The Firestone Destination AT2 is an all-terrain tire designed for crossovers, SUVs, and light trucks. The tire is branded with a 3-peak mountain snowflake rating because of its numerous sipes, which also makes it one of the top ones out there for wet traction.
Being a tire engineer, from my perspective, the Firestone Destination AT2 is the most fuel-efficient tire you can get. The tire features a very functional tread compound with silica and Kevlar composition, and this produces a very small amount of rolling resistance values, which results in less fuel being consumed. But with enhanced fuel economy, you would have to compromise a little on its dry grip, though it’s still satisfactory. Its wet grip is pretty solid, as is its winter traction, which you can guess as it carries a 3-peak mountain snowflake rating.
By the way, if you’re exploring AT tires for your specific needs, I’ve got a perfect place for you to start: https://tiredriver.com/all-terrain-tires/
Info on Sizes
The Firestone Destination AT2 comes in 16 to 20-inch wheel diameter sizes.
And all of them are rated with M+S as well as 3PMSFR, providing you with all-season traction.
Moreover, all sizes have a 55k miles warranty as well.
Talking about speed rating, sizes are tagged with either S or T (from where you can guess, its grip is not going to impress). By the way, if you didn’t get it, you can understand speed rating in simple words.
The tire is very lightweight where the lightest size weighs just 29 lbs, and the heaviest is 45 lbs. That’s because the load ratings are quite low, staying in SL and XL (Standard and Extra Load).
Also, it’s worth reminding that all sizes have a UTQG of 540 A B, so you get average tread wear, a good traction rating (grade A), and a slightly lacking temperature rating. Though remember, these are on paper, and actual results with these tires differ.
Tread Appearance
The Firestone Destination AT2 gives you, just about the right amount of aggressiveness, suitable for its category of on-road oriented all-terrain tires.
The central part of the tire consists of 3 ribs, where the middlemost is continuous.
It has notches and several uncountable, I’d say, full-depth sipes, and although with its continuous design, it provides decent rubber to road exposure, the tire’s dry grip can still be improved.
The surrounding two ribs are identical, and here the blocks have notches facing the sides, and again a similar siping pattern is seen here.
All these ribs make conventional 4 circumferential channels, where each of them is almost equal in width, but the outer channels still have stone ejectors in them…
See if you can locate those ejectors.
Looking at the shoulder blocks, the Destination AT2 gives you a unique design.
These shoulder blocks again have full-depth siping, but here they get to be a little straightened up in comparison.
Also, these blocks are not staggered, but you can say each of them is serrated on its own.
And looking from the side, these shoulder blocks make a U-shaped design, as all blocks are joined together, and with this, the tire provides lateral stability.
And moving further, it offers sidewall lugs, which are okay I guess, as they don’t provide any good help off-road.
But I do am a fan of white lettering sidewalls, I’d give you that.
Durability
The durability of a tire is dependent on its internal architecture.
And the internal construction of the Firestone Destination AT2 tells us that it’s not made for rugged off-road terrains.
It consists of a 2-ply polyester casing having 2 wide steel belts on top, which is a norm with All Terrain tires. The cap ply consists of just a single ply of nylon, where mostly AT tires have two.
So although you get the standard 2-ply sidewalls, the overall construction of the tire is weaker.
Compare Firestone Destination AT2 with others
- Michelin LTX AT2
- BF Goodrich KO2
- Bridgestone Dueler AT Revo 3
- Cooper AT3
- Toyo AT3
- Hankook Dynapro AT2
Fuel Efficiency
The Firestone Destination AT2 provides the best in the business fuel economy.
Firestone always focuses on its fuel efficiency, and although it limits its dry grip a little bit, it provides you with the lowest rolling resistance values that you are going to find comparing other all-terrain tires, in its category.
My mpg tests with these tires really surprised me at first, I mean looking at its design, I wasn’t expecting them to outperform all others.
That’s why I decided to include this tire in my list of top A/T tires. See the list here: https://tiredriver.com/best-all-terrain-tires/
Comfort And Noise
The Firestone Destination AT2 offers a combination of various polymers in its tread which remove the stiffness from the tire and adds stretching abilities to it.
This way, the tire gets to be softer without losing too much to tread wear.
To put things into perspective, the most comfortable tire (in the AT category) is the Yokohama Geolandar G015 (review) and the Destination AT2 comes in as a close second.
But the softer the rubber gets, the more noise the tread makes. This is because silica-rich tread tends to resonate more, but the tire handles it by providing variable pitches on different areas of the tread.
As noise is just the flow of air, with variable pitch, the tread generates different sound waves on different parts, and they cancel out the amplitude of each other, providing you with a very silent tire.
Dry Road Performance
Dry tarmac is the only area where the Firestone Destination AT2 lacks, that’s why even though it’s on-road oriented, it still gives you a speed rating up to T.
Learn Speed Rating: https://tiredriver.com/speed-rating-on-tires/
On dry roads, the more the rubber meets the surface, the better, and although the Destination AT2 provides you with a continuous central rib, a lot of rubber contact patch is compromised because of the uncountable sipes and the notches.
The 4 longitudinal channels are also quite wider, and the surrounding ribs have larger lateral gaps in between.
All of these eat away the rubber that would have been in contact with the surface.
Moreover, the composition of the tread is designed in a way to lower the rolling resistance of the tire, that’s the reason the tire only comes in either XL or SL load ratings, and although as seen in the fuel efficiency section, it provides the best performance there, its dry grip is compromised.
Side Note: My favorite AT tire for dry handling is Pirelli Scorpion All Terrain Plus (review).
Wet Performance
Wet tarmacs are slightly tricky, as water is not compressible, so the only way to maintain traction there is to clear it off.
And a tire does it by providing efficient hydroplaning resistance, and wet grip.
So let’s go through them one by one.
Wet Grip
Where the tire compromised, I’d say a lot on dry tarmacs, it shines on wet roads, as it provides one of the best handling and braking performance values here, outperforming nearly all aggressive AT tires out there.
And it makes perfect sense when you consider the tire’s tread design.
It’s equipped with uncountable sipes through the tread. Its central rib having a continuous pattern is laced with 3D sipes which go all the way deep down to the tread’s bottom.
Hydroplaning
Hydroplaning, sometimes also called aquaplaning, is an undesirable driving condition where the tire starts to float over standing water, losing all its traction.
That’s why a good-on-wet-roads tire has to provide good enough “resistance” to hydroplaning, so it can have better float speeds (max speed before tire floats).
The Firestone Destination AT2 is one of the top-coming tires in this area. The tire creates very wide 4 circumferential channels where the outer two are interconnected with the shoulder gaps, providing a clear pathway for water to leave quickly.
Winter Traction
In order to achieve better winter traction, all-terrain tires are made to carry some features of winter tires.
These include:
- Having a softer compound, which is resistant to negative temperatures of winter environment.
- A lot of sipes, to provide a small scale grip on ice and snowy roads.
- Notches and grooves capable of trapping in the snow and providing traction with the grabbed snow-to-snow contact.
The Firestone Destination AT2 has all these features, that’s why it makes such a great winter tire, and that’s why the tire is graded with a 3-Peak Mountain Snowflake and M+S symbol, which shows its capability.
Besides having a softer rubber and numerous siping like a dedicated winter tire, the tire offers several biters and zigzag grooves which are very efficient in hanging on to the snow particles effectively.
For Your Info: The best budget pick having 3PMSF rating is Kenda Klever AT2 (review).
Wear Resistance
Tread wear of the tire depends a lot on weight and rolling resistance, and here the Firestone Destination AT2 is very considerable, as it comes in small load ratings, so it’s very light in weight.
And I have already discussed how it’s the most fuel-efficient tire, offering very low rolling resistant values.
But still, the tire has a softer rubber and with it
It comes with a 55k miles warranty.
For Your Info: Most capable AT tire for wear is General Grabber ATX (review).
Off-Road Performance
Off road not too much is expected form AT tires which are more aligned towards highway performance.
Nonetheless, the Firestone Destination AT2 is a different tire which is able to stun you on rugged terrains, though don’t expect the tire to perform like a RT.
Traction on Rocks
Rocky terrains itself include a lot of different areas, such as gravely roads, stones, dirt, big rocks and so on.
If I start with gravely roads filled with dirt, the Firestone Destination AT2 gives you a suspended performance.
It’s outer two longitudinal channels are filled with several arrow shaped stone ejectors (see in the tread’s design section).
All these make sure, no stone gets lodged in.
Moreover, the cut resistant rubber also ensures the tread stays intact and is not chipped away.
On bigger rocks, although the tire does not offer bulky sidewall lugs, its still offers connected ribs which look like an alphabet U.
These ensure the tire’s lateral traction stays on top.
Lastly, the durability of the tire is also average, not so good, not bad either, so light encounters with unwanted sharp objects can still be handled by this tire.
My go to tire for rocks: Nitto Ridge Grappler (review).
Sandy Dunes
On sand you need a light weight tire which digs less and moves forward more. And Destination AT2 does exactly that.
With the tire sizes coming in just XL and SL load ranges, the overall tire’s weight remains low. Moreover, with less sharpness overall on the edges, the digging factor is minimized.
Mud Performance
AT tires perform poorly on mud. And having said that the Firestone Destination AT2 still provides better efficacy compared to other on road oriented AT tires out there.
It’s wider channels are very good at cleaning the light mud off, where the arrow shaped stone ejectors ensure the dirt particles don’t get lodged in the tread.
The tire also focuses less on the digging and more on the forward motion, which is also preferable on this terrain just like on sand.
So What’s the verdict?
Well when it comes to Firestone Destination AT2, the tire provides a very decent on road performance. But then again they are very less aggressive, especially, on the shoulders and sidewalls.
And yes, there are not too protected too, so you are not going to get the confidence with them if you dare to take them on rugged terrains.
On snow however, the tire is pretty impressive and it makes sense why it’s branded with 3 peak mountain snowflake rating.
Getting some this week. Think I made the right choice. Thank you