Impressed with the 4WD system

[Sir John]

Surprisingly, my stock Goodyears were pretty decent in the snow. Horrible in the rain though. Like downright dangerous in the rain...

Agreed....pretty good in the Buffalo, NY snow but pretty bad in the rain. I see you have AT3s. I think those will be my next set. How do you like them?

 

[Upthewazzu]

4WD with open diff = One front and one rear wheel spins.

4WD with LSD = One front and two rear wheels spins.

Good explanation, thank you.

I assume the Ram doesn't have any type of torque vectoring system like Subaru or Mitsubishi to send power to the wheel with the most traction?

 

[Hemi395]

Agreed....pretty good in the Buffalo, NY snow but pretty bad in the rain. I see you have AT3s. I think those will be my next set. How do you like them?

I really like them. They are quite a bit more aggressive looking in person than they are in pictures. Definitely a pleasant surprise. They handle SO much better in the rain. The truck feels much more planted in general going down the road. Haven't had any snow yet here so I can't say anything about that yet but I would guess they're going to do really well. No road noise either. I was shocked at how quiet they were.

Only negative thing about them is they seem to have quite a bit of rolling resistance. Not sure if its just the AT3s or A/T tires in general as these are my first set. My mpg dropped 1-2 and the truck just feels like it has to work harder to go down the road. The tire shop put in 37psi and I raised it to 41. 4psi helped quite a bit but they still don't roll as easy as the SR-As.

 

[Sir John]

I really like them. They are quite a bit more aggressive looking in person than they are in pictures. Definitely a pleasant surprise. They handle SO much better in the rain. The truck feels much more planted in general going down the road. Haven't had any snow yet here so I can't say anything about that yet but I would guess they're going to do really well. No road noise either. I was shocked at how quiet they were.

Only negative thing about them is they seem to have quite a bit of rolling resistance. Not sure if its just the AT3s or A/T tires in general as these are my first set. My mpg dropped 1-2 and the truck just feels like it has to work harder to go down the road. The tire shop put in 37psi and I raised it to 41. 4psi helped quite a bit but they still don't roll as easy as the SR-As.

In addition to the tread providing more rolling resistance, the AT3s are probably heavier. That kind of sucks for me because I commute 70 a day so losing fuel economy does matter....I'll most likely still get them though. I've always been a fan of Cooper tires.

 

[CF_Smith]

Good explanation, thank you.

I assume the Ram doesn't have any type of torque vectoring system like Subaru or Mitsubishi to send power to the wheel with the most traction?

No torque vectoring system. Which ever wheel(s) has the least traction gets the power. However, the traction control does a pretty good job of keeping all 4 spinning if you are in AUTO/HI. It uses the brakes to force the wheel(s) with more traction to spin. The benefit of a LSD is that you don't loose power due to the braking, its more instant and you don't wear your pads as much.

 

[Upthewazzu]

No torque vectoring system. Which ever wheel(s) has the least traction gets the power. However, the traction control does a pretty good job of keeping all 4 spinning if you are in AUTO/HI. It uses the brakes to force the wheel(s) with more traction to spin. The benefit of a LSD is that you don't loose power due to the braking, its more instant and you don't wear your pads as much.

Makes me glad I held out for an LSD equipped truck at the time of purchase.

The traction control on my Santa Fe is maddening. It'll cut power so severely in slush that I'll actually lose momentum. I've found in certain situations that it's better to just turn it off.

 

[Hemi395]

In addition to the tread providing more rolling resistance, the AT3s are probably heavier. That kind of sucks for me because I commute 70 a day so losing fuel economy does matter....I'll most likely still get them though. I've always been a fan of Cooper tires.

Actually they're only 3lbs heavier, SR-As are 41lbs and the AT3s are 44lbs. It's one the reasons I went with them. It definitely helped putting more air in. So far with 41psi I'm averaging around 14 city (about 1 less than the SR-As) and 20+ on the highway (about the same).

I don't commute daily with it so -1mpg didn't really matter for me. I just needed better tires in the rain...

 

[Hunter69]

Goodyears handled really well in the rain. No snow yet so haven't had in out of 2wd. Can't wait for the snow!