Toyo Open Country M/T being a mud-terrain tire accomplishes so much more off road compared to aggressive A/Ts. And besides taking on severe conditions, the tire also offers a good enough ride on road, that meets your expectations.
Being a tire engineer, in my opinion, the Toyo designed it’s Open Country MT with powerful off road performance in mind. So the tire offers a great bite on rocks and mud. But that does not mean it compromises on pavements, as it’s dry grip is pretty stable with it’s firm rubber layer. But this rigid layer causes issues in the wet areas where larger braking distances and less lateral traction is seen. And yes the comfort also gets compromised a little bit as well, but the tire’s isn’t too loud.
Table of Contents
Tire sizes:
The Toyo Open Country M/T comes in 15 to 26 inches, where the speed ratings are average, staying in either P or Q.
Q is better and is most common with all other mud terrain tires.
Talking about load ranges, there’s no compromise there as the tire sizes get to have C, D, E and F.
That’s why weight also increases considerably, as it goes from 52 lbs to 110 lbs (very heavy for even a MT).
All sizes get to have tread depth between 18/32″ and 21/32″ where mostly they are popular with 17/32″ and 21/32″, which is good enough.
Lastly there is no mileage warranty with these tires, and also none get 3PMSF rating but they do have M+S.
Tread Features
Toyo Open Country M/T although may look like an average MT, on a closer inspection things start to look different.
Let’s start off from the shoulders, where it offers elongated lugs which on corners (towards middle area) are wrapped with sharp central lugs.
These shoulder lugs are staggered but they make just an average sidewall design which is not very capable of performance when aired down.
(see its sides on the image all the way above).
That’s because its lugs don’t offer significant footprint, which is highly needed for traction.
Moving on, all blocks have rectilinear sipes, and between each block there are prominent stone ejectors.
In the middle the tire makes sharper ribs, with slightly more interlocking siping pattern.
Here the sharp lugs provide the needed bite.
And, overall these ribs make 3 tough passing vertical grooves which are very much optimized for as little compromise possible in both on and off road worlds.
Durability:
On rugged terrains, the weakest part of the tire is on it’s sides, so a strong construction has to be made to protect them.
And the Toyo Open Country M/T is as strong as it gets. It give you 3 ply polyester casing, so you get 3 ply sidewalls which is the gold standard for durability.
This casing gets covered with 2 steel belts which further adds reinforcements.
And then these are layered more with 2 cap plies of nylon, on which the tire’s thick rubber sits.
So, its safe to say, the tire is pretty solid. Take them anywhere without a worry.
For Your Info: The best all rounder M/T tire is BF Goodrich KM3 (review).
Dry Performance
On dry pavements there are few things to account.
One is the tire’s traction (which is further divided in to grip and handling), and other has to do with stability, and third with the steering response.
Let’s check them all out one after another.
Steering Response:
Being a heavier MT, the steering response suffers a little bit as the tire’s creates a lag between the input you give and the output received from the wheels.
But still compared to other MTs it’s not so bad after all, but this goes for only dry, (I’ll talk about it’s wet performance later).
The 3 ply construction makes steering harder, sure, but the tire’s stiffer compound combined with it’s slightly closed up lugs (compared to other MTs) still provide somewhat better communication.
Traction on dry roads:
Grip also has a lot to do with tread to road exposure, and Toyo MT offers ample meeting area (compared to other M/Ts).
The interlocking central ribs which are wrapped around the shoulders offer good dry grip, so the tire offers better braking on straight path.
But with wider shoulders the same can’t be said about handling.
Handling is actually a bigger part of overall traction (the other being grip).
And when handling is considered, the shoulders are considered as most of the tire weight is on shoulder the the tire rolls on curves.
So this tire with a heavier make understeers a lot, and with wider gaps here, the cornering grip is also limited.
But the tire still provides a good lateral stability, thanks to it’s stiffer make.
Wet Performance:
Wet performance is divided in to 2 areas, where one is the tire’s overall architecture, and the other is the wet grip which depends siping a lot.
And yes, there’s hydroplaning too, which I’ll discuss at the end.
Wet Traction:
Let me save you some time. The Toyo Open Country M/T is not going to impress you on wet roads. The tire tends to slip.
On corners, you will face understeering first, which quickly changes to oversteering.
The understeering is due to the tire’s weight and over, is due to the tire’s stiffness and minimal siping.
Siping on this tire is not enough but that’s understandable as it’s MT, but it’s not as flexible as others are, and although this improves on road handling, in dry conditions, it limits wet performance by a lot of margin.
But at least the tire is good enough in hydroplaning, which is also significant for wet traction.
Hydroplaning:
Hydroplaning is when a tire floats on a standing water, and it’s very dangerous. That’s why grooves are made, so that the water can escape.
Now there is no deficiency of grooves on Toyo MT, we all know that, so the tire provides good enough path for water to leave.
But is it better compared to other options out there?
Well, it’s just average, nothing fancy, you see, the tire’s rigid tread does not allow pressure cleaning of water.
It’s central lugs are also more tightly packed and water over there would have a hard time get in and out of the tire, and tire’s being stiff here does not help at all.
Snow Performance:
Toyo MT is not 3 peak mountain snowflake rated but the tire still performs okay in deep snow, where it’s lugs swoop the snow out and backwards, and it’s notches in the middle hold on to the snow to make snow to snow contact.
But if you are facing snow most of your time, and you need a MT, my advice look for something else.
The tire’s tread gets very hard for snow, and anything light, or where there is hard packed snow, this tire won’t be able to grip too well.
And this especially goes for ice, where it stiffens up like a rock and shows almost no traction.
Performance on Rocks
The Toyo Open Country MT although is great for gripping form the middle and shoulders, it does not offers aggressive sidewall biters.
So with airing these tires down, you are not going to achieve too much.
But still the traction is ample and is not going to disappoint as much, but you can find a better tire for rocks in the MT category.
For Your Info: Best tire for rocks is Cooper STT Pro (review), in the M/T category of course.
Muddy Terrain Performance:
Mud requires efficient self cleaning and its one of the toughest terrains ever, and its the main reason why these tires re here.
The Toyo MT is great here overall as it offer clear pathway for mud to leave.
But compared to other premium options out there, the tire does not provide as much grip here.
That’s because it’s sidewall lugs are not great mud scoopers, and its weight digs in more (which has to be avoided on this terrain).
Tread Wear:
When it comes to tread’s life the MTs are notorious for being not so great. That’s because they weight a lot and their softer compound wears off faster.
Now the Toyo Open Country MT weighs a lot no doubt about it. But the tire is still somewhat saved with it’s stiffer compound, which is also cut/chip resistance.
Moreover, with tread depth reaching above 20/32″, the tire takes a while to burn off.
So, it’s tread is great for both on and off road use.
Also, this tire does not offer any kind of tread wear warranty.
For Your Info: Best tire for tread wear in M/T category is Pro Comp Xtreme MT2 (Review).
Ride Quality:
The more aggressive the tire gets, the more it limits its comfort. That’s why MT tires are no popular for their comfort capability.
But still companies try their best so users compromise as little as possible on roads.
Here the overall ridge quality depends on the tire’s ability to bring comfort, and tread noise. Let’s discuss them both.
Comfort:
Comfort is the tire’s ability to soak up bumps.
So here the the tire’s architecture is taken in to account.
For example if the tire is soft, the bumps would get dampened in tread nicely, if it’s stiff, that’s not going to happen.
The Toyo Open Country MT is rigid, and it’s 3 ply construction is not helping, so the tire is bumpy. It’s best to keep pressure values a little lower for best efficacy.
Tread Noise:
Luckily the tire is better in this section, as it offers variable pitch technology where various ribs angles dampen the sound waves.
Most of the sound/noise (which is just air) comes from shoulders, and here the slanted lugs provides a very streamlined path for sound to get diminished off nicely.
But keep in mind these tires are going to get slightly louder after 10k miles, but all MTs do.
For Your Info: Best tire for tread noise in M/Ts is Falken Wildpeak M/T (review).
Lastly, leave with this:
The Toyo Open Country MT is a confusing tire on wet as it does not provide enough lateral stability there as the tire severely lacks in overall siping and tread’s flexibility.
But on dry the tire is pretty great, in all departments, where you may have to compromise slightly while cornering (understeering issue), but only if you are going with E or F rated tries.
Similarly off road the tire is okay, but nothing impressive.
So overall it’s okay for daily driving on dry roads, especially if you get smaller load rated tires.
