Goodyear DuraTrac Tires in the Water & Mud

After the drought in Central Texas last year, finding anything but a dry dusty field was hard to come by – but later in the season, we tracked down some low-lying areas to give the project truck’s Goodyear DuraTrac tires a chance to let loose in the mud and water.

As a reminder, you always should know the depth and ground condition of the body of water you’re going to be driving in – and don’t always trust the person telling you that “everything will be fine.” If someone else says it’s about 10 inches deep with a hard bottom, it’s probably 24 inches deep with a soft bottom. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Momentum is key when you’re driving in mud, but what if you’re surrounded by trees and have to take it easy on the throttle? That’s when a good mud tire will make the difference. We found that the Goodyear DuraTracs were able to traverse through the mud with control during low speed. This wasn’t the slickest mud we had ever seen, but after running through the same spot 10 or 12 times to get some good photography, it certainly gave us a good test.

To wash off the tires we thought it best to just run through the deepest part of the pond we could find – and as expected, it was both deeper and softer than expected. Spinning the tires may have been the best way through – though when you forget to turn off traction control – ahem – when all four tires lose traction they can all stop momentarily. You can see from the pictures that we tried both approaches when going through the deeper water – but even when the tires started from a complete stop, we were still able to get up and out of the pond under our own power.

We’ve logged about 6,000 miles on the DuraTracs so far, and we’re still impressed with the low noise level and the look it gives the truck.

If you’re wondering what happened to our Gobi stealth rack, no worries, these pictures were taken before we had it installed (sorry for going a little out of order!).

We know several of you have put the Goodyear DuraTracs on your own truck – some of you even went up to 35 inch tires for an even meaner look. In either case, we’d love to see your pics posted on our Facebook page.