Pirelli Scorpion All Terrain Plus and the Goodyear Duratrac are marketed as all terrain tires, but here Duratrac’s design tells another story. The tire is a hybrid, with a combination of aggressive MT’s shoulder blocks and AT’s central area, so with this, it’s able to take on more rugged off road challenges. Let me give you a clue on where they excel!
As a tire engineer, I believe that the Pirelli Scorpion All Terrain Plus is a more suitable tire for highway use in comparison, as it offers improved steering response and fuel economy, making it a practical choice for everyday driving. In contrast, the Goodyear Duratrac has a rugged design that is well-suited for off-road use and can handle tougher terrain, including mud. However, the Pirelli Scorpion is not as durable for these types of conditions, despite its aggressive appearance.
Detailed Review of Goodyear DuraTrac: https://tiredriver.com/goodyear-wrangler-duratrac-review/
Detailed Review of Pirelli All-Terrain Plus: https://tiredriver.com/pirelli-scorpion-all-terrain-plus-review/
Table of Contents
Tire Facts
Pirelli Scorpion AT Plus comes in 16 to 20 inches rim sizes with following specs.
- Load ratings: SL, XL, C, D and E.
- Weight range: 29 to 60 lbs.
- Speed ratings: R, S, T, and H.
- Tread depth range: 13 and 15.5/32″.
- Warranty: 50k miles.
Goodyear Duratrac Offers 15 to 22″ rim sizes. And they have following specs:
- Weight range: 35 to 68 lbs.
- Speed rating: Q, S, P, and T.
- Load ratings: SL, XL and C to F.
- Tread depth range: 16/32″ to 18/32″.
- Warranty: 50k for P metric sizes only.
Tread Appearance
The Goodyear Duratrac has some seriously impressive features that are worth considering for comparison.
On sides, the tread features “pairs” of shoulder lugs (joined by foundation rubber-supports from underneath), with massive voids surrounding them.
While these wider gaps don’t have traditional stone ejectors, they do have Goodyear’s Tractive Groove Technology, which are biters planted in the tread voids, doing a similar job.
These biters basically provide self cleaning and snow biting (see if you can find them, in the wider zigzag longitudinal grooves in the image).
These wider vertical tread voids clearly separate the smaller central lugs, which are squared off with zigzag edges for maximum chewing power.
(They are also joined together from beneath, just like the shoulder lugs).
Moreover, although in the image, blocks are not stud-able, the tire does offer them on its LT sizes (will update newer images, as I take them).
On the other side, with less aggressive design, the Pirelli Scorpion All Terrain Plus gives you “P” and “S” shaped blocks in the middle, which are intended to represent the initials for “Pirelli Scorpion”.
Although the “P” may appear more like a “J”, it does not matter, trust me, they are not for show.
These blocks have full depth interlocking 3D sipes and sharp edges, with twists and turns, that provide efficient biting abilities on various terrains.
The “S” shaped ribs in the very middle are designed in a way to maximize “directional” stability, while the others provide “lateral” bite.
Pirelli kept it’s rubber composition slightly softer (for winter traction purpose), and to keep its lugs stable, they strengthened them by foundational ridges (placed on sides).
Moving towards shoulders, the lugs are much smaller here, though they carry similar tread features of notches and siping.
And towards outer edges they make staggered shoulder lugs (barely), and good enough sidewall lugs for off-road bite (with lowered pressure, that is).
Wet Traction
On wet roads, things get different, and here there are two things to consider, grip and hydroplaning. Lets discuss them both.
Wet Grip
To grip on wet, you need to remove water coming underneath the lugs, and to do that, sipes are built.
These sipes provide slits which flex to create suction, soaking water in them, and allowing tire to have a firm contact with the surface.
Pirelli Scorpion All Terrain Plus although offers a lot of siping, it’s grip is still compromised with it’s stiffer composition, which doesn’t allow it’s sipes to have the “needed flexibility”.
The Goodyear Duratrac on the other side, provides softer, silica rich compound, and interlocking sipes throughout its tread, so its grip is a little better (which is great, as it’s a R/T tire we’re talking about).
Moreover, with balder design it features faster water evacuation, but that has to do with hydroplaning.
Hydroplaning
The balder the tire, the better the hydroplaning resistance. And so as the Goodyear Duratrac features very straight forward, and wider circumferential grooves joining the shoulder lugs prominently, water has no where to go, but out of the tread.
Pirelli Scorpion All Terrain Plus in comparison, although does not restrict the water flow as well, it’s closed up design is not as effective, still.
And less water removal means more water for sipes to clean off, so its another reason why it’s overall wet traction is limited, comparatively.
Dry Performance
The dry performance of the tire has to do with grip, and handling, along with stability. I’ve discussed them all below.
Dry Grip
Dry grip or directional grip is the rolling traction of a tire on a straight path. That’s why its calculated with braking distances and acceleration times.
So out of both tires, its pretty obvious why Pirelli Scorpion All Terrain Plus offers better performance values, as its “S” shaped lugs in the middle, surrounded with narrower tread voids, gets to meet up with the road more, comparatively, which naturally results in shorter stopping distances.
The Goodyear Duratrac on the other side, although offers closed up lugs in the middle as well, they are still wider in comparison, limiting overall grip.
Dry Handling
This is another part of grip and it tell how much lateral traction a tire produces on corners. And here shoulders/sidewalls are considered, as they get to meet up more while a tire turns.
Pirelli Scorpion All Terrain Plus again does a lot better here too, as it’s lugs are more packed up, allowing it to make a more consistent design with the surface its on.
The Goodyear Duratrac on the other side has wild tread voids, which eat away a lot of space, so its not able to produce ample contact during cornering.
Fuel Usage
Fuel economy may make a small difference at first, they can make a huge impact in a long run, as they technically can pay you back, if efficient enough.
And what affects it, is the tire’s weight and composition, that basically determines the overall rolling resistance values (which then correlates directly with fuel consumption).
In case of Pirelli Scorpion AT plus, the less overall weight of the tire (having thinner rubber layer), produces less pressure on it’s lugs, and so with that, they don’t rub off the surface they are on with too much force, keeping rolling resistance at bay.
In comparison, the Goodyear Duratrac, which has a higher silica density, that yields a stickier composition, and larger weight, gets to be less fuel efficient.
That’s why switching between the two, you are going to see an increment of 1 to 2 mpg.
Comfort and Noise
Ride comfort depends on these two factors. Lets talk noise first.
As the tire gets balder, it gets noisier, that’s almost a rule. That’s why with less groove voids, the Pirelli Scorpion AT plus is much more sound proof, its no surprise.
On the other side, the Goodyear Duratrac is actually one of the loudest tire you can get. That’s because as the tire rolls, the air pumps in and out of the tread, and most of that crosses through the shoulder gaps, and in this tire, the gaps are huge.
Air simply has a lot of real estate at hand, to move around anywhere it wants, and hit around with full force generating more noise pollution.
Though in case of comfort, which has to do with bumps absorption capabilities, DuraTrac is actually not so bad.
But still overall, the Pirelli Scorpion gets a better rating here, though it’s not that great compared to other A/T tires.
For Your Info: If comfort is the priority, go with D rated sizes, instead of E or F.
Winter Performance
Winter traction has a lot of variables, it includes grip, acceleration, lateral traction, stability, and all of these are judged on multiple terrains including ice, deeper and lighter snow, and so on.
But a little help is that both tires here are 3 Peak Mountain Snowflake rated (3pmsf), so this actually tell us that they are great in acceleration, as this symbol is only given to tires which offer 25% better acceleration times compared to average all season tires.
As for other areas, the Pirelli Scorpion does better with lighter terrains, where it’s S shaped lugs and surrounding ones with full depth notches and off set edges effectively bite in to the snow.
Whereas on deeper terrains, you need slightly balder tire, and Goodyear Duratrac is as bald as it gets in the A/T category, (at least on the paper).
And for ice, it also offers stud-able lugs (on only LT sizes), so you can improve traction further as well.
Tread Wear
Tread wear is a difficult subject, as there are a lot of variables involved, and I mean A LOT.
Though lets just ignore all of them, and just consider the significant ones to tell why Pirelli Scorpion AT Plus provides better tread life.
As I talked above, how this tire outputs lower rolling resistance levels, so this combined with it’s stiffer composition it’s making sense.
The Goodyear Wrangler Duratrac on the other side, with larger weight, and a stickier compound puts more pressure per block and it burns off with more force, resulting faster wear.
Though with larger tread depth the difference in the end is very low.
That’s why both tires come up with the tread wear warranty of 50k miles.
Performance Off-Road
I’ve decided to divide this section in to various terrains, let’s start with rocky terrain.
On Rocks
On rocks, durability is highly needed, but even though, both tires offer 2 ply sidewalls, the Wrangler Duratrac still at least offers thicker sidewalls.
With thicker sidewall basically, the tire offers better lateral traction capability, especially with lowered air pressure.
On the flip side, the Pirelli Scorpion AT Plus although offers good enough lugs on sides too, it’s less voided overall design is not capable enough in providing as big of a groove mouth to bite rocks, as the DuraTrac.
On Mud
Goodyear Duratrac with wider outer longitudinal grooves, is very quick in escaping the mud, if fact it’s one of the top performing ones (and that’s why, got ranked for it in my list of all terrain tires)
It basically has mud scoops which provide this tire with spoons, so they dig their way out, even when the tire is knee deep in mud.
It’s also not too heavy (with less plies in it’s construction), so the tire always focuses on moving forward.
Moreover, it’s mini tread biters (inside the grooves), breakdown the mud particles, so it can take on thicker terrains.
Pirelli Scorpion AT plus on the other side, with closed up design has no chance in comparison.
On Sand
On sand you need maximum floating and minimum digging, which is very bad for traction.
That’s why with lighter weight and closed up tread voids, the Pirelli Scorpion All-Terrain Plus provides better floating abilities (with lowered air pressure of course).
Goodyear Wrangler DuraTrac in comparison, has sharper sides, and although it’s tread is flexible (enhancing footprint), the lugs don’t allow as great of a forward momentum as Pirelli’s A/T.
Conclusion
Both tires offer some unique features that allow them to perform differently on various terrains.
On roads, the Pirelli does better with grip, steering feedback, noise and fuel economy, whereas Duratrac gives you good enough wet traction and comfort.
And off road, it rocks on almost all terrains expect for sand, where Pirelli Scorpion A/T Plus offers better climbing abilities.
