Goodyear Fortera

[RickM]

After 42K miles, I had to get a new set of tires. What really got me to looking is that I had a blowout in the sidewall of the OEM Goodyears.

I almost got a set of BFG Longtrail TA's at Costco. You can't beat their price, but they said that they could not order the 230-70/R16 tires that I wanted.

Tonight I was at Sears, and they had the Goodyear Fortera TripleTred tires on sale. They said that is one of their premium SUV tires.

I bought a set of 5 of the Fortera tires. Has anyone tried these yet?

There is one thing I noticed later.... these tires have a tire rotation arrow on them, I guess because of the way that the tread is cut, that's pretty obvious. So when I looked at the spare... it will only work on the right side of the car.

What do you do about that? I suppose you only use the spare when needed, and only drive it for a short distance if it's mounted on the left side of the car? Does anyone know anything about this?

When I first got in and started driving, I could tell a huge difference. They are a LOT quieter and smoother than the OEM tires.

When I got out on the freeway, I was amazed at how quiet they were, especially when comared to the Goodyear OEM's.

I see that they have pretty good ratings at tirerack.com

 

[hyde]

congratulations, how about some pictures.
Also you mentioned GY OEM, what did you have? wrangler hp or SR/T? since it is 16, I assume you had SR/T. I was also considering fortera tripletread, but decided wait until my HPs wear off a bit more maybe until 42k (now at 31).
As for the directional tires, we have discussed somewhere around here, that it is not a huge deal if you get a flat and swap the tires until you get it fixed.. I am not sure about continuous usage but as for temp solution believe me, seeing people drive in thought donut spares, there won't be any problem if you drive around with reverse directional tire for a bit.

Did you try jumping curb or slight rocky road? what is the traction on slippery/uneven surface, or gravel/unstable roads?

 

[JeepJeepster]

Haha, never thought about having tires with a direction and using it as a spare. O

 

[RickM]

yeah, I believe they were the Wrangler SR/T tires. They were a LOT louder on the highway than these Goodyear Forteras are.

I just got them last night, so I'll have to try them in some rain and mud and give you a better report. From what I've read though, they have some amazing traction.

After reading about 200 reviews at tirerack.com, I did a google search for Goodyear Fortera Tripletred reviews and found a bunch more on other web sites. Everyone raves about the traction of the tire.

This tire is the only non-studded tire to get the Snowflake Certification.... whatever that means. Apparently to get that rating, it had to go through a lot of real world testing in snow up in Canada.

Oh, and I also did some research on dirctional tires. Everything I found said it would be ok to run them temporarily as a spare tire, but if you were driving on a wet or icey road, you wouldn't get good traction on the tire that's going in the wrong direction.

 

[hyde]

Didn't know about the snowflake, but I don't think they will do that well in deep snow (hopefully they do) but let us know and keep us updated.

 

[RickM]

I live in Central California, so we never get any snow here.

However, I work as a broadcast engineer, and some of our transmitter sites are on mountaintops a few miles to the east of us. Occasionally, there is a lot of snow up there, but mostly mud, gravel and loose dirt.

I do get into the mud up there from time to time... man, do I ever get into the mud. LOL

 

[hyde]

Well, you are lucky then.
How about some pics?

 

[liberator]

Forteras

Which Fortera do you have?

I have both the Tripletred and HL versions of the GY Forteras and love them particularly in wet. Got em based upon Cons Reports 2005 review of All Season passenger tires... rated No 1 for the tripletred passenger tires so I got the SUV Fortera version.

I had the GY Fortera's HL's and also the Tripletreads based upon Consumer Rep's SUV/truck in 2004 and last years Top rating for passenger tire who compare them side for wet, dry, handling braking emergency etc etc objectively and found them good too. I had the stock GY ST, GSA and also the Mich Artic Ice snows. The Trips gripped as good as my snows. I highway mostly and city with little or no off roading.

I buy the best tire on the market with $$ not an issue based upon CS report since I spun out on stockers long ago too. It rains here alot!!!

My advice is that the ratings on the tire shop sites are fine but are subjective to the individual based upon their past tire usage and don't measure them objectively... it's like I like KJ's while others like Explorers... all opinions and everybody has one...

Can't comment on others as I have not tried them on the KJ.

 

[06Liberty]

As for the directional tire, my wife's uncle has a cadillac cts with directional tires on it. He's been complaining about the front end vibrating or wobbling every now and then. I was at his house one day and noticed that the 2 front tires were mounted backwards. I pointed it out to him and he didn't even know it. It was an easy fix, just swap the front tires around.....but I guess it does make a difference after a while.

 

[RickM]

Ok, so I've had the Goodyear Fortera Tripletreads for about 8 months now, and they are working great.

They give really good traction in rainy weather.

One of our transmitter sites is out in the middle of a huge field of nothing but loose sand. They had gone through there with a tractor and tilled the weeds up, leaving really deep loose sand.

The Fortera's went through the sand with no problem. In fact, we had an air conditioner guy and the bug guy at the site, and they both got stuck in the sand. I hooked a tow strap to them and towed them out.

So far, I think the Fortera's were the right tire for me. They are still very quiet on the highway.

 

[hyde]

I wonder how good they will do in the snow since they got strange type of tread pattern.