On a recent adventure in South Australia’s Gawler Ranges, I realised that my Prado had been wearing this set of Kumho Road Venture MT51 tyres for over 50,000km. Installed in October 2019, these tyres have survived some of the toughest conditions in Australia and still have 10mm of tread remaining.

On close inspection there is no chipping, cuts, or tread damage on any of the tyres and the wear has been fantastic. I must stress that the tyres are rotated every 10,000km, including the two spares, which helps keep the wear even across all six tyres. I’m also a bit OCD when running tyre pressures to suit the terrain, which means lowering the PSI when I leave the blacktop and pumping them up again when returning to bitumen. My vehicle can be a little overloaded, but I compensate for that with my tyre pressure.

The first 5000km for the Kumho MT51 tyres were all bitumen and also included a bit of towing so I noticed the middle tread section wore rather quickly. COVID then struck so the Prado sat in the carport for a few months, which I’m sure the tyre rubber didn’t appreciate and I noticed more road noise on the first long road trip.

Once off the blacktop, the MT51s always performed as expected and even got me through trouble a couple of times, once in some deep, wet snow and in a deep, muddy water hole on Googs Track. The mud tyres were able to grip and extract the Prado out of these possible nasty situations.

If you take into account where I enjoy exploring and the different types of road surfaces that I encounter, you can see why I am so impressed with these Kumho Road Venture MT51 tyres. Whether it is a sandy desert track, a stony outback road, a rocky river crossing or a shaly mountain track I have 100% confidence that the tyres are going to get me home without any trouble. In fact, touch wood, I’ve yet to suffer a puncture but have had to use my type plugs on other people’s tyres on several occasions.

A thick sidewall prevents staking from sticks when tyre pressures are low when rock crawling or in deep sand. It is important to drop your tyre pressures when driving in sand and I’ve even aired down the Kumho MT51 tyres to 10PSI in extreme situations. Generally, I like to run the front tyres at 16PSI and the rear tyres at 18PSI on sandy desert tracks.

When exploring the Victorian High Country or on a shaly outback climb, my tyre pressures run between 20 – 22PSI for the front tyres and 24 – 28PSI for the rear tyres, depending on the conditions. I find that this gives me a good footprint, reduces wheel slippage and improves the ride comfort. The side biters help protect the sidewall from damage caused by rocks and stones.

My previous set of Kumho Road Venture MT51 tyres travelled over 85,000km, so I will be very happy if these ones last that long.

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