Toyo Open Country R/T Trail Tire Review: Happy Medium

Purpose-driven tires usually come with some kind of trade-off. If you want performance, there’s going to be a catch. In the world of light-duty truck and 4x4 tires, the new Rugged Terrain (R/T) category attempts to bridge the gap between all-terrain (A/T) and mud-terrain (M/T) tires. Balancing mud and rock prowess with on-road comfort and NVH compliance is no easy feat, but that’s exactly what the new Toyo Open Country R/T Trail seeks to do. Is it the best of both worlds, or a jack of all trades and master of none?

So why an R/T for my use case, and why should others consider one? For better and worse, my GX460 spends a lot of time sitting. In nearly five years, I’ve put only about 15,000 miles on it, most of them short trips. But when I do take it out, the terrain is brutal: rocks, mud, tree stumps, loose dirt, sand, snow, and whatever else I can find to push the vehicle—and its tires—through. The difference between getting through an obstacle and spending the day pulling cable can come down to the tires.

Getting to those fun spots, however, means significant highway travel, often to the tune of four hours each way. That makes on-road comfort and compliance nearly as important as off-road capability. That’s where the R/T comes in, straddling the line between the daily manners of an A/T and the off-road advantages of an M/T. For enthusiasts who want maximum performance without sacrificing highway comfort, the R/T represents the balance: Good when you need it to be and great when you want it to be. Off-roading is a want game, after all.

A do-it-all tire should also come in a wide range of sizes, and Toyo delivers with more than 70 options for 16- to 24-inch wheels. While 285/70R17 is popular in the Toyota 4x4 community, we prefer skinny “pizza cutters” for their on-road performance, off-road footprint, and lower weight and rolling resistance. That led us to the 255/80R17, which measures 33.1x10.0 inches and weighs just 52 pounds each. The catch? It’s only available with an E load rating and a 3,415-pound maximum load per tire—significant overkill for this application.

As good as everything is on paper, a tire is only as good as it is in reality. Specs and marketing copy mean nothing if it can’t perform. Because enthusiast communities fascinate over tire specifics, let’s go through the R/T Trail discipline-by-discipline.

Road

Performance tires are usually very grippy, while off-road tires use large voids to grab rocks and evacuate mud. Those traits don’t exactly jive on pavement, so tires in this category are often merely “adequate” on-road: Rough, loud, and questionable in wet or icy conditions. Thankfully, that’s not the case here, and the R/T Trail is more than happy-- or at least willing to withstand its time-- on pavement.

Obviously then it won’t match an A/T for NVH, but it’s perfectly peaceful compared to an M/T. There’s some hum at speed, but it’s nothing major. The soft tires grip and track well, even in the narrow size tested here, with no tramlining and predictable cornering.

Snow is where the R/T Trail falters, revealing its off-road bias. A light coating or small snowfall quickly packs the tread blocks, compromising turning and stopping compared with more snow-friendly tires. In deeper snow, however, they perform well, and initiating slip is easy and predictable. Rain and standing water are even less of a concern.

Trail

With “trail” in the name, the R/T Trail should be good off-road, right? It is. Traction on both loose and hard-pack dirt is very strong. The tires are effectively unfazed by dirt, gravel, and fire roads, acting almost as if they’re on pavement. The E-load rating makes things a little stiff even when aired down to 15 PSI, but that also means you can drive them like a rally stage at any given opportunity off-road.

Even better, grip on the rocks is phenomenal. This is perhaps where the R/T Trail excels most, showing a big advantage over all-terrains. The tread is a little hard to be optimal for the most hardcore rock crawling (you’ll want mud-terrains for those), but on the trails of the Northeast, the rocks are no match for the Toyos. Even with my vehicle’s open front and rear differentials, the tires managed to find grip and climb obstacles that on all-terrains wouldn’t have been possible-- at least not without significant prodding of the right foot.

As for mud performance, well… no tire really loves the mud. Delivering on their promise though, the R/T Trail does better in the muck than either the Open Country A/T IIIs or BFGoodrich All-Terrain KO2s that were on the GX prior. That isn’t to say it doesn’t have its difficulties, though; Loose, soft mud is its kryptonite. The stuff packs in between tread blocks, and the tire just can’t clear it out that well. It reflects what happens with light snow, but if you want any better mud performance, you will suffer the consequences on pavement.

Other Factors

The R/T Trail is a good-looking tire, slotting in nicely between the Open Country A/T III and M/T as far as aggressiveness goes. The brand also has an R/T Pro one rung above it; it’s a little more macho-looking, but casual enthusiasts won’t notice the difference. To our eyes, these are plenty mean.

We can’t really comment on longevity; our year-plus of testing the R/T Trails covered less than 3,000 miles of combined driving. However, our initial prognosis is good; even after a few limit-testing off-road trips and sub-zero through 100-plus degree weather alike, the tires still look effectively brand new. There’s not even slight chunking from rock crawling to show on the edges of the tread blocks.

When it comes to fuel economy, comparing tires apples-to-apples is difficult unless they’re identical in size and load rating. Even then, actual measurements, tire weight, and driving conditions can significantly affect results. This becomes even more important with large, heavy tires: reducing unsprung mass is key, but your options are often limited by the sizes manufacturers offer.

That said, from our admittedly less-than-scientific analysis, the R/T Trail proved slightly more fuel-hungry than the two sets of all-terrain tires they replaced, even despite both sets of A/Ts being heavier than the R/T Trails. Rolling resistance does play a big part, after all. Different driving might have had different results, though.

Price is also a tricky one. Currently on TireRack, the R/T Trail in 255/80/17 is $322.30 per tire. This puts it as the fifth most expensive of the six R/T tires available in this size. Then again, pricing varies quite a bit by size, and the mantra “you get what you pay for” tends to hold true on the tire front.

Toyo Open Country R/T Trail: Conclusion

Ultimately, an enthusiast-forward tire has to do a few things, and if it does most of them well then it’s a success. Is the R/T Trail perfect? No, but nothing inherently compromised can be so; that’s just a consequence of the nature of trade-offs. Those looking for a rugged terrain tire-- and the connotations that come with it-- will find the R/T Trail hard to fault. It has performed beautifully and never come up short. Another victory for Toyo, and perhaps a big vote of confidence for the R/T category as well.

Yay

• Rugged looks
• Relatively lightweight
• Good road manners, even compared to some A/Ts
• Better off-road than an A/T
• Phenomenal rock crawling grip
• Great dry traction on tarmac and dirt
• Extreme durability

Nay

• Some hum at speed (albeit, to be expected)
• Clogs up with mud easily compared to a true M/T
• Ride quality can be harsh over bumps (again, a consequence of the E-load rating)
• Packs with snow easily on roadways
• Expensive at ~$320/tire

The Takeaway

The Toyo Open Country R/T Trail is a solid tire that will please buyers with its looks, off-road prowess, and relatively compliant on-road manners. It’s the sweet spot for a tire that needs to be comfortable on-road and perform well off-road, and we wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to anyone with a similar use case.

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