When the subject of customizing a brand-new truck comes up around the offices of Custom Classic Trucks, the topic takes on an entirely different direction than what most people might think. Sure, we are concerned about looking cool as much as the next guy, but it's not at the top of our list when it comes to specing out a pickup that is going to be used on a daily basis as a workhorse. In the early summer of 2005 when I bought my '05 GMC Sierra and drove it off the dealer's lot, it was because I needed a vehicle I could put into service as soon I could get it rigged to tow and hit the road. My new GMC didn't even have 200 miles on it before I was pulling a tandem car trailer headed towards the Colorado/Utah border. After her maiden voyage to Utah, the rest of the year for the GMC was spent making short hauls in the SoCal area with and without a trailer. When the Jimmy was empty, the OE tires on the rear had a nasty habit of squealing like a stuck pig if I didn't go out of my way to nurse the truck off the line. If a situation came up that I needed to gun-boot it a little bit to merge safely into traffic they would let out a horrendous squalling bark. It wasn't the loud noise that bothered me, but rather the thought of a cop citing me for exhibition of speed. Taking it one step further, I often wondered which one of the pedestrians that were giving me a dirty look as I passed by would be the first to testify: "It was that black truck, he was peeling rubber into that car that just cut him off."
Across the board, the original tires that came on my GMC weren't bad as general-purpose tires go. They did everything they were intended to do as an OE tire, but they didn't do it for very far. One of the very first things that I noticed about the OE tires was they were wearing out like they were made of Goat cheese. If I had to haul one of my old trucks any distance at all, I knew I could count on detecting some visible wear by the time I returned home. With slightly over 25,000 miles on the original meats it was time to look for another set of tires.
After researching some of the brands I have used in the past with relatively good luck, and a few others that were unknown to me, I decided to go with Goodyear. The tire in Goodyear's lineup that caught my attention was the new Wrangler SilentArmor Pro-Grade they introduced during the summer of 2006. The term "SilentArmor" is derived from the Wrangler Pro-Grade's two high-tensile strength steel belts and a layer made with DuPont Kevlar. If Kevlar is good enough to use in a bulletproof vest, I figured it should work pretty good in a heavy-duty truck tire. I think what really clinched the deal for me was Goodyear's 30-day, no obligation trial period. Proving that the American consumer can be sneaky at times, I picked up a set of Wrangler Pro-Grades with the intention of running them up to Montana and back and then return them if I found one little flaw that I didn't like about them.
As the song that came out in '73 said, it doesn't rain in Southern California but it was pouring rain on the day I went to Ron's Wholesale Tires in Stanton, California, to have the Pro-Grade Wranglers mounted and installed. The truth be told, it was the two days of rain before I went to Ron's that were the tie breakers that prompted me to put to new tires on my GMC. For two wet and miserable days in a row I had to drive my truck in heavy L.A. traffic, accelerating and decelerating and slipping and sliding for the entire time. With this fresh in mind, I was really looking forward to gathering some seat-of-pants data on the Goodyear Pro-Grade Wranglers. After Ron and his crew finished the job I backed my GMC out onto Dale and roasted 'em. Seeing as how it was Charles Goodyear who discovered the process of vulcanization by burning rubber, it only seemed appropriate. At the very next opportunity, I nailed the brakes hard to see how the Pro-Grades reacted under a panic stop. It was a pretty exciting moment, not because I thought I had just spotted a sheriff's car, but because the Goodyears really stopped!
The Pro-Grade Wranglers bear the tire industry's mountain-snowflake symbol, certifying it for "severe snow" usage. As expected, the aggressive tread pattern needed to obtain this valuable rating generates a little bit more road-feel and a very faint amount of tire-sing. Those were the only lame excuses I could come up with after logging over 2,000 miles of extreme moronic abuse to the Wrangler SilentArmor Pro-Grade Goodyears before the 30-day limit-so I decided to keep the Goodyears for the rest of their 50,000-mile tread life limited warranty. For more in-depth facts with less entertainment value visit www.goodyearwrangler.com.-John Gilbert