Go small or go home II, Where the heck is "Nankang" and what's a "Mudstar"

[H8PVMNT]

Well one of my free 19 year old hand me down swampers rounded out and shelled a carcass while I was hauling a 900 lb bale of alfalfa.  Cheapskate that I am, especially on my 1980 pickup, I searched for some more used junk, but to no avail.  I really wanted something about 31" in a decent mud tread, preferably with an old school looking tread design.  Now I know there are a TON of great proven newer mud terrains out there but I have this $500-$600 price point for tires on this particular pickup.  Most of the popular brands are a good $800 for a set of 31s these days.

I ran the treadwrights and loved them, but the price has gone up a bit and I like to change it up so I kept searching.

Discount tire has a few cheapies, but the old schooliest is the "Nankang Mudstar M/T".

I read they run a little short, so I ordered the 32x11.50 15s instead of the 31s.

They measure about 30.5" tall mounted on stock steelies.  Width is right around 10" on these 7" wheels.  What I ended up with was some short fat 31s, which is just perfect for this truck. Seriously, if you order any order one or two sizes bigger than you actually want.  The 31s must be dinky if the 32s are only 30.5" tall. My finger in the second pic below is on 31".

Sidewalls seem a little thinner than the 3 ply sidewalls we get.  We'll see if I can rip any up while skidding logs and hauling hay and 1680 lbs of water tank.  They should bag out nicely in the snow and we all know the old buckshot tread design works well in the snow.

I threw in 8 oz of lead shot and they balance.  They thumped at first but smoothed out after about 10 miles. They are about as loud as you would expect.  Lower tone hum. Nice high void zig-zag traditional mud terrain.  Like 1980s tires but with a few more sipes.  Factory sipes are probably 3/4 of the read depth deep, which is nice.  I may sipe them some more with the hot knife if they need more sticky in the snow.

Did I get what I was after?  Old school tread design, fat chunky short tire, $560 shipped to the door, so I would say yes.  Are these things any good?  Time will tell.

I will attempt to work these tires to an early grave and post the results and impressions over time. 

[H8PVMNT]

More stunning pictures...

[emsvitil]

10" tread, what's the overall width at the bulge?

[H8PVMNT]

Maybe 10 1/2" or a bit more. I'm sure they would lay out fatter on a wider rim.  They look pretty squared off on a 7" rim.

[Cheesemaker]

They don't look half bad.  Good solid tread design.  You will have to give us a 500 mile report on them.

[H8PVMNT]

Little update.  I have probably 400 miles.  Not enough to see how these will pan out over time.

Our mud hole driveway is now at maximum gumbo.  These are really good in the mud.  No big surprise.  Continuously hauling 1680 lbs of water through the mud hole.  Went up and got a load of wood yesterday with the pickup and the 4runner pulling a 2 horse trailer.  The 2 horse was high centered hard in the ruts in the driveway.  The winch on the 4runner is currently out of commission so I pushed from behind with the pickup and hooked up good enough with the Nankangs to shove the trailer free.

They clean well without much wheel spin.

[H8PVMNT]

Well I have maybe 1,000 miles on these.  They balance and go down the road pretty nice. Not very loud even.

Sidewalls don't seem super robust but we've been hacking around the place and have had no problems.  They ooze out nicely at 8-10 psi. We had some post to pull out with the winch in our gumbo swamp so I aired down and we could just idle along processing the muck happily motoring on top or it.  I did get some mud in the bead causing a slow leak while using the truck and winch to dredge out about a ton of watercress to clear a channel.  It seemed to work it's way out though.  I think this is an indication that these aren't that tight on the rim.  We'll see if I can roll a bead snow wheeling later this winter.

So far for the money I think these are pretty good stuff.

There was a swamp monster flogging around in there while we were pulling posts.

[OVRAROK]

I always enjoy the background in your photos, looks like a great spread

[H8PVMNT]

I'm glad.  It's a fun but challenging place to live. I don't know if it's big enough to call a spread though .

[H8PVMNT]

Mt wife reports that while these are awesome in the mud they suck pretty bad for around town winter ice.  No big surprise looking at the tread design.  I will be sipping them soon...

[Cheesemaker]

Air them down a little.  This is what I do with my old school BFG Mud Terrains.  They have no sipping, and the first sign of ice or snow, I air them down.  It makes driving on bare pavement a little squirrelly, but better than sliding all over the place.  Especially, when your truck weighs nothing.   

[jimbo74]

look good, but I would have mounted black out

[SKULLYOTA]

i had a set of those on a samurai, I thought they were great in the snow. 

[H8PVMNT]

I went a got fire wood the other night in about 18" of snow.  6-8" base with the rest settled day 2 powder.  They were phenomenal in the stuff. Very much like the old buckshots from days of yore they remind you of.

[helipilot77]

I went a got fire wood the other night in about 18" of snow.  6-8" base with the rest settled day 2 powder.  They were phenomenal in the stuff. Very much like the old buckshots from days of yore they remind you of.

I wish more tall skinny' were available for that very reason. Are they as loud as tortured demons like the old buck shots were?

[redneckcustoms13]

You know they are making the gateways again. Only making ns for 15s and p's for 16. If the made a p for a 15 I'd be running the stock 15x7 wheels with them on the dd. I love the old school skinny and how hard they pull. That good Ole flat spot that bounces you for the first 10 minutes and the roar you hear from 100 yard away.

[H8PVMNT]

I wish more tall skinny' were available for that very reason. Are they as loud as tortured demons like the old buck shots were?

So far they are pretty quiet.  I would expect them to get louder as the wear out.  The center lugs are at a bit of an angle, which I think may quiet them down a bit.

[redneckcustoms13]

I ran mud kings on a 3500 crew cab and they were quiet for the time I had them. My friend runs them in a 33x12.50 on a 10" wheel on his 80 toyota and they are around 25-30k on them 10 years old and ride good, very little noise, air down and get good traction. I think you'll enjoy them.
Mudking-mudstar basically the same thing

[H8PVMNT]

OK at just over 5K miles they are showing little wear other than the sharp edges rounding ever so slightly. I will go ahead and rotate them next time I get a minute. They are wearing nice and flat.  Still quiet for what they are.  Most of my driving has been dirt and mud chores at the homestead, firewood and trips to town on the highway when he wife gets supplies.  I drive it to work about once a week these days too.

I am getting tired of reading and writing "about XX,000 miles on these tires!" on tire reviews.  Whatever, we need real data.  I am going to start posting actual mileage on updates on tire reviews...

Right now I have 60,946 miles on the odometer.  We will say 5,000 miles on the tires at this time which is fairly accurate based on my math.

[H8PVMNT]

Odometer is right about 73,000, so we have about 17,000 miles on the Nankangs now.  The truck sat for a while and then hauled water.  I rebuilt it a bit with a hot new engine and some 5.29 ring and pinions left over from the 4runner.  Needless to say I can light these up pretty easy with the hot engine and the lower than necessary gearing.  I would say I am at about 50% tread depth, maybe a bit less.

Had one puncture from a piece of metal.  I have been using these for farm truck duty on sharp gravel roads that frequently rock puncture and chunk out popular brand tires.  Both BFGs and Coopers chunk really bad out here on these roads and on the wheat stubble, these don't.  Not saying they are better, but they clearly have something going on with the tread compound that wears better in these conditions.  I haul 1,680 lbs of water several times a week, run fence lines with lots of metal, cactus and rocks and I drive like the Dukes of Hazard the majority of the time.  These don't seem that stout on first impressions but they are holding up very well under severe duty.

It got icy and slick for a while and these were pretty horrible on road ice.  I siped them with a utility knife and now they stick to the ice like glue. 

Overall performance has been middle of the road.  Pretty good in the mud.  They handle well on loose gravel and dirt.  I like them in the soft plowed fields because they hook up well but don't have so much purchase that they weigh you down.

For the price I think these are turning out to be a good all around tire.

[H8PVMNT]

So as it turns out these things siped and mostly worn out are one of the best deep snow tires I have ever experienced.  Like almost magical, it didn't even make sense!   This must be why the old gumbo mudders and buckshots were so popular for deep snow back in the day.

These picks are in about 3 feet of snow and I am still able to go forward and process the snow in the first photo.  I was at about 21 psi in these photos, not even aired down.  At 5-7 psi they sunk in about 4" and stayed right on top crawling along.

My commute at the time was 12 miles of unplowed, blown in snow drifts from 12-36 inches and they performed admirably every day on the way to work and back as long as the pressure was low and you kept he momentum.

So snow is a big yes  .

[Gnarly4X]

Interesting.

What is the weight of your truck? 

Gnarls.

[H8PVMNT]

Interesting.

What is the weight of your truck? 

Gnarls.

I don't know, pretty light but at the time I was carrying a good 700 lbs worth of tools and gear so I wasn't feather light. Pretty good front to rear weight bias I would guess though.

[Lewis Hein]

I think my truck carrying a bit of junk is around 3800 lbs. I think 4000 wouldn't be a bad guess for yours, or maybe even a little more.

[H8PVMNT]

Man when we can go three weeks with a post about a set of baby Chinese mud tires being the most recent tire post there is something wrong.  Somebody buy some new tires already!

[H8PVMNT]

I ran these until right about 25,000 miles of spooled rear end, hang it out on every turn Takumi Fujiwara type driving.

They still work pretty good but I will retire them to project rollers.  Overall I was very happy with these tires for the $500 price point.  Other than the small sizing I can't really find anything bad to say about them.  I guess they weren't that sticky on the ice but after I siped then they were phenomenal so I can't even really whine about that. They were not too loud, good in the mud and magical in the deep snow.  It really didn't even make sense how good they were in the deep snow after they got worn down a bit.  They bag out great when aired down.

Good in soft dirt too, not too much dig.

I only got one flat from a big piece of metal despite running fence lines and cactus filled v-notches continuously.

There are fancier, cooler, bigger tires out there but for the dollars vs. all around performance I would not hesitate to recommend the Nankang Mudstars

[H8PVMNT]

Wonder what I will run next?

[H8PVMNT]

MORE NANKANGS!!!

33x12.50 15 flavor this time.  I needed a bit more legs for the commute to town now.  With the 5.29s it was a little tight on the highway with the 30" 32s.  Had to mount these on 15x8" wheels because they did not want to mount on the stocker 15x6.5".  Tried and tried with my buddy's tire machine but the tire just wouldn't go there.  They still don't stick out though.  The tread is about 3/4" narrower than the 32x11.50s which is kind of odd.  Overall height is right at 31.5"

I center siped them with a razor knife. They are very good in the ice like that. Pulled the jacked up trailer in some decent snow and they worked as expected.  Something about a dumb zig-zag center and typical plain jane side lugs just works in the snow.  Where have you gone yee olde gumbo mudder?

I had strongly considered something in a 33x10.50 and even looked at some more Treadwrights.  The Treadwright 33s were more money and anything in a 33x10.50 was about $300 more. 

At $560 shipped to the door I just couldn't beat these things. Bought them from an ebay store Simpletire this time. The 33s run small just like the 32s but I was looking for a 31.5"-32" diameter so this time I knew exactly what I was getting.  I noticed there are some 35s available now on ebay and I'll bet they are 33s   .

[Gnarly4X]

H,

On any given typical day, how many miles do you drive "off-road" and how many miles do you drive on highway?

Do you air down in the snow?... What PSI?

Gnarls.

[H8PVMNT]

Well the last set of these were no joke 50% or more dirt roads.  Estimated 10% of that would be considered "off road".  It was mostly work related but what we would all consider trail conditions.

In the snow I ran 5-8 psi with the 32s most of the time.  Maybe 20 psi hot dogging on the dirt farm roads. 

I expect to run these back and forth down the highway to work in town a bit more than the last set. 

I won't claim these are the best tires around, but they sit right at the intersection of cheap street and good avenue.