Mickey Thompson Baja Boss A/T Review

Mickey Thompson Baja Boss AT is a highly recommended tire designed for trucks, SUVs and Jeeps. The supposedly all terrain tire is going to take things to the next level as it’s changes everything. It’s rugged design offers a very powerful off road biting and it’s simply amazing to see such an aggressive tire being so calm on road.

As a tire designer, from my perspective, the Mickey Thompson Baja Boss A/T is very durable tire that does not compromise on highways, especially in wet conditions. It’s amazing snow abilities earns it 3PMSF rating, and it’s massive tread grooves, offer splendid performance when it comes to loose dirt, sand and even mud. And yes, on rocks the tire is a beast.

For Your Info: The company Mickey Thompson was owned by Cooper which was recently owned by Goodyear.

Durability

I am starting with durability, as it’s worth discussing. The Mickey Thompson Baja Boss A/T provides a very similar inner construction to KO2 which BFG says is their toughest tire ever.

Review BF Goodrich KO2 here.

In fact, I was confused when I was making this list of this top all terrain tires, as to which tire would get the best durability award.

Baja Boss AT contains 3 ply polyester casing, which provides the structural foundation for this tire. This casing than has 2 running belts on top made out of high strength cords, (they cover only the tread area).

All these 5 layers are then packed with nylon covering. And yes, worth reminding, the inner most casing of 3 ply polyester has 3rd layer made even more stronger with high density material.

Usually, such a tough construction is mostly seen on mud terrain tires (which are the most aggressive of all).

For Your Info: Non LT sizes of Baja Boss AT only have 2 ply sidewalls, compared to 3 on the rest.

Tread Appearance

Alright, let’s talk tread, as there are some interesting things happening over here. The Mickey Thompson Baja Boss A/T consists of 3 longitudinal channels which provide sufficient self cleaning grooves. All these grooves are laterally connected.

The tire forms an aggressive asymmetric pattern featuring unique blocks in the middle with biters every where. The slits in the blocks make them look like they are divided further but they are still part of a single rib.

Very aggressive random placement of siping is also seen on all these blocks, these are 3D, full depth and help this tire a lot lateral traction component especially on wet pavements (during handling).

On shoulder blocks even more stuff is going on. Here you see multiple stone ejectors making saw tooth shapes in the lateral grooves. And connected to these notched blocks are sidewall lugs, which in fact are the most aggressive I’ve seen on any AT tire.

Which brings us to why these tires are hybrid. As it’s outer area is much rugged compared to inner.

For Your Info: A hybrid tire is a mixture of two tires, mostly these tires have thicker lugs on sides like mud tires compared to closed up blocks placement in the center like AT tires.

Compare Mickey Baja Boss A/T with others

• Falken Wildpeak AT3w.
• Nitto Recon Grappler
• Cooper Rugged Trek
• Toyo Open Country AT3
• Nitto Ridge Grappler
• Falken Wildpeak RT
• Mickey Thompson Baja Legend EXP

Highway Performance

The tire’s aggressiveness compromises it’s on road response. But things are very different on Baja Boss AT. Given that the tire is rugged terrain, it’s performance is even better than some of the popular all terrain tires out there.

The tire does not disappoint in any aspect of performance, may it be dry traction, steering response or concerning stability.

By the way these the three main factors here I’m going to discuss.

Dry Traction

Dry traction when it comes to all terrain tires, isn’t too much of a concern mostly as there is a very negligible differences in the performance between these tires.

The Mickey Thompson Baja Boss AT provides you with a very strong grip with it’s numerous biters every where. It sticks on roads in a similar way, as it does on rocks, so no problem here.

Cornering Stability

When it comes to cornering, it’s mostly connected with the tire’s internal structure and the sides.

The tire provides a perfect combination of softness and stiffness here, and combined with it’s powerful side bitters, the tire cornering is very confidence inspiring.

The 3 ply sidewalls and it’s mud terrain variant’s lugs provide you with the toughness, meanwhile it’s snow-performance optimized rubber brings in a blend of softness, so you handle this tire like a pro.

Steering Response

When it came to dynamic response, I felt a slight need for improvement on Baja Boss AT.

Due to heavier weight of the tire, there is a slight delay between the steering input and the tire’s feedback.

During testing, I felt that the tire is more responsive on one direction than the other, it was a balancing issue, and let me tell you they are very hard to balance.

Wet Performance

Wet performance contains 3 parts which needs examining, one is the grip, then comes handling and lastly, there’s hydroplaning. Let’s talk about all of them one by one.

Wet Grip

Wet grip of a tire is highly dependent on siping. Most off road all terrain tires lack in siping limiting their gripping abilities.

As the tire rolls over, most of the water channels through the grooves, but still some of it left trapped under the lugs where siping come in to action. These sipes provide suction, clearing water underneath and improving grip.

The Mickey Thompson Baja Boss AT has a lot of things going on for it. There are numerous sipes which are very deep as the tread depth goes up to 18/32 and since sipes are full depth, they provide more suction to the water.

Then the tire has high silica content in it’s composition, which allows these sipes to flex more, so these again aid in creating a better suction enhancing friction with the highway contact.

Wet handling

The wet handling of this tire is also aided by the tire’s grip. So it’s also impressive, especially given the current market of tires we have.

The interlocking of it’s full depth sipes are to be credited here. These sipes especially on shoulders, provide very efficient clearing even on sharp turn. They expand at one end and contract on the other (depending on the dynamics), and provide very decent lateral traction.

Overall, the Mickey Thompson Baja Boss AT shows good wet dynamic response, but keep in mind that these tires are very prone to over-steering on corners.

Hydroplaning

Hydroplaning comes in to action on higher speeds, where the tire’s open shoulder voids provide great evacuation capabilities.

Water has no chance here. The network of grooves this tire makes very capable of self cleaning.

You can confidently ride this tire under pouring rain, the tire is simply very resistant to aquaplaning and shows up with decent float speeds.

Winter Performance

Like I talked about in durability, out of all the AT tires I reviewed, I was stuck with Mickey Thompson Baja Boss for a while. I wasn’t sure whether to rate them best for durability, or winter performance. By a very close margin the BF KO2 takes the upper hand in the durability so these tires got to be the best performer on snow instead.

The tire is by far the most effective (in terms of it’s category) on snow. It’s tagged with 3 Peak Mountain Snowflake rating and has everything in it that makes the tire great.

Lot of engineering went in to this tire. On snow, a tire has to be narrow enough to emphasis more pressure on the snow. This improves traction, that’s why only sizes having below 12.5 inches of section width gets to keep 3pmsf rating in case of Baja Boss AT. The rest don’t’.

The Baja Boss A/T also provides a softer compound with silica rich polymers, which act as a shield against harsh weather conditions on snow. This does not allow the tire to freeze up and loose traction.

For Your Info: If you want to understand this more, you can check out “Glass Transition Temperatures” of a tire and how different polymers aid a tire in winter traction.

And of course I talked about this in wet as well. The tire has great siping. They are 3D and they interlock with each other providing blocks with more flexibility. So these combined with groove notches, the tire is very good at packing snow in it’s deep grooves, improving traction, because snow sticks on snow.

Noise

Noise is something which is not going to impress too much on Mickey Thompson Baja Boss A/T. It’s not bad but it’s not good either.

But still the tire offers a very aggressive changes in the pattern which cut down the noise levels, as they provide variable pitches.

Noise comes from air, so in this tire, the air particles colliding the tread at various angles produce different sound waves which try to cancel out each other. So noise is dampened to some extent.

Comfort

The most comfortable all terrain tire is Yokohama Geolandar G015 (reviewed it here), and comparing with that, the Mickey Thompson Baja Boss AT inst too far off.

The tire’s softer compound isn’t just optimized for snow. It’s also mitigates bumps.

One more thing often overlooked in the comfort department is the tread depth. The more the depth of the tread, the more thicker is the rubber, and the more surface area for bumps to dissipate off.

This tire offers up to 18/32″, in fact, let’s talk about that in it’s sizes.

Side Note: The P metric sizes on Baja Boss A/T are relatively better in terms of road smoothness compared to LT.

Tire Sizes

Mickey Thompson Baja Boss AT provides 15 to 24 inches total sizes, where only one in 15 inches is available, and that is 235/75/R15.

The largest size, 24 inches has 2 sizes available; 35X15.50R24LT and 37X13.50R24LT, both have F load ratings with 18.5/32″ tread depth.

Most of the sizes by the way are available in the 20 inches.

The tire really impresses me with it’s Tread depth. It’s phenomenal, averaging about 18/32″ which is even more than Falken Wildpeak AT3w (review), on average.

Also note that the non LT sizes have 2 ply sidewalls, while the others have 3 ply durable ones. Due to the 3 ply sides, the tire weighs a little averaging on 64 pounds where it ranges from 36 to 87 lbs.

Tread Life

The Mickey Thompson Baja Boss A/T is not going to last as long as on road oriented all terrain tires, but the tire still provides you with a decent tread wear.

And in the end, it’s not just about the miles, it’s quality of those miles as well. To give you a ball park, these tires on average lasts about 40 to 50k miles taken both on and off road almost equally.

And this aligns with their warranty too as Mickey Thompson offers 50k miles warranty on LT sizes and 60k miles on the rest.

For Your Info: In terms of wear, I rated General Grabber A/TX the best. You can review this tire here;
https://tiredriver.com/general-grabber-atx-review/

Fuel Efficiency

With so much grip in these tires, they are not good at providing you with a impressive fuel economy. But that’s expected.

The multiple biters of the tire, softer rubber which glues on the ground, and 3 ply heavy inner construction’s weight, getting 12 mpg on E rated tires is still enough.

If you put a light foot on your pedal over these tires, you can manage to get up to 15 mpg as well.

For Your Info: Out of all terrain tires I reviewed, the best most fuel efficient is the Firestone Destination AT2.

Off Road Performance

Off road, Mickey Thompson Baja Boss A/T is the most impressive of all. This tire is game changer, I’m telling you. Besides ticking all boxes off road it provides very killer looks on your truck.

Dirt and Gravel

Dirt and Gravel is a expertise of Baja Boss A/T. The tire’s tread is very much optimized for it. It’s probably the only tires with so many stone ejectors.

If you count them, each shoulder blocks has like 7 on them. Dirt and Gravel have no where else to go.

The tires thicker lugs (in both aspects depth and width) scoop the dirt out of it way and maintains a stable traction.

Moreover, the softer rubber of the tire has polymers which also make it chip resistant, so that you can confidently move with confidence.

Sand Driving

When it comes to all terrain tires, most of them tend to dig in soft sand, and this is not good for traction as it does nothing for the circumferential traction. So mostly AT tires with less sharp edges do better.

Mickey Thompson Baja Boss AT does not provide ordinary staggered shoulder blocks, instead each blocks has biters at the end. So these provide a decent forward going momentum on sand and they don’t dig in as much.

The side biters of the tire also increases the footprint, as you almost exclusively air down the tire pressure on sand.

On Mud

Mickey Thompson Baja Boss A/T again slashes through the mud with ease where some aggressive all terrain or even rugged terrain tires won’t dare to go.

The multiple ejecting ridges in it’s tread remind me of tractive groove technology of Goodyear DuraTrac, where the tire offers mini tread version of blocks.

This helps break down the mud particles and it’s channels out.

And speaking of channeling, I don’t have to repeat about it’s tread depth, that and with wider grooves, the self clean its grooves quite effortlessly compared to other tires.

On Rocks

I’ve saved the best for last. For rocks my go to tire has always been the Nitto Ridge Grappler. But with these tires around, I’m not too sure anymore.

The Mickey Thompson Baja Boss AT provides you with a better reliability, in my experience. The tire provides you with all the ingredients which makes a tire, a great rock climber.

First off all, it’s composition which sticks as I already talked about, that keeps the friction on from all sides. And it’s numerous sipes which aid by interlocking, allow all lugs to flex on rocks, enhancing that friction.

And it’s 3 ply sidewalls which provide you with confidence inspiring drive, and yes, not to forget the rubber lugs covering the sidewalls, which gab and pull things under lower PSI tire pressure levels.

Take Home Points

The Mickey Thompson Baja Boss A/T is a great new all terrain, or should I say, hybrid tire in town. It’s really going to give others some tough time, especially when it comes to snow traction, as I’ve rated these tires best for it through my research.

Other than that, the durability of this tire is another plus point, where it got a close second compared to KO2. So off road, you can throw anything in front of these tires, and they will get out with no problem.

And on highways, given their tough design, they are still very impressive giving you with stable dynamic response and handling capabilities in both dry and wet conditions.