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When I purchased my 2023 Ford Bronco Sport Badlands, the all-terrain Falken WildPeak tires were an upgrade over the standard all-season ones supplied (Pirelli). With an added prce of $525, I was unsure if I’d see the value in the Falkens. Now that I’ve traveled over 10,000 miles on them in snow, mud, off-pavement trails, and a bit of light off-roading, they have proven to be one of the best features of the vehicle. However, it is not the performance in those conditions that has impressed me most.
Read our initial test report here.
Falken WildPeak A/T3W Tires – On Pavement
Although I use my Bronco Sport off pavement nearly every week, the vast majority of my miles are suburban highway paved road miles. I am blessed to have a cabin in the woods, and I go to as often as family/work and real life permit, and the 90-minute drive to the cabin is fantastic. The very epitome of lonely mountain roads with switchbacks, elevation changes, and speed limits that allow for some (mostly) legal fun. New Hampshire does a fantastic job paving and maintaining its scenic roadways, and the Bronco Sport Badlands is a fantastic vehicle to enjoy them in.
What has surprised me most about these all-terrain tires is that they are fantastic street tires. They are not loud, and they provide a great handling experience. I test vehicles for a living, and most of the trucks and SUVs I get with all-terrain tires literally howl on pavement and they wallow when turned due to the flexible sidewalls. Yet, my Bronco Sport doesn’t, and I credit the Falken tires for this.
I drive on pavement so much that I had seriously considered swapping the Falkens out in summer for some Falken Zeix CT60 all-season tires and saving the WildPeaks for the muddy and snowy weather. I’m glad now that I did not do that. These WildPeak tires offer everything I would have hoped to get from the CT60s.
Falken WildPeak A/T3W Tires Are Wearing Down – And I’m Actually Glad They Are
When I first purchased the Bronco Sport Badlands, I measured the tire tread of the Falkens. I recorded 9.8mm of tread depth. That’s a very deep tread, and part of what makes all-terrain tires work well in soft sand and in mud and snow. Now 10,000 miles into the ownership, I measured the tread depth again at 6.4mm.
Does that mean that the tire is wearing quickly? Not necessarily. Most tires do not have a uniform rate of wear. As they age, the tread wears more slowly. Our expert tire installer, Jay Condrick of Boston Mobile Tire told us,
Tread squirm creates heat and is the reason for the initial rapid wear. As tires get closer to worn out, they wear more slowly. Performance in dry conditions often improves as tires approach the end of their life.
So, drawing a conclusion as to how long they will last is not really practical. However, I can say that the tires do seem to have less squirm, and the on-pavement handling is sharper than on day one. I have not observed it myself, but presumably, the snow and mud capabilities are diminished a bit as the tire wears down.
To get a feel for how long these tires will last, I turned to some of the great Bronco Sport Facebook clubs. I asked members who have these tires how long they have had them and their expectations for longevity. 61% of those polled said they got more than 40,000 miles. Here are some selected comments.
- TH – “Approaching 41,000 and still plenty of tread left.”
- PTG – “We are almost at 30k on our 2023 model and the tire look great. We rotate them every 5k miles.”
- JS – “40-50k was our range.”
- BG – “Have 26,250 on our 21 Badlands’ Falkens and they are in pretty decent shape still. Definitely wear fast though.”
Rotations and Wear
I’ve rotated the tires front to back once and then in an X-pattern the second time. Wear is even. No scaloping, no feathering, no uneven tread depth on any of them. The car drives straight on a level road, and the wheel is still perfectly centered. This is despite some hard pothole impacts and a lot of washboard dirt road mileage.
Air Pressure
I maintain a cold inflation pressure of 33 PSI in the tires, according to Ford’s recommendation. I added air last fall, and then when it got cold, I bled air out a few times as the seasons changed to warmer weather. All four tires have maintained their pressure. No pinhole leaks and no measurable air permeating the rubber to escape.
How I Would Score the Falken WildPeak A/T3W All-Terrain Tire
Based on my use in two winters and over 10,000 miles of mixed driving, here are the ratings I’d provide the Falken WildPeak tires. The scale is 1-10, with 10 being the best score.
- Noise – 9/10 Better than any other A/T tire I have ever tested.
- Dry grip – 9/10 – As good or better than I’d expect from an all-season tire
- Wet grip – 10/10 – It doesn’t get any better
- Dirt roads – 10/10 – The best possible dirt road tire one can buy
- Muddy dirt roads – 10/10 – On a sloppy dirt road, the tires are excellent
- Deep mud – Untested
- Sand surfaces – 10/10 – Over sandy surface, I have found no need to air down.
- Highway handling – 8/10 – Much better than I would have expected
- Twist roads in Sport Mode – 8/10 – Much better than I expected
- Hydroplaning resistance – 10/10 – Zero hydroplaning experienced
- Light snow – 8/10 – Very good
- Heavy fresh snow – 8/10 – Very good, much better than all-season tires would be
- Snow over ice – 4/10 – Not good in this scenario.
- Icey roadways – 4/10 – Not a good ice tire
Tire Size Tested: 235/65/17
10,000 Mile Summary
After 10,000 miles and over a very wide variety of surfaces, the Falken WildPeak A/T3W tires have performed well above expectations. They seem to equal the expectations of an all-season tire in terms of noise and dry road handling, and they are much better in a lot of scenarios. The only area in which they do not excel is on ice. A Falken (or any brand) winter tire would be superior on ice, and studs would be the final best step to take on ice.
The wear is definitely measurable, but we suspect we have at a minimum about 30,000 to 40,000 miles ahead of us. What do you think of our test results? Would this be a tire that you would consider in a crossover, SUV, or Truck? Tell us in the comments below.
Test Notes: Please note that these are tires that I purchased myself. They were a $525 adder to my Bronco Sport Badlands, for which I also paid full price.
Here is a detailed overview of the 3W vs. 4W versions of the WildPeak A/T tire.
John Goreham is a credentialed New England Motor Press Association member and expert vehicle tester. John completed an engineering program with a focus on electric vehicles, followed by two decades of work in high-tech, biopharma, and the automotive supply chain before becoming a news contributor. He is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE int). In addition to his eleven years of work at Torque News, John has published thousands of articles and reviews at American news outlets. He is known for offering unfiltered opinions on vehicle topics. You can connect with John on Linkedin and follow his work on his personal X channel or on our X channel. Please note that stories carrying John’s by-line are never AI-generated, but he does employ grammar and punctuation software when proofreading and he also uses image generation tools.
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Source: torquenews.com
