The best All Terrain tyre options for your 4WD

All-terrain (AT) tyres are tyres designed to cope with everyday driving in the city and suburbs while also able to be used for trips on gravel roads and dirt tracks with some medium-duty 4WDing in the mix.

AT tyres generally have a deeper, more aggressive tread than passenger car tyres or Highway Terrain (HT) tyres. These tyres are engineered to perform well in a variety of high- and low-traction scenarios, while not producing excessive road noise on sealed surfaces or adversely impacting fuel consumption through day-to-day use or on longer trips.

These types of tyres are generally thought as more off-road tyres because they are often used as a 4x4 tyre and they’re a bit more aggressive in appearance than passenger car tyres, but they are handy for towing and fine for road use.

There are light-duty and heavy-duty All Terrain tyres available, either of which typically provide better flexibility than a pure road-biased tyre (highway terrain, HT) or hard-core off-roading tyre such as a Mud Terrain (MT) tyre.

This is handy to remember because if you’re going to make tyre comparisons make sure you’re comparing tyres of the same type (i.e. AT vs AT) rather than comparing an all-terrain tyre to a mud-terrain tyre etc.

Take a look in most vehicle showrooms nowadays and you’ll see plenty of all-terrain tyres. Because they offer a mix of on-road performance and off-road capability, AT tyres are on most modern SUVs and 4WDs including Ford Ranger, Isuzu D-Max, Isuzu MU-X, Mitsubishi Triton, Subaru Forester, Suzuki Jimny, Toyota HiLux and VW Amarok – they’re even used for Prado.

2024 Suzuki Jimny XL (Image: Glen Sullivan)

All-terrain tyres are popular because they are designed to offer the best of both worlds: reliable performance on sealed surfaces and in traction-compromised scenarios.

Tyre sizing depends on the vehicle – check the tyre placard inside the vehicle – but you can use 18-inch and 20-inch tyres on a modern SUV or 4WD, but when you get into the realm of 33-inch and 35-inch tyres, you need to seriously consider whether you actually need them because the switch up, especially to 35s, involves taking crucial legal and engineering factors into consideration.

Pricing for AT tyres ranges from cheap to not so cheap, depending on the brand and materials used.

What makes good all terrain tyres? What are the things you should look out for? How should you choose all terrain tyres that are right for your car?

Tyres are your vehicle's only point of contact with the ground so their design, construction and proven performance are critical.

Good all-terrain tyres should be built well (with deep aggressive tread and strong sidewalls), have a tread pattern designed to maximise traction and fit your vehicle and budget.

2024 Toyota Hilux Rogue (Image: Glen Sullivan)

You should consider those factors – build, design, price – as well as the company’s and the tyre’s reputation in a formal (i.e. reviews) and informal (anecdotal tales of usage) sense.

In order to find the right all-terrain tyres for your vehicle, check off all of those factors (above) and make sure you have a clear sense of how you will use the tyres – whether you’ll go off-road every weekend, or once a month or even once a year.

Before throwing down any cash on tyres, check your owner’s manual and the tyre placard on your vehicle to make sure your ideas of tyre sizing and suitable type are correct.

A list of the top 5 best all terrain tyres available in Australia.

To name and list the best all-terrain tyres in Australia is a bit of a catch-all exercise because it’s different strokes for different folks, right? What may suit your work and recreational needs, may not suit another.

However, what I’ve assembled here are one of the best off-road-biased all-terrain tyres and four of the best more conventional all-terrain all-rounders: a top five all-terrain round-up, if you will.

Here we go. (Note: All terrain tyre prices vary depending on brand, type and size. Unless otherwise noted, we’ve listed tyres in 265/70R17 for pricing as this is a popular and readily available tyre size for off-roaders. Also, the tyres are numbered in this list but in no particular order of importance.)

Top 5

1. BFGoodrich KO3

BFGoodrich KO3

BFGoodrich tyres have a great reputation where rep counts most: in the Aussie bush.

And there’s no reason to doubt the efficacy of the newish-to-the-market KO3s.

The previous iteration, the high-performance all-terrain KO2, was highly regarded and was used to great effect on the Ford Ranger Raptor – and the K03 is riding on the crest of that success wave.

The KO3s have been engineered with a new tread pattern and all-terrain tread compound aimed at providing greater durability and longevity on gravel and dirt.

They have stronger sidewalls than the previous-gen tyre and those are designed to prevent damage from sharp gibber rocks and jagged sticks in the bush.

These new KOs also have a new serrated shoulder design aimed at redirecting more mud away from the tread.

The KO2s are impressive tyres when it comes to emergency “Watch out for that roo!” braking, but BFG claims that the “K03 stops 4.2m shorter than the KO2”… so there’s that.

A BFG tyre is on this list because no ‘best tyre’ list is complete without one of its products.

Price: Expect to pay about $490 per tyre.

For more details, visit https://www.bfgoodrich.com.au/

2. Cooper Discoverer AT3

Used to great effect (in 275/70R17 sizing) on the Nissan Navara Pro-4X Warrior, the AT3 LT (Light Truck) tyre has been plugged by Cooper Tires as “a popular tyre for drivers seeking reliable, quiet and safe all-terrain performance” so it has a lot to prove.

But there’s little cause to doubt Cooper Tires’ claim because it’s another company with a sterling rep in the bush and its tyres have proven tough over many years.

The new generation all-terrain AT3 LT – with its deeper water-flicking sipes, in-built rock ledges aimed at reducing stone retention and drilling and tougher scalloped shoulders – has been designed to yield better grip in traction-compromised scenarios.

A Cooper Tires’ tyre is on this list because the company has a great rep and the tyre has an 80,000km warranty.

Price: Expect to pay about $500 per tyre.

For more details, visit https://www.coopertires.com.au/.

3. General Grabber AT3

The General Tire company’s General Grabber AT3 all-terrain tyres have been used on the high-performance Ford Tremor with impressive results.

This AT3 is an all-terrain tyre developed for work and recreational uses and the company promises “exceptional grip”, “maximum comfort” and “confident on-road manners”.

That all sounds like hyperbole to me but there’s no doubting the tyres’ actual real-world performance during 4WDing – because I’ve driven the Tremor, shod with the Grabber AT3s, and it did a great job off-road. Those tyres are also rather quiet on sealed surfaces.

The General Grabber AT3 has an open-tread shoulder design for better traction in the mud, as well as a robust compound, reinforced blocks and high-strength steel belts used in its construction.

Now, I can’t confirm any of that without cutting one open but what I can confirm is the fact that, again, these tyres are very good off-road – grippy and effective – but also reasonably smooth and quiet on bitumen and the like.

A General Grabber tyre is on this list because the name is funny. Only joking – this is a proven tyre.

Price: Expect to pay about $400 per tyre.

For more info on the tyres, visit https://www.generaltire-tyres.com. For up-to-date pricing and quotes, visit a reputable tyre dealership.

4. Toyo Open Country A32

The Open Country A32 was originally designed for the Mitsubishi Pajero Sport and has through the years proven its mettle on the dirt while also remaining rather refined and quiet on sealed surfaces – not an easy combination to achieve.

Rather than being over-the-top aggressive by nature, the A32s lean more towards the road-friendly, around-town end of the tyre spectrum but they are still very effective off-road.

On a recent multi-day test of a Mitsubishi Pajero Sport GSR, shod with 265/60R18 tyres, the A32s impressed with their grip, refinement and overall performance.

There have been a few anecdotal question-marks raised about the standard of the Toyo Open Country A32’s performance in the wet, but I’ve never had any issues with these tyres on rain-slicked blacktop or even muddy dirt tracks – this is a good all-round tyre.

A Toyo Open Country tyre is on this list because these are the quiet achievers of the tyre world: no muss, no fuss, they just get the job done.

Price: Expect to pay about $480 per (265/60R18) tyre.

For more info visit https://www.toyotires.com.au/.

5. Yokohama Geolander A/T

The Yokohama Geolandar is another example of a tyre being put to great use in a factory-modified vehicles – this time in the Nissan Patrol Warrior.

Through its use of an improved tread pattern and new rubber compound Yokohama aims to reduce road-use wear damage to the tyre and increase its grippiness in traction-compromised scenarios.

It may be best suited to light to moderate off-roading, but the Geolandar G015 still offers a nice mix of on-road performance and refinement, and off-road capability and efficacy.

A Yokohama Geolandar A/T tyre is on this list because it strikes a balance between on-road refinement and off-road capability.

Price: Expect to pay about $400 per tyre.

For more info on the tyres, visit https://www.yokohamatire.com. For up-to-date pricing and quotes, visit a reputable tyre dealership.