September 7, 2018
With a four-wheel drive vehicle and a set of big, aggressive tires, it feels like you can go anywhere and do anything, as if installing all-terrain tires on your truck, Jeep or SUV means you can conquer the great, untamed wilderness or navigate your way through a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
In the real world, these vehicles and tires are primarily used to conquer the mundane tasks of everyday life, often never leaving paved surfaces. Even so, it’s nice to have confident off-road capability when you really need it, plus the aggressive looks complement the personality and appearance of a truck, Jeep or full-size SUV. Knowing this, several manufacturers have introduced On-/Off-Road All-Terrain tires designed for the way drivers actually use them, with greater emphasis on noise quality, ride comfort and wet traction while still maintaining the ability to navigate challenging terrain, should the need arise.
To find out how this new influx of "mild" On-/Off-Road All-Terrain tires perform, we gathered the Bridgestone Dueler A/T Revo 3, Continental TerrainContact A/T, Cooper Discoverer AT3 4S and Pirelli Scorpion All Terrain Plus and put them through a full test. Our evaluation used 2018 Ford F150 4x4 trucks fitted with new, full tread depth 265/70R17 tires mounted on 17x8.0 wheels.
Our 6.0-mile loop of expressway, state highway and county roads provides a great variety of road conditions that include city and highway speeds, smooth and coarse concrete, as well as new and patched asphalt. This route allows our team to experience noise comfort, ride quality and everyday handling, just as you would during your drive to school or work.
The On-/Off-Road All-Terrain tires in our test are designed to deliver an improvement in road manners compared to their more aggressive, off-road focused counterparts, and our testing reveals they have all achieved that goal in different ways.
The TerrainContact A/T is our team’s favorite on the road, with the top subjective score in every category. Though it has the firmest ride in the test, it’s nicely controlled, reducing every impact to a single event. There is some tread growl resulting from the moderately aggressive pattern, but it’s non-intrusive. The Continental also adds noticeable poise to the trucks’ handling and precise response to steering inputs. The personality of the Dueler A/T Revo 3 is a bit more relaxed, with a softer ride that doesn’t feel quite as composed combined with light but accurate steering. The tread creates a noticeable drone over all surfaces, and some mild impact boom makes its way into the cabin. Ride comfort is a mixed bag for the Discoverer AT3 4S. The softest damping of the group means impacts are well absorbed initially but considerable motion afterward seems to resonate through the flexible structure of the vehicle. Similarly, light handling is a little soft but appropriate for a truck, with somewhat vague steering. Tread noise is roughly equal to the Bridgestone in volume, though it’s more of a broad, white noise instead of a consistent tone. The Scorpion All Terrain Plus scores highly in light handling, thanks to fast and precise turn-in, though it could use some additional build-up in the required effort. The firm ride communicates road imperfections through the driver’s seat but lacks the composure of the Bridgestone or Continental, and tread growl features several discernible tones that result in a merely average score for noise comfort.
Our typical test track course features some elements that aren’t ideal for testing a full-size pickup, so for this test, we used a modified lap that includes 90-degree street corners, simulated expressway ramps and an emergency braking zone. Run in both dry and wet conditions, the test track allows our team to experience the traction, responsiveness, handling and drivability normally only encountered during abrupt emergency avoidance maneuvers.
While ultimate dry traction and track capability are not design targets for these On-/Off-Road All-Terrain tires, it’s important to know they will react appropriately in an emergency situation. To that end, a small contingent of our team drove this group on the dry test track and found they are surprisingly adept, performing capably on the handling course.
Wet testing was performed by our entire team, and here the TerrainContact A/T again stands out above the rest, leading in the objective testing and our team’s subjective votes. Strong overall traction means the truck feels planted, helping to resist some of the vehicle’s inherent understeer at corner entry and oversteer when exiting the turn. The Dueler A/T Revo 3 feels confident and relatively well-rounded, with no single trait that dominates or lags the others in overall performance. Because of this, it’s composed and easy to drive, even though the objective figures fall toward the back of the pack. While it’s ultimately the second-most capable tire in the group, the Discoverer AT3 4S isn’t as easy to drive as the others, primarily due to some slip at the front when entering turns. The resulting understeer can be frustrating, and it requires the driver to slow a little more and separate braking and steering inputs to avoid it. The Scorpion All Terrain Plus displays the most noticeable slip at the rear during our testing. Some moderate difficulty putting down the power requires careful modulation of the throttle to make confident forward progress without momentum-killing tire spin that quickly engaged traction control.
Winter weather is often unpredictable, and snow-covered roads change with every passing vehicle as they churn snow into slush or pack it down to polished ice. For accurate results we use a dedicated winter testing facility in Northern Sweden with acres of groomed snow that provides the consistency needed for reliable acceleration and braking comparisons. A groomed handling course allows us to evaluate stability and control during abrupt maneuvers. To simulate the icy conditions found at intersections or the black ice experienced out on the highway, we use ice at a local hockey rink and measure acceleration and braking traction.
When it came to driving in winter conditions, two tires distinguished themselves well ahead of the others. The Dueler A/T Revo 3 displayed a small advantage in subjective feel over the Discoverer AT3 4S, but both delivered good winter traction with similar results in our measured acceleration and braking tests. Interestingly, among these two only the Discoverer AT3 4S has the Three Peak Mountain Snowflake (3PMSF) symbol on its sidewall, while the Dueler A/T Revo 3 without it matches the AT3 4S’ capabilities in our testing. This reality underscores that the 3PMSF symbol is not the only guarantee of good winter traction – our testing has revealed there are a number of tires that perform well in the snow despite not having the symbol.
The Scorpion All Terrain Plus also has the 3PMSF symbol and provided reasonable snow traction, just not at the level of the Bridgestone and Cooper tires. Trailing the others was the TerrainContact A/T, which had a much harder time starting, stopping and turning our test vehicle.
Ice traction results mirrored what we found in the snow, with the Dueler A/T Revo 3 and Discoverer AT3 4S leading the group, Scorpion All Terrain Plus a step back, and the TerrainContact A/T trailing.
Our Real World Road Ride features a relatively flat 6.0-mile loop of 65 mph expressway, 55 mph state highway and 40 mph county roads along with three stop signs every lap. Our team drove each tire approximately 500 miles over the course of several days. Since we wanted to compare fuel consumption results that typical drivers would experience, our drivers were instructed to maintain the flow of traffic by running at the posted speed limits and sustain the vehicle’s speed using cruise control whenever possible. They did not use hypermiling techniques to influence vehicle fuel economy.
| Tire | Test MPG* | Gallons/Year @ 15,000 Miles |
% vs. Most Efficient |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bridgestone Dueler A/T Revo 3 | 18.8 | 797.9 | -.5% |
| Continental TerrainContact A/T | 18.7 | 802.1 | -1.1% |
| Cooper Discoverer AT3 4S | 18.9 | 793.7 | -- |
| Pirelli Scorpion All Terrain Plus | 18.8 | 797.9 | -.5% |
| *Our evaluation used Race Technology DL1 data loggers to record true distance travelled. | |||
Fuel economy figures are very close for this group of products, with a negligible .2 mile per gallon difference across the four tires. This difference would result in an additional 8.4 gallons of premium gasoline used per year for a vehicle driven 15,000 miles annually.
It’s important to note our test’s fuel consumption measurements follow consistent procedures designed to minimize variables that could influence the results; however, they do not represent an exhaustive long-range fuel consumption study. While our procedures require the test vehicles in each convoy to run under the same prevailing conditions, the week-to-week differences in ambient temperatures, barometric pressures and wind speeds that we experience over a season of testing can influence vehicle fuel consumption and prevent the absolute mpg values of this test from being compared directly against those of others.
Larger differences in consumption between tires may indicate a difference that might be experienced on the road, while smaller differences should be considered equivalent. As they say, your mileage may vary.
For a group of tires designed to have the durability and capability to tackle real-world off-road conditions, these four are all commendably civilized while performing the daily tasks that will represent most, if not all, of the use they see throughout their lives.
The Continental TerrainContact A/T is remarkably talented. Test-leading wet traction is a highlight, and the ride, steering and light handling effectively eliminate much of the unwieldy nature inherent to large, body-on-frame vehicles. Winter traction is definitely not this tire’s strong suit, however. Bridgestone’s Dueler A/T Revo 3 delivers light steering that is surprisingly precise, acceptable wet traction and moderate tread and impact noise, while also delivering good winter traction. The Cooper Discoverer AT3 4S feels like a traditional truck tire in many ways. The steering is satisfactory, though a little vague, with slightly delayed response to inputs, and while the ride is supple, it suffers from some excessive secondary motion after impacts. Wet traction is likely sufficient for daily use, and winter traction is good. The Pirelli Scorpion All Terrain Plus has fast, direct steering that adds a sense of urgency to the vehicle’s reflexes, but it would benefit from some additional feel and required effort. The independent blocks of the Pirelli’s moderately aggressive tread pattern interact with the road to create a variety of tones that are always noticeable inside the cabin, and drivers may detect some slippage in the wet when pulling away from a stop or making an abrupt maneuver. Winter traction is reasonable, if not test-leading.
Need help choosing the right products for your vehicle? Our team of highly trained experts has the knowledge and passion to help. Just pick up the phone and give us a ring. Or let's chat via email. We love solving problems and lending a hand (or an ear).
Contact Us