Roughly every five years, BFGoodrich celebrates the November 14, 1976 launch of its Radial All-Terrain T/A tire. Here’s the hoopla from 2010, more from 2016, and a Facebook post from 2021. The Radial T/A was “the first light truck radial specifically designed for off-road recreational vehicle use” in a world of bias-ply competitors, at a time when many regular road cars still rode on bias-ply tires.
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Company engineers began testing the tire in Baja in 1975. In 1976, the week before its launch, BFG ran an Oldsmobile Starfire in the Baja 1000 driven by Fritz Kroyer. The Olds was shod in those street-legal, DOT-approved Radial All-Terrain T/A tires. Kroyer’s wasn’t the only Oldsmobile going the distance at speed. Normie runabouts and muscle cars were a big thing in Baja at the time, and Henry Arras won Class 6 in a Ford Ranchero.
So began BFG’s insane success rate in Baja on the way to becoming the best-selling off-road-tire maestro we know today.
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BFG debuted a second-gen version of the Radial All-Terrain T/A in 1986, followed by a third-gen in 1999. In 2014, we got the alphanumeric every off-roader would soon come to at least hear about, if not ride on: The fourth generation of that original, renamed Radial All-Terrain T/A KO2.
(Trivia fact, T/A stands for “Terrain Assault.” The K stands for “Key,” the next letter signifying the tire’s target discipline. KO = Key Off-Road. KM = Key Mud. KT = Key Torque. We’ll get to that last one shortly, if you haven’t heard of it. And any tire with “Baja Champion” on it has to have won a Baja race—the term applies to the specific tire, not the manufacturer.) In just two years on the market, BFG sold more than five million KO2s in North America, and Ford named it the stock tire for the 2017 F-150 Raptor.
Earlier this year, BFG launched the fifth generation of the original, far enough removed from the ten-year-old KO2 to earn the designation KO3. It’s hard to get specifics on the evolution of tire technology, because tires are made from two commodities—rubber and steel—mixed with plenty of secrets. Asking a tire company about its rubber compounds is like asking Kentucky Fried Chicken about its 11 herbs and spices.
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BFG aimed to improve the K03 on every surface, but especially beyond the trail. One exec told us, “I like to say [the KO3] is the Swiss Army Knife of tires. It’s quieter, gets better snow traction than [its] predecessor, and better wear life than the [K02].”
One of the major targets for the KO3 was longevity, as new vehicles are heavier than ever, generally producing more torque, and equipped with higher tow ratings. A new tread compound intended to deliver longer wear performance enables the KO3 to maintain the same 50,000-mile warranty the KO2 introduced in 2020.
As we’ve seen in vehicle design studios and engineering labs, advanced data crunching and simulations drove some of the advances on the KO3. BFGoodrich product manager Brandon Sturgis told us, “The tire design process is more data-driven than when KO2 launched. We are better able to design each and every tire size based on vehicle data such as rim width, torque output, drive axle layout, etc. This allows us to better optimize the footprint shape for each size.”
The K03’s tread pattern has advanced in several ways. Sharper, more geometric lugs along the center of the tread adopt a Z shape and run closer together than the lugs on the KO2. The new shape is said to enhance the tire’s bite off-road, while the tighter spacing between the zees should cut down on road noise. The KO3 also does away with the KO2’s small, triangular stone ejectors between the lugs.
The sipe pattern should deliver another on-road perk: The lugs on the KO3 don’t interlock like those on the KO2, and the resulting channels are better at evacuating water, making the KO3 more resistant to hydroplaning.
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A potential tradeoff to narrower spacing between some of the tread blocks is less efficient mud and snow evacuation. Sturgis said the engineers worked with BFG’s agriculture team on redesigned “mud-phobic bars” compared to the KO2.
“Mud, depending on its composition,” he said, “Has a tendency to get sucked into the tread pattern. To break that suction, the mud-phobic bar wiggles a little to eject the mud.”
On top of that come redesigned snow and mud notches.
“The snow and mud notches are located in the tread pattern and shoulder area of the tire. KO2 had them, there just weren’t as many and KO2 didn’t have them in the shoulder area,” Sturgis told Motor1.
The three-peak mountain snowflake (3PMS) certification carries over from the KO2, as does the CoreGuard technology on the sidewall, derived from the brand’s KR3 racing tire and designed to deflect sharp objects along the critical shoulder area.
“I like to say [the KO3] is the Swiss Army Knife of tires. It’s quieter, gets better snow traction than [its] predecessor, and better wear life than the [K02].”
It shouldn’t be a shock to learn that a sturdier tire designed to last just as long on heavier vehicles is going to weigh more. The KO3 already comes as original equipment on trucks like the Ford Ranger Raptor and Chevrolet Silverado HD. According to Tire Rack specs, the KO2 in the Ranger Raptor’s 285/70 R17 size weighs 51 pounds, the KO3 weighs 59 pounds.
There’s a narrower difference in weight on the heavy-duty sizes, however. A KO2 in the Silverado HD’s 275/65 R20 size puts 57 pounds on each corner, while the KO3 weighs 61 pounds at each corner. Yes, that’s additional unsprung weight. However, given the weights and outputs of modern vehicles and today’s whizbang suspensions, that unsprung mass is a drop in the bucket.
The price gap is even smaller. The Ranger Raptor KO3 costs $4 more than the KO2 at Tire Rack at the time of writing, the HD KO3 is just $1 more than its predecessor.
Speaking of HDs and weight, though, the KO3 has a friend the KO2 didn’t have: The new HD-Terrain T/A KT (HDT). It seems the KO2 occasionally and publicly paid the price for its best-seller status. Owners used K02s in situations that would require a heartier, heavy duty tire, like the murderous terrain of mines and quarries. BFG reps told comical stories of workers in certain industries putting the KO2 on their trucks, spending long shifts crisscrossing acres of daggerlike rocks that shredded the KO2 in as little as four days, then getting on social media to shout some variation of, “Hey BFG! Your tires suck!”
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BFG never intended the KO2 to survive that kind of environment. Enter the HDT, a clean-sheet design, to do battle with bayonets of granite and ore. Its secret compound is formulated “to help resist most extreme chipping and tearing,” while “bigger tread blocks and fewer sipes in the HD Terrain contribute to increased longevity.”
This hoop is also built for the rigors of HD trucks in commercial fleets and for private owners who tow big weight. A 2015 Ford F-350 dually with the 6.7-liter PowerStroke made 860 pound-feet of torque and was rated to tow up to 26,700 pounds. The 2024 version of that same truck and engine makes a maximum of 1,200 lb-ft and is rated to tow up to 35,800 pounds.
A BFG rep told us that when you’re putting that much torque to the ground, it eats up tires—It’s why electric vehicles tend to go through tires. When you add extra weight on top of that torque, you’re adding heat, pressure, and extra forces into the equation.
Sturgis emphasized the point.
“Our engineers have determined that modern heavy-duty trucks are putting more torque per square inch on the contact patch than big rigs,” he said.
Those engineers tuned the HDT’s baseline spec to the demands of a loaded fleet truck, optimizing the tire’s performance for working conditions, wherein the vehicle has a heavy payload.
The weight penalty here compared to the KO3 is even smaller than the difference between the KO2 and KO3. Sturgis said, “In a LT275/65R18… HDT weighs 62.24 pounds, while KO3 weighs 59.04.” Again, the increase in cost and weight are negligible across the board.
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While the HDT can take care of itself off-road—this tire earned Baja class-winner status too— but that big, basic tread pattern is for fending off tears and punctures, not ultimate bite in iffy trail situations. The much tougher carcass and sidewall on the HDT won’t be as friendly when the tire is aired down as the more pliant KO3 sidewall.
The HDT doesn’t come with a mileage warranty, nor does it come with 3PMS certification. Asked what tire an owner should consider in the winter in places that mandate snow tires, BFG said the KO3; The season’s slick surfaces will naturally limit the amount of torque a truck can put through the tread blocks.
A story Sturgis told suggests the HDT proved itself fit for purpose early on.
“Mining fleet pit trucks go up and down the same road that earthmovers travel—all day, every day, from the top of the mine to the bottom… They didn’t measure their tires in mileage or months—it was days. The first set of HD Terrain tires they tested lasted about four months. The fleet was ready to buy the tires on the spot, even though they were only available for testing at the time.”
With this new tire, BFGoodrich hopes to take some heat off the K0-series tires so beloved by off-road enthusiasts across the decades. Hopefully that leads to some much kinder messages on social media too.
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