If you don’t know who Interco Tire is then we bet you know their most famous tires. Anyone who has ever dreamed of driving off road is familiar with Super Swampers. Interco does make more than one tire and we are currently testing and reviewing their TrXus MT tires.
Tire reviews are hard things to quantify and make relevant. In order to accurately describe how something handles you need a frame of reference. In this case we will use our most recently reviewed tire the Deegan 38from Mickey Thompson. Why are we using this tire for the comparison? The two tires care a common design idea with sipes on the tread to create a more versatile mud terrain.
Basics
This review is for a 37×12.5×17 Interco TrXus mud terrain tire. They measure smaller than the sidewall dimensions on the vehicle and because of the design the actual tread width is under 10 inches at 9.3. What this does is give you some extra space to play with between the tire and anything it might rub on while giving you the extra size of a 37. The TrXus tire is taller than the Deegan 38 but roughly half an inch less wide on the tread.
Noise
Mud terrain tires and quiet do not go together normally. These last two tires we have reviewed are aiming to change that by incorporating some AT and even all season technology into a traditional mud terrain.
The TrXus tire incorporates a stepped lug design, with siping on each individual lugs of the tire. There is a wide circumferential center groove that will move copious amount of mud, water, sand, and whatever else you may encounter out of the tires contact patch.
None of that of course talks anything about the noise levels. That’s because the wind passing over the front window of your Jeep will make more noise than these tires on your vehicle. If you are the type that wants people to “Hear you rolling” then these are the wrong tires for you.
Handling
The tires are made of a softer compound than expected, you can easily press the rubber in with your finger. It immediately rebounds to its former shape and consistency and no evidence is left that you did anything. What makes this important is how much grip the tires offer both on road and on surfaces like smooth rocks and gravel terrain.
This is not the off road review but we did run some gravel roads in Tennessee recently that really highlights the grip offered. Running tight twisty gravel roads up and down the side of the Smokey Mountains we never put a foot wrong, grip was as if we were running on pavement with only the slightest push when running really hard.
Those sipes and wide center groove also proved to be a great match to running in the rain. There was no degradation in grip except on the slipperiest of concrete surfaces and unlike many large mud tires we did not hydroplane once. Frankly that was a bit shocking and a very welcome surprise. These new designs incorporating features of all season and all terrain tires with the large mud terrain lugs are really paying dividends in making these a really good choice for everyday use.
Wrap Up
The one thing we can’t speak on is the overall longevity of the tires. We will revisit this after we put more time on the tires but so far with several thousand miles they are showing very little wear.
What we can unequivocally state is that these handle anything that you will find on road exceptionally well. From mountain switchbacks to droning down the highway they have handled it with astonishingly competent performance.
Update: A question was asked about balancing so I wanted to come back and add a little about that.
Large diameter tires are hard to mount, hard to balance, and well just plain hard to deal with. I used the same installer for the new TrXus as I did for the Deegan 38 tires to keep things consistent. He was very happy and thanked me for bringing a tire that was easier to work with and a lighter package to man handle on the changer. That pretty much speaks volumes about the differences to me. With 10 ply tread and 3 ply sidewall the TrXus is far more robust than the Deegan 38 7 and 2 ply respectively – yet it was easier and more pliable to deal with when mounting.
Balancing was also straight forward and the tires took less weight across the board than the Mickey Thompson we took off.
