Federal Couragia M/T serves the intention of severe off road usage as it’s a mud-terrain tire. The tire is pretty underrated for what its capable off. It check all boxes of performance area and meets your expectations. Let’s dig in!
Being a tire engineer, in my opinion, the Federal Couragia M/T is an extreme mud tire intended for use by the serious off road driver who crave rugged terrains. The tire is all about off road, and can’t be expected to perform well on roads, though it’s manageable, as it construction does not make it too heavy and so the has the capabilities of reaching up to Q, in speed rating like regular mud tires.
Table of Contents
Durability
On off road tires, the sidewalls is always a concern, as it’s the weakest as mostly only polyester casing is protecting it form inside.
The good thing about Federal Couragia M/T is that the tire offer you with 3 ply polyester casing, so you get 3 ply sidewalls which is the average durability seen in all these tires.
Anything more than this is mostly overkill, and it only increases the tires weight which in return decreases on road performance.
This polyester cover then gets layered with 2 steel belts, and these belts are reinforced with 2 cap plies of nylon, (on which the tire’s thick rubber sits).
So overall the tire is pretty solid.
Available Tire sizes
Speaking of sizes availability, they are offers between 15 to 24 inches (wheel diameter).
But sizes are quite limited. This is because you’ll only find a single size in 24 and 22 inches, 40×15.50R24 and 40×15.50R22 respectively where there aren’t too many in other as well.
Speaking of speed almost all sizes get to have Q (which is a norm with all of these mud-terrain tires), but its a good thing that all sizes, well except for one
This is because you’ll only find a single, in 24 inches, as well as (LT275/65R18 which has P rating), get to have average speed rating.
If I talk load ranges, all its sizes either give you C, D or E.
So weight is also not kept too high, as the lowest is seen to be 37 lbs while the heaviest size weighs about 77 lbs.
Lastly, talking about tread depth, the Federal Couragia M/T offers 19 to 21/32″, where you’ll see that most of the sizes have 19/32″, which is a decent tread depth, not a lot though, just average (it matters because the tread depth affects a lot of areas, including comfort and tread wear).
For Your Info: Best all rounder MT tire is BF Goodrich KM3 (review).
Tread Features
The Federal Couragia M/T offers a very rugged design.
It’s tread features are very bold and self explanatory.
The central most grooves are made by blocks with full depth notches facing each other, and instead of siping, they get to have deep cuts on the outer edges.
Similar cuts are seen on the shoulder blocks which are again very bold with wild gaps in between.
These gaps are engraved with very bold stone ejectors.
Looking at the tread, you get to know one thing for sure, they are built for the most rugged terrains out there.
And they are exactly that, you can take them anywhere and they will crawl their way out without any trouble.
But still let’s discuss it’s on road performance, as aggressive or not, you still have to go through highways.
On Road Performance:
Roads and pavements are usually not so great on mud tires, especially when things go super extreme like in the case of Federal Couragia M/T.
But still the tire manages to pull off in steering response and traction overall. Let’s discuss them both.
For Your Info: Best tire for rocks is Cooper STT Pro (review), in the M/T category of course.
Steering Response
Luckily, as the steering response of the tire highly depends on the inner construction and lugs make-up, and this tire isn’t so bad after all.
I mean sure you feel these tires, but with light weight they still don’t understeer as much as other average mud terrain tires do.
This has to do with the tire’s minimal tread features offering more rubber to pavement contact, that results in quicker communication between the steering input and the wheel’s response.
Traction on dry roads
In case of dry grip, the tire’s contact with the surface matters a lot, and the Couragia MT clearly doesn’t offer too much of that.
But with a lot of biters and the softer rubber, the tire is still able to grip okay on dry roads.
Limited grip is only felt during braking as with less grip, the braking distances increases. But it’s just a little part of the overall equation, where most of the affecting area of traction is handling.
Let’s check it out.
Dry highway Handling
When it comes to handling (on dry roads), the tire’s sides come in to action, that’s because when a tire moves on turns, most of its pressure gets on the shoulders.
In other words, the sides make the most contact with the pavement, it’s cornering on.
Now, the good thing about Federal Couragia M/T is that, it makes a decent rubber to surface contact on sides, as it’s tread blocks there have very minimal tread features.
So, although a lot of area gets compromised with wider grooves, the tire still makes a decent contact with it.
So handling is still not too bad.
Wet Performance
On wet roads there are two things highly critical, first the siping and the second, the overall tread’s composition. Both of these are used to access the tires ability to corner, and brake on wet roads.
Water evacuation is also crucial here, we along with those factors we are also going to see the tire’s hydroplaning resistance.
Wet Traction
The Federal Couragia M/T offers a softer rubber and has a nice stretchability to it, but the tire lacks a lot with it’s very limited wet biters.
The tire offers no sipes, and the small notches can only do so much, so most of the work is done with evacuation so here hydroplaning has a huge roll to play.
But other than that, these tires are dangerous for wet roads.
Hydroplaning
Hydroplaning is when a tire floats on water and its a significant area of wet traction which is often underrated.
In order to avoid it grooves exists. And looking at Couragia M/T we can see that the tire is pretty bald, so no issues there for water to leave.
That’s why this tire can achieve good float speeds overall (given it’s extreme design).
Float speed for those of you who don’t know is just the maximum speed with which a tire can move over standing water without floating.
Tread Wear
When it comes to tread wear the tire’s rubber and weight has a huge role to play.
The Federal Couragia M/T offers you soaking overall make up which is soft and prone to wear (especially on highway, as off road the tire sill deals with it with it’s chip resistant rubber.
(In other words the tire does better in terms of tread wear off road than on pavements).
On highways, the softer rubber layer of this tire rubs against the surface with more force (with the tire’s heavy weight) and so lot of rolling resistance is produced.
And rolling resistance is directly proportional to wear, especially they ones which are soft.
Softer rubber although sticks better off road, they are not suitable for wear so the tire manufactures have to find a balance between both and in this case the Federal’s main focus is off road.
So its not a surprise that you don’t get any warranty with this tire.
For Your Info: Best tire for tread wear in M/T category is Pro Comp Xtreme MT2 (Review).
Ride Quality
Being extreme off roader, it’s design isn’t refined enough to provide a comfortable ride. Sure the tire offers a softer rubber which absorbs the bumps, the aggressive groove pattern of the tire itself gives you a bumpy ride, where there’s also a wobbling sound with it.
With such massive shoulder grooves, noise is very hard to minimize too, as noise is just air particles hitting the tread and such wider grooves provide a lot of real estate for the air particles to come in and hit with full force.
By the way, the quietest tire in the mud terrain category is Falken Wildpeak M/T (review).
Snow Performance
Couragia M/T is not 3 peak mountain snowflake rated but the tire still does okay with deeper terrains, as where it’s central lugs are very effective.
These biters in between, which make circumferential (middle most) channel, trap in the snow particles and are able to make snow to snow contact (which yields greater friction, and hence grip).
While with wide shoulder tread voids, the excess snow is able to leave out with ease, and traction is kept enhanced at all times.
Off Road Traction
Off road things get interesting for this tire, as it offers everything a tire needs to handle all types of terrains.
And although there are many terrains to test these tires out on, the most famous ones include rocks, mud, and sand, so let’s talk about those.
Rock Traction
On rocks, the Federal Couragia M/T offers a very nice gripping in all directions.
It’s massive shoulder lugs chew on rocks and provide ample lateral traction, and aiding to that the central lugs, with notches everywhere, hold on to the surface very tightly.
The tire outer sidewall lugs also come in to action when you air down the tires to a lower PSI values, and they provide you with a huge gripping power, and confidence inspiring climbing abilities.
Overall, this tire provides you with the best possible traction you can get on rocky terrains.
For Your Info: Best MT for rocks is Cooper Discoverer STT Pro (review)
Sand Traction
Sand although is a very difficult terrain, it’s not a problem for this tire. I am personally pretty impressed by what it can do.
Federal Couragia M/T features lugs which are very gripping on this terrain, as this tire has all the key ingredients needed for traction.
It’s rubber layer on top is silica rich and soft and the tread voids it makes aren’t too deep.
Both these things actually improve the tire’s area in contact with the sand, and that’s what you need. That’s why tire’s are aired down to a lower pressure.
Speaking of which, you can actually go pretty low in terms of pressure (although it’s not recommended), basically the point I am trying to make, is that it provides you with powerful rim locks, so even if you are stuck in sand, you can further lower the pressure without worrying about the bead falling off.
Mud Performance
Its going to seem very odd, when I’ll tell you that the Federal Couragia M/T is just an average tire for mud.
Don’t get me wrong the tire is pretty great, but compared to other premium options out there, it’s performance is not going to impress.
That’s because this tire does not offer scooping lugs (this goes for the middle part of the tread) instead there is a central longitudinal groove in the middle which doesn’t do anything for the mud.
On mud you need lugs which can scoop thick mud backwards which pushes the tire forward. But the Couragia M/T does not provide that in the middle.
Nonetheless, that action is still achieved by its staggered shoulders and thick sides which gets the tire out even when it’s aired down deep in mud.
To Conclude
The Federal Couragia M/T is a very powerful off road tire that does not disappoint on any kind of rugged terrain.
And its a surprise to see that these tire s are still able to perform okay on dry roads.
But they are very poor on wet roads, so it’s advice not to run them with traction control off.
Also these tires are no so good with fuel efficiency and the tread wear, and same goes for icy roads and hard packed snow.
But despite not having been rated with 3 peak mountain snowflake rating, these tires are still capable of taking on to deeper snow.
