So the KM3 is actually BFGoodrich's most serious off-road tyre that can still be legally driven on the road, so you won't get more aggressive than this from them if you're actually looking to drive it to work and back or whatever. But let's take a bit of a look at some of the features of this tyre close up. So, BFGoodrich are actually saying that the sidewalls are 27% tougher, and that it's gonna be able to climb rocks 8% better, so 8% better traction, and also they reckon that they're 5% better in the mud.
So how are they achieving that? The sidewalls themselves, they've actually used a new technology that they're calling CoreGuard Max technology, which is actually better polyester, better other stuff, that it means that it's gonna be more resistant to punctures and tearing off of road. They've also got this Traction-Armor Sidewall Sculpture, that they're calling.
So that's this jobbie here on the side, which I noticed it's reversed on the other side, so when you're looking at it, it actually, this bites in this way, the other one bites in the other way, so if you're stuck in the mud, it's pulling in two different directions, even though the tyre is rotating that way. They've also got these mud-phobic bars here, which they say are gonna make it more likely that the tyre is gonna eject mud from these voids.
So they're sort of similar to stone guards, or stone deflectors, or stone ejectors, or whatever you want to call it, depending on which manufacturer you're talking about. But they're a little bit bigger, and so they're more likely to spit mud out, according to BFGoodrich. If we turn the tyre around, something to note is that they're actually quite a lot heavier. I mean, these are a larger tyre than what we usually run on our off-road, but they're definitely a heavier tyre, so that's something to take into account if you're cautious about fuel economy or anything like that.
So, they also reckon they're building this linear flex zone, which is actually across here, which means it's gonna be able to conform around obstacles more easily, and they're also pointing out that they've just got these friggin' massive blocks. So there's not many, actually there's no, real fine siping in here, there's a few bigger sipes.
