We took 2 new adventure-seeking tyres from General Tire –the all-terrain Grabber AT3 and the extreme-terrain Grabber X3 –through their paces at Klipbokkop Mountain Reserve to see if anything could stop them.

By Michael Salzwedel

Conversations about cars are funny things. Typically, you’re going to hear about how and why car x is better than car y, and this will almost always involve how much grunt they have and how quickly they can move. Then,of course, there’ll be the design debates, the technology talk and the monetary musings.

All of which is well and good, of course, but in every car, there’s just one thing (well, usually four) that collectively connects everything about that car to the surface it happens to be riding on. Yep, good ol’ tyres. Let’s talk about them.

At any given time, your tyres are the only physical points of contact between your car and the road (if not, you better hope help is at hand!). If they’re not right for the job, or not doing their job properly, your whole driving experience is compromised. You might have a gem of an engine, the fanciest tech and more driving skill than Ken Block, but if your tyres are lacking, it won’t count for much. Tyres are the primary enablers of any motoring experience or adventure, so it’s critical that they’re well chosen.

Enter the Grabber AT3 and X3

With this in mind, we headed out for an adventure to the superbly positioned Klipbokkop Mountain Reserve (home of the General Tire Adventure Academy, which was launched earlier this year) at the Brandvlei Dam just south of Worcester in the Western Cape. Our mission: to test the capabilities of General Tire’s two new off-road tyres: the all-terrain Grabber AT3 (fitted to the new Fiat Fullback 2.4 Di-D 4×4) and the Grabber X3 extreme-terrain (fitted to current-gen Jeep Wrangler Sahara Unlimiteds).

The "3" in each name refers to different things: in the case of the AT3 it refers to this being the third generation of all-terrain tyre from General Tire, while in the X3 (successor to the Grabber MT), it refers to the three types of terrain this tyre loves to tackle: mud, dirt and rock.

The newcomers sit alongside General Tire’s other existing offerings including the Grabber TR gravel gobblers, Grabber GT high-performance SUV tyres, and Altimax Comfort and Sport passenger tyres.

The new AT3 and X3s are only up for grabs on the replacement market and are not being supplied as OEM-spec on new vehicles.

Designed for 50% on-road and 50% off-road use, the main perks of the AT3s over the version they replace is that they are quieter, tougher and more durable. They’re available in 13 sizes spanning rim widths of 15 to 20 inches. These are aimed at SUV, bakkie or more serious off-road vehicle owners who are looking for a competent all-in-one offering that demonstrates healthy off-road ability when required but also boasts ample suitability for on-road use.

The chunkier X3s, on the other hand, beg to be given a proper off-road beating and are intended for 20% on- and 80% off-road use. They’re only available in five sizes for now, for 15-17 inch rims.

New tech

General Tire has introduced three new performance-enhancing technologies with these tyres:

TRACGEN: traction ribs and multi-angled sipes (small incisions in the rubber) in the tread help to improve loose surface traction through gripping edges that interlock with the off-road surface;DURAGEN: a robust rubber compound that offers better cut and chip resistance, and reinforced tread blocks that reduce deformation, improve tread life in rugged terrain and maximise stability under load;COMFORT BALANCE: this refers to enhanced geometry, material distribution and tread block orientation, allowing for better surface interaction.

Time to get dirty

There are plenty of variables that contribute to a vehicle’s off-road ability in any given situation. The characteristics of the terrain itself present a vast range of driving challenges, and then there are vehicle considerations including ride height, clearance angles and the type and design of key innards like the gearbox and the four-wheel-drive system. Often the most important variable of all is what tyres you’re riding on and how much air they’ve got in them. Dropping your tyre pressure in sand, for example, can be the difference between getting stuck and powering through.

The fun-loving Wranglers, donning the X3s, made short work of everything thrown at them, including a serious mud bath, mangled rut-strewn stretches, a rock garden, some seriously steep and uneven ascents and descents, and plenty of deep sand.

In the pleasingly capable and comfortable Fullbacks we snaked through an undulating series of twisty sand sections in low-range, never getting stuck and never requiring much more than half-throttle to roar our way through the trickier bits.

The AT3s and X3s – aptly paired with the Fullbacks and Jeeps respectively – proved to be up to the task of every challenge laid before them, living up to their “anywhere is possible” tagline. Much to General Tire’s relief, and in true testament to the hardiness of the tyres, there were no punctures (or rim pop-offs) suffered on any of the 10 vehicles throughout the day, even after more than a few moments of, shall we say, particularly enthusiastic testing of their capabilities (because motoring journalists will be motoring journalists).

Alrighty then, back to the kilowatt chatter…

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