Rick Péwé
Editor-in-Chief, 4Wheel & Off-Road
Photographers:
Rick Péwé
When we set out looking for a tire for our own use, we usually come up with one that's tried and true, or one that's so full-on new that most people haven't heard of it. That's one reason we recently tested the High Country All Terrain from Falken Tire.
"Falken who?" you ask? Falken has been around quite a while as a niche manufacture of high-quality tires for sport compacts and the coffee-can exhaust crowd. Falken's success in making high-performance tires allowed it to start making tires that wheelers could use, with both all-terrain and mud variations to come. Falken also offers a more streetable Wildpeak tire in popular sizes, but for our testing we decide to use the more dirt-friendly all-terrains.
We ordered a set of 31-10.50x15 All Terrains, as they are the perfect fit for our CJ-2A test mule. The overall diameter of 301/2 inches works perfectly in this application and is still a popular size among the light-duty wheeling crowd or newbies into the sport. With a a load range rating of C, this radial tire fits the bill for what many a wheeler needs.
The Falken High Country All Terrain worked great on rocks at street pressure as well as trail mode. We aired down to 10 psi and couldn't stop the tires from grabbing. Because mud is not an all-terrain tire's forte, we were surprised and pleased that they performed so well. Spinning the tires even flung the slop out of the smaller voids and allowed the tire to gain traction. Sliding and drifting on dirt was a challenge. The tire grabbed the ground well, even at higher pressure. They also exhibited little noise on the trail or the highway, even at high speeds and low pressure.
We took it to our local 4x4 skate park and put it through the paces of mud, rocks, sand, dirt, and highway. After a thorough day of testing in all terrains, we decided to keep the Falken High Country All Terrain on our ride for extended testing. We're happy to report that this isn't a tire we'll be giving up soon.
