Goodyear Wrangler Workhorse AT is an all terrain tire which is a popular choice on Cadillac Escalade and Jeep Wrangler. The tire offers exceptional rock crawling and also does great on snow with it’s 3 peak mountain snowflake rating.
Being a tire engineer, in my opinion, the Goodyear Workhorse AT with the placement of large tread blocks which runs in pairs, offers a very decent rubber to road contact which provides decent grip in dry, while the tire’s full depth sipes ensures its frictions stays in tact in wet conditions. The horse shoe shaped blocks with notches provides necessary biting off road as well and they are design ed in a way to trap in the snow to enhance traction there.
Tire classification
Goodyear Workhorse AT provides you with average number of sizes, going from 16 to 22″.
All sizes have UTQG ratings of 580 B B (which is slightly below average but understandable as the tire is quite aggressive).
There is no compromise on the speed rating however, where you get up to H, where other sizes are also seen with R, S and T.
Learn more about speed ratings: https://tiredriver.com/speed-rating-on-tires/
Speaking of load ratings, they are seen in SL, XL, D or E (that’s it there aren’t others available).
The weight of the tire ranges from 29 to 53 lbs, which tells us that the tire is very light in weight.
Speaking of tread depth, half of the sizes are seen with 12/32″ and half with 15/32″ where one is also seen with 16/32″ (LT 215/85R16)
and all of them are 3PMSF and M+S rated.
Tread Features
Goodyear Wrangler Workhorse AT, although makes an aggressive overall design, it’s a little a closed up. Let’s start things with the middle.
All of its blocks here make 4 longitudinal channels, where the the outer two are wider, but the inner two have a lot of curves and sharp edges to them.
With the irregular placement of the central blocks the tire also interconnect these grooves laterally.
All it’s tread blocks (on all 3 ribs) provide a similar design (which look like a horse shoe), they have notches in them along with 3D sipes (which go all the way deep).
The tire also carry alot of features from Goodyear Duratrac, like it offers mini tread blocks inside the grooves (which GY calls Tractive groove technology).
All ribs also have reinforced foundations underneath as well.
If we move towards the shoulders, the blocks are although not staggered they still make sharp outer edges (scroll to the top of the page to see the image).
These shoulder blocks have connectors in between and other than that, they carry notches (like seen on other blocks) and sipes, with a slightly different design.
Compare Goodyear Workhorse A/T With Others
Durability
The tire’s light weight is explained by it’s durability, which depends on the tire’s inner construction.
The tire offers a 2 ply polyester casing with has 2 wide steel belts on top.
Mostly AT tires also have nylon caps on top of those steel belts, but this tire does not offer with any.
So, although with that the durability is compromised, the tire also reduces a lot of it’s weight which improves it’s steering response on roads.
Mileage
The Goodyear Workhorse AT provides you with a very good overall mileage. The tire’s computer optimized tread pattern ensures it wears off evenly from all sides.
And without any cap plies, the tire becomes one of the lightest AT rugged tire that you can get.
So with less weight very smaller values of rolling resistance is generated.
Moreover, the tire also offers up to 15/32″ of tread depth on top of it all, which takes longer to burn off.
Personally I am really impressed by the tire resistance to tread wear.
With this tire Goodyear offers a warranty of 50k miles for all it’s sizes.
Highway Traction
When it comes to AT tires, some get to be more aligned towards on road comfort and traction, while others focus on performing on tougher terrains.
On highways, the tire’s responsiveness, grip and handling capabilities are the most crucial which gives you an idea of where the tire lies. Let’s talk them all.
Communication Response
Overall, the Goodyear Workhorse AT offers a responsive design overall. Although the tire lacks slightly in the directional grip, it’s lateral traction on dry roads is ample.
In other words, the tire is vocal enough to produces fast feedback, as it’s joined up shoulder blocks provide a good balance between the tread rigidity and sponginess.
Dry Traction
Dry traction is basically a combination of two things, grip and cornering.
The tire’s grip is measured by seeing how long it takes to stop when full brakes are applied (at a specified speed), while the handling depends on the lateral traction.
In case of Goodyear Workhorse, although the tire provides a closed up rib in the middle area which offers a good directional stability.
Although the spongy rubber blocks work against grip, the strengthening rubber supports underneath the blocks ensures that grip stays firm (its tread is actually made out of dual compound).
So overall grip is not going to be an issue with this tire.
Dry traction is a mixture of tire’s grip and handling. Let’s talk grip first.
If we talk handling, that’s even better.
Handling of a tire is basically how well the tire corners, and over there the tire’s sides meet the pavement the most.
The Goodyear Workhorse AT offers a closed up design here where all blocks have connectors in between. So with them joined together, a good enough rigidity is provided whist the tread doesn’t become too hard because of it’s lighter tread.
And as a result you get great handling times (compared to other equally aggressive A/Ts).
Wet Pavement Traction
In wet conditions always be aware of a few things, check if the tire has enough siping for one, and also ensure the type of tread the tire has, what’s its texture like.
Both of these play an important role in overall wet traction of a tire.
Wet Grip
The Goodyear Workhorse offer a nice combination of soaking tread compound and siping, which are the two main key ingredients when it comes to gripping on wet tarmacs.
The tire offers a new gen compound consisting of good silica density along with few more polymers and all these provide the tread ribs with flexibility to move easily.
So sipes, the slits you see clear water off by contracting and sucking water in, and this way the grip is made.
For Your Info: Most suitable tire in AT category for wet traction is Falken Wildpeak AT3w, review it here:
https://tiredriver.com/falken-wildpeak-at3w-review/
Hydroplaning
Hydroplaning, also called aquaplaning is the phenomena of tire floating on water. So in order to tackle this, the tire must have massive grooves from where the in-compressible water can leave out.
And so the tire’s “resistance” to hydroplaning is calculated by measuring the float speeds (which tells how fast a tire can go over water without floating).
Now Recon Grappler provides you with ample channels for water to escape through, so it shows no problem.
There are 3 main channels which helps this tire achieve good enough float speeds, two of those are the ones which divide the central ribs from the shoulders, while the rest is the lateral one which joins these circumferential outer channels.
So water get a clear pathway to get escaped from the tire.
Tread Noise
On road noise is a key component of overall ride quality, and as the tires are getting better day by day, it’s now demanded more than ever.
That’s why all tires have variable pitched blocks.
Basically noise is just air which comes in and goes out of the tire with pressure (which is due to tire’s weight).
What tire companies do is they vary the sizes of the tread blocks slightly, so each block produces a different tone.
This is actually called pitch sequencing which is very significant for on road quietness.
Winter Capabilities
Winter traction depends on the tire’s capability of forward momentum, cornering ability and braking response on both deep and slick on road snow, as well as ice.
Goodyear Workhorse AT offers peak mountain snowflake rating (3PMSFR), which tells us that its great in terms of acceleration (which is what this test is).
The tire for one is rounded so more of it’s pressure is put in the middle.
It’s softer rubber is also prone to getting stiff even with freezing temperatures exposure.
Rocky Areas
Goodyear Workhorse AT offers horse shoe shaped lugs. These lugs biters give them this shape.
And with these biters looking in all direction, the tire is actually able to grab in each direction.
This is crucial for rock climbing, as the tire needs grip from all sides.
The tire also offers softer lugs with supporting rubber layer beneath, so these lugs stick on the rocks and don’t break apart.
Speaking of which, all these rubs have special composition which makes them cut resistance, so you can even go at higher speeds on sharp gravely roads.
Muddy Areas
Goodyear Workhorse AT is not mud friendly, though it can still be driver on lighter muddy terrains.
Basically the tire offers mini ridges installed within the grooves, and on lighter terrains, these break apart the particles in to smaller pieces, so they can move out easily.
But this can’t happen with thicker mud as the tire is not bald enough for faster evacuation of this thick terrain.
Sand
On sand you need a light weight tire, which has soft sides that would not dig in, and focus more on forward momentum.
And Goodyear Workhorse AT does exactly that, the tire is one of the lightest you can find, so and with a ton of footprint, it gets on top of my list of best tires for sand.
Ending Note
Goodyear Workhorse AT is a good all rounder tire, which offers one of the best steering response on highways. This has to do with it’s being so light.
The heaviest size of the tire is just above 50 lbs, most of the AT tires start from there.
So with that the tire does great on sand, and climbing rocks (where gravity doesn’t work against it too much).
And at the same time the biters everywhere help this tire with traction further.
These several biters also earn this tire with 3 peak mountain snowflake rating symbol.
