Ron Moon Product Test: FC-II
Dear Terry,
Over the years I've tested a lot of tyres on four wheel drive vehicles
and before we put words into print or form an opinion that's worthy of
holding any weight we've run most of them for 20,000km over a wide variety
of roads and terrain. So it was with this set of Mickey Thompson F-C II's
but the big difference for this 20,000km test was that we were heavily
loaded for the whole jaunt and more than 50% of the distance covered was
either on dirt roads, 4WD tracks or across country. It was the toughest
test of a set of tyres that I've ever done - bar none!
On the blacktop, which in Australia is normally coarse-chip bitumen, the F-C II's are quieter than any muddie around. They grip well on the blacktop, whether it is wet or dry, with little sign or feel of 'tram lining' and with handling that is commensurate of any 75% profile tyre. Under hard braking they are as good as the best of them.
But it was offroad, on dirt roads and 4WD tracks that the tyres excelled. We punished these tyres mercilessly for three months in all sorts of terrain from cross country jaunts in the desert, rock hopping in the Kimberley, mud and slop in the Gulf and stony trails in the Pilbara and the goldfields of WA to soft sand on the beaches of the North-West.
In sand the F-C II's performed extremely well, bagging and floating over the soft stuff with ease. In mud they performed reasonably well - better than a conventional AT tyre.
Checking the tyres when we got home I was surprised by the lack of chips and stone damage on the tread of the tyres and the lack of bits missing from the edge of the tread blocks. They had survived the 12,000km of rocks and dirt extremely well.
The rear tyre that had done the whole 20,000km of dirt and blacktop was down to about 9mm in tread depth and at that rate good for another 22,000km at least. The other rear tyre, which had clocked up something like 13,000km had 12.5mm and was good for another 35-40,000km. The two front tyres, which had also seen all the action of our trip were down to 11.2mm and as such had another 35-40,000km plus in front of them. Swapping them around would balance up the tyre life a little, but I was more than happy with the tread wear.
In fact, I'm so happy with these tyres and their continuing good behaviour on the blacktop now that we're back home, I'll be very reluctant to change them for anything else.
Ron Moon
Editor-at-Large, 4x4 Australia
