Hello, I am brand new here and over the summer purchased a new GL 450, to replace a large people mover Suburban. I live in Colorado and travel to the mountains weekly as well as every other week to a ski home as well. The roads are always icy, snow packed while on the freeways, and can often be axle deep, unplowed, or snow packed on the road up to my mountain home. I ran BF Goodrich AT tires on the suburban, as well as my wife's Escalade and swear by them for the rugged conditions. The issue is that the GL with either the 19 inch rims, which I chose, as well as the 20 inch rims, don't allow for those tires. I scanned some older posts on here and saw someone saying that they use Yokohama Geolanders with pretty good results. I will go that direction possibly, but am also considering moving down in rim size to 18 inch which would allow me to mount the Goodrich tires on them. My concern regarding a tire like the Geolander, is that in the summer months the road to my place can get very rutted with exposed stones and rocks, which could split the sidewalls of a lesser beefy tire. Has anyone else here found a good solution to this wheel/tire headache? Winter is approaching here in a month or so and I need to make a decision. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!
Thanks.

 

I run Nitto Terra Grapplers in the winter for trips to Tahoe. Alsofor the Local Mountains here in So Cal both in winter and summer off road camping trips. It has proven to be a pretty capable tire.

On my previous GX470 I had the BFG AT KO's and they were hands down the best and the only tire in it's class that has the winter snow flake/mountain designation. Too bad they do not fit the GL.

 

Thanks, I will look into the Nitto's. Because I have used the Goodrich's for so long I am still considering switching rim and tire size to be able to still use them. I hate monkeying with a brand new car and nice looking rims! Your dark rims look really good on your ride, that is a great look.

 

I also live and CO and make frequent trips to the slopes. I've been running Michelin Latitude tires for years and have never found a better tire. Not only do they have great traction, but are very quiet and will run 60k miles before needing replacement.

 

Out of curiosity, what size rims are you running your tires on, 19 or 20 inch? It almost seems like there are more alternatives with the 20 inch rims, which seems odd to me?

 

I still have the factory 19" rims. The wife wants the 20" so need to wear out the tires first.

 

We run Pirelli Scorpion Snow/Ice, all for seasons on our ML 500.

Mark

 

I would probably consider a dedicated winter tire. The Nittos are all season. They have an aggressive tread pattern, but they would likely not stay soft in the cold like a dedicated winter does.

 

I bought the Nokian WR G2 tires for my '07. I have a set of 19" rims and Toyo tires for the summer, so I put the Nokians on my stock 18s for the winter, and they seemed to work well. However, Chicagoland is not Colorado. :-)
Anyway, Nokian may be worth exploring.

 

Welcome! You'll get ample answers to your question on this forum, but want to point out there are two GL forums. The X164 is the 2007-2012 model years and the X166 is the 2013 - present model years.