Whether you use your truck to work hard or play hard, its tires take a ton of abuse. If you’re lucky, they’ll last four to five years or around 60,000 miles. Keeping up on replacing worn tires plays an important role in your truck’s handling, safety and efficiency. Choosing the right tires can even improve its performance.
Of course, there are many options. Selecting the right tires means narrowing down the features most valuable to you. Do you need all-season tires to withstand carting tools and supplies on country roads and interstates? Or do you need a tires designed to withstand heavy hauling? If you’re an off-roader, you might be looking for optimum traction over diverse terrain. Perhaps you need a multi-tasker designed to handle all types of driving styles.
It’s not uncommon to consider an upgrade to your tire’s size or tread at replacement time, but it’s important to weigh how the change will impact your truck’s driving personality. A larger tire can improve looks and performance, but can affect the accuracy of a speedometer and odometer if it goes over a certain height. Wider tires can affect handling and steering response and cause more road noise. Increasing both the width and height will decrease fuel efficiency. And the bigger you go, the more money you’ll spend.
Beyond size, consider tire type and load capacity. A “P” on a tire’s sidewall denotes a passenger tire, which are built to serve as a multi-purpose option for cars, SUVs, crossovers and light-duty pickup trucks. Light truck tires are marked with an “LT” instead of a “P” and achieve higher load ratings.
If you use your truck primarily for basic street or highway driving, think about your factory-equipped truck tires. If they were passenger tires, stick with a similar P set. If you use need your truck to tow, navigate off-road obstacles or explore rugged terrain, a LT tire is worth the investment. Whichever you choose, the tire should be the same size diameter as the wheel: 16-inch tires should be mounted to 16-inch wheels. If you are unsure of the size or type of tire, check what’s currently on your vehicle or the owner’s manual.
In researching our tire choices, we’ve set the default vehicles to the Ford F-150 and Honda Ridgeline. Most of our choices, however, are available for a wide range of SUVs, trucks and vans. Without further ado, here’s our list of the best truck tires for 2021.
- Cooper Evolution H/T All-Season : Best Value All-Season Tire
- General Grabber A/TX : Best All-Terrain Tire
- Bridgestone Blizzak DM-V2 : Best Snow Tire
- Wrangler Duratrac : Best Tire for Off-Road Traction / Best Mud Tires
- Cooper Discoverer Rugged Trek : Best Heavy-Duty Tires
- Firestone Destination LE3 : Best Highway Truck Tire
- Sumitomo HTR A/S P03 : Budget All-Season Street Tires for Compact Trucks
- Pirelli Scorpion All-Season Plus 3 : Mid-price All-Season Street Tires for Compact Trucks
- Michelin Crossclimate2 : Top-tier All-Season Street Tires for Compact Trucks
- Falken Wildpeak A/T Trail : Budget Off-Road Tires for Compact Trucks
- Yokohama Geolandar A/T G015 : Mid-price Off-Road Tires for Compact Trucks
- Continental TerrianContact A/T : Top Tier Off-Road Tires for Compact Trucks
- Kumho Crugen HT51 : Budget All-Season Street Tires for Full-Size Trucks
- Continental TerrianContact H/T : Mid-price All-Season Street Tires for Full-Size Trucks
- Michelin Agilis Crossclimate : Top Tier All-Season Street Tires for Full-Size Trucks
- Pirelli Scorpion All Terrain Plus : Budget Off-Road Tires for Full-Size Trucks
- Kumho Road Venture AT51 : Mid-Price Off-Road Tires for Full-Size Trucks
- Firestone Destination A/T2 : Top-tier Off-Road Tires for Full-Size Trucks
Honorable Mentions
- Tire Only - Wheel Not Included
- Sidewall: Outline White Letters
- Load Range: E (10 ply)
- Tire Only - Wheel Not Included
- Sidewall: Outline White Letters
- Load Range: Standard Load (4 ply)
- Wherever The Job Is, Depend On Firestone To Get You There
- Strong for On-Road/Off-Road
- Improved Wet Performance
- Treadlife: N/A
- Season: All Season
- Performance: Mud Terrain
- Optimized Tire Profile To Help Improve Uneven Wear, Even With Heavy Loads*.
- Saw Tooth Edge Siping Provide Biting Edges In Snow While Maintaining Block Stiffness.
- Full Depth Lateral Slots Provide Water Evacuation To Help Reduce The Risk Of Hydroplaning*.
- Class-leading performance in the mud and snow, with an angled chamfer that creates hundreds of gripping edges, and a deep, tapered tread block that promotes self-cleaning.
- Engineered for a quiet, comfortable ride, with a symmetric tread design and variable-pitch tread blocks to reduce road harmonics.
- Excellent grip and stability in heavy weather, with deep central grooves to channel rain and snow away quickly.
- Bold tread pattern designed to tackle mud with enhanced traction
- Build to withstand damage from gravel and debris
- Studdable for extra traction in harsh winter weather
- Treadlife: N/A
- Season: All Season
- Performance: Mud Terrain
- All-Season Highway Sport Truck Tire
- Highway tire for drivers of SUVs and pickup trucks looking for a ‘sporty’ look
- All-Season performance and handling
- Treadlife: N/A
- Season: All Season
- Performance: Mud Terrain
METHODOLOGY
In order to select the top truck tires in the market, Forbes Wheels studied and compared a broad range of expert reviews and customer ratings for truck tires available for sale in the U.S. With this knowledge combined with decades of personal automotive maintenance experience, we chose the best tires known for providing reliable traction, long-term use, and the most comfortable ride for a variety of use cases. Durability, affordability, and overall value were also considered in these ratings.