Those running Baja Claw bias

ive been looking around at the 2 baja claws. the radials and the bias, the bias seem to be a little more agressive in the fact that the lugs are spaced a little farther apart, and seem to have a little bigger sidewall lugs. now what are the road manners of the bias claw, acceptable for a daily driver? what kind of mileage are you guys getting with them? now since they are directional tires, what do you do for tire rotation? do you have to unmount, mount and balance them every time you need to rotate, or do you guys just run the backwards until you need to rotate them again? not in any rush to buy tires, just curious about them, and thinking they might be my next tire in the 33/13.50/15 flavor. thanks.

I have never owned these tires. However I know two people who have (1 on a XJ and one on a Defender 90).

They did not like them at all!! Terrible road manners (both were radials) I can not imagine the bias on the street. Not great traction in mud, snow, or ruts, they are ok for climbing dirt and rocks. And they get very low street miles. If i remember correctly they are extremely heavy also compared to others in their size.

Just my experience,
Michael

Uh, I disagree. I have put 20K miles on my 33x12.50 radials and they have at least 20K miles left. True, they aren't great road manners, loud and kinda rough, but they are AWESOME off road. Snow, ice, mud, rocks. Whatever, I've been in it all and never had a problem with traction.

WIth bias they will be worse on road, flat spotting and uneven ride. Radials will be a smarter choice of course. IF you're looking for an everyday tire they may not be a perfect match, but if you do a lot of wheeling you'll love them. Tough tires.

Chris

what do you guys do for tire rotation, do you just leave them where they are until they wear out?

I didn't rotate mine for awhile, and it started to get pretty rough. when I did rotate them the difference in ride was amazing. much much smoother. My tires wore pretty evenly,just more in the front than the rear. I rotated them front to rear and now all is good.

Chris

Rotate the driver side rear tires with the driver side front tires and same on passenger side. Getting a spare sucks because whichever way you mount it, it can only go on one side.

ya thats the only problem i see with directional tires is they can only be used one way. who has run these tires backwards on the street, and how have they worked? any balance issues, wheel shimmys etc?

For a spare I just used an All-terrain i bought cheap from a buddy. So it can work temporarily for any tire i have. When I get trxus MTs, the spare will still work just fine enough to get me off teh trail and back home.

Rotating front to rear still helps a good bit even if they are directional tires.

Chris

I have ran most varieties of "great" off road tires in the past 10 yrs, but have not tried any of the overly expensive newer super tires though (IE:Krawler, Creepy, ect.)

on the same built very well TJ I ran over time sets of;
*BFG muds - great mileage tire for what it is, would never buy again due to weak sidewals and not very good over all compared to others below
*TSL Thornbirds - OK NEVER BUY THESE I was very nieve and those only lasted about 250miles before I had interco exchange them for
*Boggers - best all around tire off road I ever owned, but flat spotted badly and drove horribly. but for off road (any kind really but technical rock crawling) they were the best I ever owned
*TSL Radials - one of my favorite tires. Very strong and wore well, great on rock, never had in snow, and mud was good. Heavy I though though for a radial.
*BAJA CLAWS radial variety. Buddy exact same setup as mine but on MTR's would go everwhere I did and vise versa. Clawdrove as well as the TSL radials to me, wore kinda fast though (liek 17,000 miles) but locked front and back with a heavy foot. Very tough tire that in sand would prevail over teh MT/R by far. Otherwise alot like the
* Goodyear MT/R - I HATE goodyears, always have always will, all except this tire. FOr the price at the time they were a great buy for a 35". These worn the best of all my tires up there but the BFG. They were great in rock and ok in sand. Could have been better in mud but I got over teh mud thing quickly, not my gig I found.

Now I am going on to either Pit Bull Rockers, or TrXus MT. If I had to pick one tire from up there for 25% on road and 75% off road, it would be a Claw, or maybe TSL Radial. But I like trying new things so it will probabily be a rocker. just my opinion.

I have to stick up for the claws here a little bit. I've got 33/12.50/15 Radials on my XJ with A Full Traction 6" lift. I cant believe how much I love these tires. I dont find them rough on the street at all , the only time I really notice is when I start driving from a dead stop then I feel the lugs every rotation for a few seconds until im up to about 5 km/h but I like it so it's ok , I dont find them very loud on the street though , personally I like the sound.

Now onto how they perform

Ive had BFG All Terrains as well as the BFG Mud Terrains , being part of the BC Jeep Club I wheel with guys with a wide range of tires. To my suprise I manage to outwheel my buddies with their built Short wheel base jeeps. The Baja Claw is a mud tire , basically point them where you want them to take you and that where your going. But what suprised me the VERY most is that for a mud tire when you air these down around 10 or lower , they make an amazing tire for rock crawling. I will be buying as set of 35/13.50/15 for my next tire but still debating bias ply or radial as I would like the stronger sidewall and bigger side lugz. Oh yah last good thing about claws , throw them on almost any trail ready jeep and right away it will change the entire look of the vehicle and make it look just plain out aggressive.

I've been running belted baja claws on my XJ for upwards of two years. I've also got a friend running the same on her TJ. Currently we are both running 31x11.5. I'm mocking up a set of 35x13.5 now.

Milage is way down on mine (like 11 MPG), but that is due to gearing, excess weight, drag, etc. My friends TJ, dropped about 2 MPG which probably is a fair to good representation of normal mileage.

We both love them! However, they are noisy, vibrate a lot under 30 MPH, terrible on wet surfaces and they tend to wear quickly. I'm towards the end of my second set now. I've been averaging about 20k a set.

On the up side, they're great in deep water, mud and snow. and good to very good in sand or rock.

With the above said, most people prefer the radials over the belted. I have no intension on moving to radial version at this point.

Hope this helps,
Kent

thanks everyone. so far a lot of good info. now concerns with the bias ply is flat spotting. how many people have issues with this, and is it worth going with the radials? basically if the bias ply shake my car when i first start driving after its been sitting all night, then its probably not the right tire choice for me. if its only like 10 secs of driving thats fine, but if it takes some time to warm up i find that pretty annoying. im currently running the BFG MT's 32/11.50, my brother runs the 33/12.50 trxxus MT also a great tire. both these tires have excellent traction, and neither of them shake the cars which is kinda what i want. so is flat spotting a big issue with the bias ply tires? thanks

etaniyani said:

thanks everyone. so far a lot of good info. now concerns with the bias ply is flat spotting. how many people have issues with this, and is it worth going with the radials? basically if the bias ply shake my car when i first start driving after its been sitting all night, then its probably not the right tire choice for me. if its only like 10 secs of driving thats fine, but if it takes some time to warm up i find that pretty annoying. im currently running the BFG MT's 32/11.50, my brother runs the 33/12.50 trxxus MT also a great tire. both these tires have excellent traction, and neither of them shake the cars which is kinda what i want. so is flat spotting a big issue with the bias ply tires? thanks

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I've never had problem with flat spotting on my daily driver. I asked my friend with the TJ and she's never noticed it either. However, my truck has been sitting for over a month due to some problems I'm hoping to clear up this weekend. Point being, if I start driving it again within the next few days I'll have a very good idea how flat spotting effects bias claws after an extended idle session.

Kent

that sounds fine to me. mine's usually driven every day anyways. alright thanks everyone for the info, very useful.

Just figured I'd update my findings. My truck for 3 more weeks bringing the total down time to 2 months. I drove it today for the first time.

I spent the first 5 miles or so under 35 MPH to see if I would have issues with flat spotting. To my surprise, I didn't notice anything. I then opted to drive it to work (50 round trip) on the highway. I still haven't noticed any issues with flat spotting.


Kent

thats good to hear that the bias ply dont have flat spotting issues. thanks for the update.

bias are the only way to go with the claws. Really Tough sidewalls and for somereason they grip better then the raidals. Oh and pitbull's are gay.