I remember being a kid and shopping for a new pair of shoes and knowing that choosing the right ones would make me run faster, jump higher, cut quicker, and stop faster. Well, for me, those days of dreamworthy kid shoes are gone. But with the right "shoes" on my truck, I can blast through dry, sandy river bottoms, climb rocky mountains, slalom through twisty Baja-like trails, and stop on a dime on dirt roads. Those were the thoughts running through my head as the new General Grabber tires were being mounted on my truck.
| Our friends at Discount Tire in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, mounted the new General Grabbers for us. We polled forum members at www.dieselplace.com to decide if the distinctive red lettering should be mounted inside or out. Inside won hands down.
It took more than two years for engineers at General Tire to develop the Grabber Competition tire for the desert off-road racing community, and it has now unleashed the fury with the DOT-approved street version of the Grabber. While retaining the desert racing truck design and performance, the General Grabber has street road manners, too. The engineers at General Tire broke the conventional tire mold when designing this rubber and coined a few new phrases such as: Strake & Chamfer, Duragen, Reactive Contour Technology, and Acoustic Modulation Sound Technology (AMST).
The diagonal Strake groove between the lugs of the tire opens the lug's face to the terrain, while the Chamfered lug corners help create traction areas for adjacent lugs. This technique provides superior traction in various levels of terra firma from silt to mud. The uniquely layered three-ply sidewall construction called Duragen provides extra durability and puncture resistance. Reactive Contour Technology ensures even surface wear of the lugs, thereby defeating the common heel-toe wear pattern found in other tire brands. Driver and passengers will appreciate the quiet ride created by the AMST. According to a sound pressure meter, the new Grabbers were approximately 6 dB quieter than the Toyo Open Country MT tires they replaced. A 6 to 10 dB increase is considered by most listeners to be twice as loud, and 1 dB change is about the smallest change people can detect. Therefore, a conversation in the cab of the truck can be held without yelling at one another.
| A testament to the quality of the General Grabber tires, the first tire required no weights to be balanced and the remaining ones only required minimal weights. For the skeptics out there, we did not chase the sweet spot-each tire was mounted only one time and balanced from there.
I have put about 1,700 miles on the tires and am happy with the overall performance of them. Living in the southwest allowed me to put these tires through the paces they were designed for-southwest desert. Dirt-packed roads, rocky terrain, and desert sand is where the General Grabbers perform the best. Though not specifically designed as rock crawler tires, at street inflation pressures of 50 psi they stuck to rocks surprisingly well. Even deep, sandy areas that required airing down with the previous tires were passable at street inflation pressures. Mother Nature has not provided snow or mud yet for tire testing performance, so I cannot attest to the tire's performance in those areas. Even with the aggressive tread pattern, the street traction and stability seem to be on par with other tires in this class. The tires do seem to perform better on porous asphalt than smooth concrete roads. If your playground is similar to the arid, southwestern desert, the General Grabber tire is for you.
| These tires were born to run in the southwestern desert. Whether it's due to the strake grooves, chamfered lug corners, or the forward biting edges, these tires just love the desert terrain.
So, like the sneakers of yesteryear, lace up a set of Grabbers for your rig and get ready to blast through any dry, sandy river bottom, climb rocky mountains, slalom through twisty Baja-like trails, and stop on a dime on dirt roads.
