run open diffs, should be easy to see which one sucks and which doesn't. Please report back.
 
Lelellinebrad hit the nail on the head...... from wheelin on rocks at the Flats I've seem KM1's &2's out do TSL creepy crawlers and others. The heat up faster and flex better. Mud on the other hand, not so well. I've wheeled with levelline several times. He's definitely no slouch on the skinny pedal. He sold me on KM2's a long time ago......

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