20,000km Review: Founders 19.5 Truck Tyres – Super Single Mud Tyres

Our Founders 19.5 truck tyres now have 20,000km on them. So it’s time for a review!

These tyres are designated 305/70R19.5 and have an aggressive mud-terrain pattern. As we explained in our 10,000km review of the Founders tyres, we weren’t too keen on going from all-terrains to mud tyres at first.

Why not? Well, we knew muddies wear more quickly and can be super-noisy once they wear a bit.

Our Tyre Rotation Sequence

We have six tyres… one at each corner and two spares. So far, we’ve rotated all six every 10,000km. Well to be precise, we’ve rotated them every 11,000km. So the tyres have 22,000km on them. At least some do, as we’ll explain later.

The rears go to the spares, the spares go on the steer, and the steer tyres go to the rear.

When we had Toyo tyres, they lasted between 50,000 and 60,000km. They were reliable and pretty much bullet-proof, however the Toyo tyres did have feathering issues. To eliminate this, we changed the rotation sequence slightly to reduce feathering.

By doing this, we minimised wear due to feathering.

With the Founders, we’ve gone back to All terrain Warriors’ recommended rotation sequence.

Why the change?

From day one, All Terrain Warriors (ATW) gave us realistic expectations of tyre life. They thought the Founders tyres would last for around 30,000km if only four tyres were rotated. And they thought we might get 40,000+km from a set of six.

With such a short lifespan, we wanted to reverse the direction of rotation every time we rotated the tyres. The thinking is they’ll wear more evenly across the tread.

The ATW tyre rotation sequence achieves this. In contrast, our revised rotation sequence doesn’t… the tyres run for 20,000km before running in reverse.

Overall Impressions

First up, you might think 30,000 – 40,000km tyre life is pretty ordinary for a truck tyre. However, it’s a reasonable compromise when you consider what the tyres were originally designed for.

Founders 19.5 truck tyres were developed in the United States as a tough tyre for emergency vehicles. (You can read about the Founders backstory here – scroll down past their Contact Us info). The average emergency vehicle does low kilometres, but has to be ultra-reliable whenever needed.

And that’s what we’re finding.

Even over the roughest, rockiest roads, the tyres have very few lug chips or tread damage. It seems Founders achieve this by using a soft compound.

The downside of a soft compound is shortened tyre life, especially on tar roads.

And the big benefit of a softer compound is a softer ride. We’ve mentioned before how the Founders tyres are an ideal fit with the King Shocks. It seems the more flexible tyres help dampen the harsh rebound often experienced with parabolic suspension.

The result is a much softer ride when compared with the far more rigid Toyo Tyres we ran previously.

In summary, the Founders tyres are light years ahead of the Toyo in terms of ride quality. And they’re proving to be just as reliable.

Since new, the truck’s covered 210,000km on Toyo tyres and now Founders tyres, without a single puncture. Can’t complain about that. Having said this, I’ve probably just jinxed us!

Two other pieces of info… one third of the 20,000km has been on dirt roads, running at reduced pressures (see below). And finally, nearly ¾ of the last 10,000km was running big distances on tar. That’s not ideal for tyre wear, especially for muddies.

Any Wear Issues?

In our 10,000km review, I mentioned the truck had a wheel alignment just before getting the new Founders tyres. Whether the wheel alignment cured our previous front tyre wear issues or whether it’s more to do with the Founders tyres, I’m really not sure.

However, I do know the wheel alignment made a massive difference to the truck’s driveability. And the Founders tyres were yet another positive step change.

Regardless, our steer tyres now wear fairly evenly across the treads on both sides with no sign of feathering or scalloping.

The front left wears the inside row of lugs slightly more than the outside set. This was the same wear pattern we saw after the first 10,000km.

The front right’s a bit of a mystery though. Last time the outside row of lugs were worn slightly more than the inside set. But this time, it’s flipped around.

Perhaps it’s related to more tar road running this time around. I’m really not sure.

The rears still wear more on the outside edges than in the centres on both sides. And the inside edges wear more than the outside edges. We’ve increased rear tyre pressures slightly (see below for details).

But I suspect the wear’s more to do with the camber of the rear axle than tyre pressures. It’s an issue we’ve had since day one and there’s nothing we can do about it… apart from regular tyre rotations.

What Tyre Pressures Are You Running?

We’re running:

• On tar – Front 75psi, Rear 90psi (maximum speed 100km/h).
• On dirt – Front 45psi, Rear 55psi (maximum speed 80km/h).

This is at 3.8T on the rear axle and 2.8T on the front axle.

We bumped the rear tyres pressures up by 5psi to see if it helped with tyre wear (see above). After 10,000km, it’s difficult to tell.

At the low pressures on dirt, the Founders tyres don’t seem to heat up any more than the Toyo tyres. We don’t run a TPMS, so I can’t give you exact figures.

However, I always check each tyre with the admittedly primitive “hand on sidewall” test. The fronts stay cool, while the rears get warm but not hot. And we’ve run long distances in 40+°C summer heat at reduced pressures.

So we’re confident these tyres can handle Australia’s hot conditions.

By the way, our King Shocks have remote reservoirs with adjusters. We’ve backed the rears off slightly and upped the fronts. This has decreased the harsh kick from the rear end, while reducing instances of the front suspension bottoming out.

The outcome is a better ride. We’ll continue to fine-tune the adjusters.

How Much Tread Wear In The Last 10,000km?

When new, the tyres had 13.5mm tread depth (measured in the centre). At 10,000km, all four were 12.5mm, or 1mm in 10,000km.

At 20,000km, the tyres (the ones that have done 20,000km) have lost about 1mm in the last 10,000km. So it’s pretty consistent.

In our 10,000km review I mentioned how this is not really a useful indicator, because the rears wear the outside lugs more quickly. And it seems this will be the case unfortunately.

Any Other Issues?

Until the tyre rotation at 20,000km, we were surprised how quiet the tyres were. With the soft compound and aggressive tread, we expected them to be loud.

However, after rotating the tyres… they’re loud! They must be objecting to running in the opposite direction all of a sudden. It was particularly noticeable on a wet tar road for some reason.

Will they bed in and quieten down again? I hope so!

The only other minor issue is the slightly higher profile catching the front mud guards on tight turns across ditches. This is annoying but something I can avoid with care.

The obvious solution is to fit the longer spring hangers King Shocks supplied for the front parabolic spring. But you guessed it… I still haven’t done it!

Apart from that, we’re still super-happy with the Founders. I can’t ever imagine going back to the much harsher Toyo-type tyres.

The Next 10,000km

The next 10,000km will be the real test. As the tyres wear, we expect the wear to accelerate.

It’s difficult to say how long they’ll last at this stage.

Since ATW fitted these tyres, we’ve covered less kilometres per year than we normally would. So our durability test is dragging out somewhat!

However it’s fair to say we’ve given them a decent test over every road condition. They’ve proven themselves in Australia’s savage desert heat, so we can tick that one off the list.

And we’re especially impressed at how well the tyre compound handles sharp rocks. The Toyos would get cut up on rocky surfaces, with small cuts and nicks all over the lugs. It never caused a tyre failure, but would have accelerated tyre wear.

In contrast, the Founders 19.5 truck tyres hardly have a mark on them. That’s impressive, given they’re such a soft compound.

The big question… if we had to buy another set of tyres right now, would we go with Founders again? At this point, yes. They’re expensive, no doubt about that. But it’s difficult to describe just how much the Founders tyres have improved the ride quality.

For this reason alone, they’d be our number one choice. Hopefully, they’ll continue to perform faultlessly. And right now, we every reason to suspect they will.

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Thanks to Chris and Nick Campbell from All Terrain Warriors for their generous offer to supply this set of tyres for us to trial… and for organising fitment, despite the pressure and uncertainty of unreliable supply chains.

Note: ATW have supplied these tyres at no charge to us. However, all our reviews are open and honest – we tell it how it is.

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Go here for more Reviews on our 4×4 Isuzu NPS truck.

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Any errors or omissions are mine alone.

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