'93 AX15 ZJ

[gogmorgo]

3 hours ago, Pete M said:

arguably any tire that isn't a "snow tire", isn't a snow tire.   that little snowpeak only means that the tire isn't completely deadly when the temps drop.  you'll see what I mean soon enough   I was one year from having an AWD stickshift MJ with snow tires as my winter beater.  then we sold the house and I had to cull the herd.  dang.   was super looking forward to that.

The ATX is a “snow” tire, by every definition of the term. But it’s not a winter tire, no. There’s a difference, and you don’t need to sell me on it. 
My 2.5 MJ has the cheaper stock-size winters that came with the ZJ when I bought it, and it was definitely more competent than the ZJ after I drove them back to back on one of the first snow days we had in town here, despite only being 2wd, which is what started me on the real winter tire saga. But then I started waffling after realizing how much it was going to cost, especially with needing to go to 16” wheels to run the tires I wanted, and I almost talked myself out of it.

Then a couple weeks ago we had some freezing rain and the drive up to the hill was sketch AF the day after. And to make matters worse, about halfway up some asshat in a jacked up Dodge caught up and glued himself to my bumper, despite the fact that I was still going the speed limit, and hanging the tail out on every corner (deliberately at this point to try to get him to back off). 4x just meant I would push straight ahead in the corners. After five minutes of him not backing off, I stopped to let him by, and then when I got to the parking lot at the hill, he was unloading kids from the truck.  And then I saw his truck again when I went back to the Jeep for lunch, and noticed he was just on KO2s, which in my experience are a far cry worse on ice than the Grabbers.

But before he caught up to me I already had resolved to order my tires from the parking lot regardless. So I went ahead and did that, but they were on backorder and only just came in a couple days back.

 

 

The lack of white letters is... Odd. I’m not sure how I feel about it. The whole time mounting the tires I was fighting the urge to grab a paint marker and fill them in, but I told myself I’d wait to see what they look like installed first.

 

[MiNi Beast]

its ok they have tire markers to fill in your letters. 

[gogmorgo]

Well I wasn’t patient enough to try out the black lettres first. 

Oh well. They’re just gonna look awesome. I’ll get them on the Jeep once the paint is dry.

[gogmorgo]

And done. I’m always nervous about changing things. But I’m happy with the KJ wheels.

 

The KJ wheels have roughly 1/4” less offset than the MJ wheels that were on it, but it’s not super noticeable. I figure it’ll just mean less road grime on the sides of the Jeep. Initial impressions, well we just had a couple warm/dry weeks so there’s not much ice around to be had. Dry handling is a little squidgier, but I expected that. The studs are no louder than the Grabbers were, only really noticeable when turning sharp at low speeds, say making a right from a stop sign. At highway speeds they’re probably even quieter, not exactly a huge surprise either. 
I’m not 100% on the white lettres for the simple fact the two blocks are not very well opposed on the tire, but they still pop pretty nicely. I’ll call it better than bland black sidewalls.

Dimensionally they’re basically the same. I think the shorter sidewall with the 16” wheel makes them look slightly smaller overall, but it’s just an illusion. I’d need a tape measure to tell them apart. 

[Pete M]

lookin' reeeeal goooood     

[89 MJ]

Definitely cleaned up the looks and made it look classier. I like it. 

[BeatCJ]

I really like those wheels. What are they from?

 

Edit: Disregard, I found a set on Craigslist, hopefully they are still available next weekend, they are to far to look at after work.

[JMO413]

Looking good!!

[gogmorgo]

4 hours ago, BeatCJ said:

I really like those wheels. What are they from?

 

Edit: Disregard, I found a set on Craigslist, hopefully they are still available next weekend, they are to far to look at after work.

I mistakenly said they came from a KJ rubicon, but it’s a KJ Renegade, specifically 2002-04. They’re colour matched to the paint, so there’s green and khaki ones too.

The XJ was also available in ‘01 and ‘02 with a near identical Icon wheel which is what I was looking for when I found the KJ wheels. I’ve found references to the XJ wheels having either the standard XJ offset and the KJ offset so I don’t know if they’re the same or not, but it’s only a 1/4” in the difference. The 2005-06 Renegades had different wheels, similar to the Icon, but without the raised bit in the centre of the spoke. I definitely prefer the look of the earlier ones.

[gogmorgo]

I figure a tire review is in order after having put a few hundred km on these. A bunch around town, and three trips up to the ski hill.
As a direct comparison to the ATX, some interesting things come out. On all but polished surfaces, stiction seems not hugely different. The Nokians do have an edge in linear traction (accel and braking) and more of an edge in lateral traction (cornering) but they both will start sliding at around the same point. The ATX may even have a slight edge in deeper snow.

The big difference though is once the ATX loses traction, it’s done. You start to spin, you’ll just sit and spin. Start to slide, you’ll keep sliding in the same direction you were going. But the Hakkas don’t lose grip when they break lose. They still give you roughly the same traction and control even as you slide or spin, which makes it so much easier to keep everything moving in the direction you planned. The other major advantage the Hakkas have is ice traction. I imagine the compound and tread pattern has something to do with that but the studs are the clear advantage there. If I spun the ATX backing out of an icy skating rink of a parking spot, I’d usually have to grab 4x4 and still leave two long very polished tracks as I struggle to get moving. The studs bite into the hard ice, and I’ll move away in 2wd, still spinning, but they’ll bite while spinning, leaving the ice thoroughly shredded. 
 

Superpowers? I don’t think I’d go quite that far. But yes, it was definitely worth the money. The road up to the ski hill isn’t that bad at an average 6% grade, but it’s narrow and twisty and it’s always pretty nasty with polished out ruts and lose crap in between them.  And when it snows it’s not the biggest priority over the highways, so it’s frequently a bit before the plows hit it... and this is Alberta so no one has any idea what a safe following distance is supposed to be on a clear dry road, let alone one with less than optimal traction. And it’s nice to be able to put the torque down to get you up the hill without going sailing sideways every time you start to spin.

[Pete M]

super powers  

[Sir Sam]

On 12/7/2020 at 5:31 PM, BeatCJ said:

I really like those wheels. What are they from?

 

Edit: Disregard, I found a set on Craigslist, hopefully they are still available next weekend, they are to far to look at after work.

Those are the “icon” wheels found on XJs and KJs. These particular dark face with machined lip are from a KJ renegade or Freedom edition. 

[BeatCJ]

Thanks, I picked up a set. They were the silver Cherokee version, but the PO painted them Duplicolor Wheel Graphite. And gave me the left over paints, 6 cans including cleaner, primer paint and clear. One had been repaired on the inside, so I'm still looking for one. It's still usable, and looks as if it had very little weight. Probably going to mount up a set of snow tires tomorrow.