Health Reasons - Quiet & Snow/Off Road Tires

[ron.dittmer]

We own a 2006 Jeep Liberty Sport 4x4 with stock 16" alloy wheels. It's my wife's daily driver around home and is also towed behind our motor home on vacations as shown here.

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My wife has a lighter case of Multiple Sclerosis. One of the troubles her illness gives her, is ringing in her ears called Tinnitus.

We have determined her Tinnitus is significantly aggravated from the worn out noisy stock Good Year tires on her Liberty, so I bought a second set of wheels and plan to mount "QUIET" tires on for around town use. I also want to replace the worn stock GY tires with something ideal for winter snow and mild to moderate off roading. When I mean mild to moderate, I mean the "Absolute Worst Case" would be something like that trail from Moab through Potash into Canyonlands, down to the Colorado River.

Does anyone have a recommendation for these two tire groups on stock 16" alloy rims?

This brings up another quick question. Can a our Liberty in stock condition handle that Moab trail I mentioned? We've taken that trail with rented Wranglers twice over the years, but are uncertain about our Liberty.

 

[tommudd]

Firestone Destination ATs are super quiet, quieter than the stock Goodyears. They do well in snow etc as well.
You didn't mention it but do you have full skids and recovery points on the KJ if thinking of taking it on some trails?

 

[ron.dittmer]

I do not have skid plates. The only thing I see under there is a roller thing, I think to protect the rear differential.

Generally speaking, our adventuring would be limited to primitive dirt & gravel roads with an occasional easy washout. We did wonder if the vehicle could handle that specific trail outside of Moab to the Colorado River.

Thanks for the tip on the Firestones. I will check them out.

 

[LibertyTC]

When I first bought my Kj, the stock SRA's, would slip and slide in rain, and noisy!
I checked various tires and decided on GoodYear Wrangler "Silent" Armor.
http://www.goodyear.ca/goodyeartireselector/display_tire.jsp?prodline=Wrangler%20SilentArmor&mrktarea=Light+Truck
After Install of new tires, I went back to the hill when wet, to see if I could get reasonable traction now. What a difference. Grabbed off the line,no slip and these tires were dead quiet compared to the SRA's. One plus as well is that the sidewalls were thicker and stronger than anything else I had viewed in the tire shops. The Silent Armors include belts of Kevlar.."the strong,silent type" snowflake rated as well, awesome in the snow.
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[JeepINgeek]

ive heard good things about the silent armors if youre prepared to spend the $

 

[DirtyKK]

ive ran the Firestone Destination ATs and they are just what youre looking for. read reviews on tirerack, i dont think youll be disappointed.

 

[hbosman]

I just bought Firestone Destination ATs a month ago, after reading the reviews on Tirerack.com. Great tires, now I regret waiting so long to swap out the original Goodyears.

 

[Luke]

First ... My condolences to your wife. I have been trying to live with Tinnitus for over 10 years now and it basically controls a good portion of my life. NOT FUN.

I have Silent Armors although I will confess I did not buy them for their lack of road noise. For my Tinnitus it's the more noise the better. They do not seem loud to me although I'm sure they have a little more hum than the stock tires. Performance wise they are solid.

I hope you guys find something that works for her. Tinnitus can be an overwhelming disorder. All the best!

 

[ron.dittmer]

I have stalled on this due to a busy life. I really need to do something soon. Thanks everyone for the great input. All will be considered. I encourage more input as well.

Luke, Sorry about your sufferage too. Even I have a mild case, so I have a "little" idea of what you two are going through. You might find this of great interest.

Our son has a number of different music writting software programs, Q-Base, FL-Studio, and Reason. As an experiment, I had our son tune a sound and appropriate volume to duplicate my ringing ears. Our son was surprised what I hear all the time. He saved the sound track. Then we brought in his mother, my wife who has a serious case of Tinnitus. He was able to duplicate her's as well. After he got it tuned with identical volume for her, our son and I looked at eachother and then we all had a group hug. It was a real eye opener for us to experience what she deals with every waking moment. It is one of the few diseases where you could place other people in your shoes to experience the disease for a little while. It really helped us to understand better, her daily challenge.

After writting this....I got to get her new tires. She wears ear plugs in the Jeep but enough of that.

 

[ron.dittmer]

Adding here, going through Tire Rack's reviews & surveys (ranked #2 of all choices), and your statements about "Quiet" ride, I think I will order them tomorrow.

I would definitely get the Wrangler Silent Armor if I have a Jeep Wrangler....for the name sake.

Any last inputs?

 

[Luke]

It really can suck the life out of ya sometimes. For anyone who is curious, at the bottom of the page that I have linked to, if you click all of the audio clips (at once) except for low frequency rumble, that is what my Tinnitus sounds like. My problem is that it is ever changing between the 4 different types. Masking them with devices is next to impossible.

http://www.quietrelief.com/tinnitus-reality.html

Enough of that depressing crap. Good Luck with your tire search and ALL the best to you and your better half!

P.S. I have only linked the page for the audio bits... I have no idea if Quietus is any good or just another failed attempt.

 

[ron.dittmer]

Well I got the new Firestone Destination A/Ts on the Jeep Liberty. I noticed the difference immediately. The ride is much more comfortable, they grip the road much better under all conditions, and the tire-to-road noise completely went away. I hate to compare them to the old OEM GY-Wranglers until these new tires have 40,000 miles as well. But first impressions say they are a real winner. Thanks for helping me with my decision.

BTW Cost of the 4 tires delivered to the house was $504.58. I have access to mounting & balancing equipment so I took off all tires, cleaned all rims like brand new, then mounted and balanced the 4FR+1GY tires on with wheel weights only on the inner facing edge of the rims (Static Balance) for a cleaner look.

 

[Luke]

hate to compare them to the old OEM GY-Wranglers until these new tires have 40,000 miles as well.

Go ahead ... lol3.gif ... mine were brand new and they were garbage

Glad you found something appropriate and got a good deal!

All the best!

 

[HoosierJeeper]

I love my Nitto Terra Grapplers. Very quiet, and more than adequate off road traction.

 

[ron.dittmer]

It has been nearly 3 months and a good amount of driving time & miles on the Firestone Destinations. All is still very well. Glad I bought them. They are a very quiet and comfortable riding tire. You wouldn't think so when looking at the aggresive thread design.

 

[ron.dittmer]

Okay, it is now April 2014. With 20,000 miles on our Destination A/Ts, they too became extremely noisy. Upon spin balancing them, I cannot blame the tires. I blame the binding action when in 4WD on dry pavement and also from being towed behind our motor home.

Since the tire thread is good, just the inside edges on two tires is scalloped, I have dedicated them as winter & RV vacation tires. I bought a second set of rims from a member here, 5-spoke dark gray inset Renegades, and now at 60,000 miles on the Liberty, have new Prodigy H/T tires ($73 a piece from Discount Tire) on them for spring/summer/fall street use.

All is quiet again....until I mount the others again.

 

[Belcher]

It really can suck the life out of ya sometimes. For anyone who is curious, at the bottom of the page that I have linked to, if you click all of the audio clips (at once) except for low frequency rumble, that is what my Tinnitus sounds like. My problem is that it is ever changing between the 4 different types. Masking them with devices is next to impossible.

Enough of that depressing crap. Good Luck with your tire search and ALL the best to you and your better half!

P.S. I have only linked the page for the audio bits... I have no idea if Quietus is any good or just another failed attempt.

I think Quietus is right and good.

 

[JeepinJarhead03]

any of the michy ltx M&S style tires would work as well, not a true A/T but they are snowflake certified for snow & ice and are probably the most well behaved highway / quiet tire

but any of them will start making high pitched racket when the edges get scalloped

the M/T's i ran for awhile got so bad that after 30 mins my ears would ring for the rest of the day they were so loud, i ended up having to drive wearing ear plugs. after my last trip back from IL to NC my ears rang for 3 days, was awful, i sympathize