A few months ago, we broke the news that Toyo Tires was introducing a new line of tires. The new line is called the R/T, which stands for Rugged Terrain. According to Jay Jones from The Market Connection (Toyo Tires’ marketing agency), the feedback has been phenomenal.

Toyo actually sold out of its initial production run in an extremely short period of time and they are bumping production up. According to Jones dealers are excited about the new tires, but the customer feedback is just as exciting. Customers love how quiet the tires are and how capable they are off road tire.

Some of the key features of these tires are:

• Optimized pattern design for low noise
• Lateral shoulder blocks to reduce irregular wear
• L-shaped interlocking blocks for high rigidity, good life and low noise
• Wide shoulder grooves
• Mud claw biting blocks
• Full lateral grooves
• Mud edge biting blocks
• Stone/mud ejectors
• Scalloped shoulder lugs

If you want to know more, click here for the in depth article we did when they were released these new wheels.

When we caught up to Jones, he explained that the tires are a culmination of learning experiences over the years. Toyo Tires really focused on durability and road noise with the A/TII (which was released about a year ago) and a lot of that learning contributed to the R/T.

The M/T tires have an aggressive tread pattern. If you look closely, you can see a few common traits between these and the R/T’s.

One of the really neat things that Jones mentioned is how Toyo develops their tires. The engineers in Japan actually have heavily invested in software that can closely predict the real life characteristics of a tire before they ever produce it. When they developed the A/TII and R/T, they spent a huge amount of time mapping road characteristics all over the US and even different off road terrains to see how the different designs would perform. After running countless simulations, they finally decided on a design and started producing prototypes and doing further refinements.

Once the design was finalized, the tooling and equipment was manufactured to go into production here in the US. The R/T’s are 100% US manufactured. Jones said one key aspect they use when producing tires, is a multi-piece mold. Some manufactures use a 2 piece mold (commonly called a claim shell mold) which according to Jones can make the tires non-uniform. If you have ever seen a wheel on a vehicle that has a ton of weights, this is more than likely a claim shell tire). Jones explained that the multi-piece mold yields a more round tire that is more uniform and has better radial run out.

These manufacturing techniques aren’t just limited to the R/T’s. This is just the way Toyo manufactrures their tires. This process is so good and yields such a consistent product that they were chosen as the tire for the new Ford Super Duty King Ranch Edition. They were able to achieve this without having to redesign or change anything. The King Ranch will be using the off the shelf tire that have been available to us for almost a year.

Many times when an OEM wants to use a specific type of tire, the tire manufacturer has to re-tool up their line or create a new line because the current product won’t meet their tight specs. The A/TII was able to meet them without any issues.

With the success the new R/T is having, the A/T II being picked up by Ford, and everything else going on, Toyo Tires is adding 1.1 million square feet to their current plant. (That is almost unfathomable how much that is and it is only an add-on.) It is all good news from the Toyo Tires booth this year!