- Well, Mickey Thompson has definitely been busy this year.
Not too long ago,
we were introducing the brand new Baja Boss all-terrain.
And now, we're introducing
to you guys the new Baja Legend EXP.
Now we saw this tire when we were at SEMA,
and it actually won an award
for best tire in its product category.
So we're just gonna basically go over the tire's features
with you guys and some of the benefits,
and maybe it's a tire for you and maybe it's not.
So let's find out.
Starting off, guys,
Mickey Thompson classifies this tire
as an all-terrain hybrid or hybrid all-terrain.
So you can see that it does have that center tread design
that's really packed a lot closer together
with the outer shoulder lugs spread more further apart
for mud and things like that.
So you can see that it is of a hybrid tread design,
which for those of you that are going off-road
and maybe using your rigs as a daily driver,
or maybe a hunting vehicle
where you're on the road 90% of the time
and once in a while go off-road,
this tread pattern on a hybrid is really nice
because the center tread pattern on here is optimized
for on-road performance,
whereas the outer scallop shoulder lugs are more optimized
for that off-road performance.
You can see it has these huge,
pretty massive tread voids in between all
of the shoulder lugs here.
They have this massive tread void in between
that center tread and the shoulder treads on here.
So you're gonna get plenty of evacuation capabilities
with snow or water, sand and dirt,
whatever it is that you're going through.
It's gonna be able to evacuate all of that stuff
out of there relatively quickly.
The center tread lugs are a little bit tighter,
closer together here, so you do get that noise reduction.
You get that handling performance
for braking or acceleration
with this closer, tightly packed center tread on there.
So it's really basically just optimized
for an all-around great tire.
Hybrids have been really taking over the market.
For those of us who use our off-road vehicles
for daily driving, for most of our driving is on the road,
and then we hit the occasional trails on the weekends.
And that's where this tread design really helps us out,
not having to buy separate tires,
like mud tires just to go hit the trails,
or all-terrain tires for better on-road performance all
of the time.
We got one great tire that can pretty much do it all.
Now one thing I will say with the EXPs,
with these Legend EXPs is
that they are not three-peak mountain snowflake rated.
So similar to like the Nitto Recons,
where they don't have that 3PMF rating.
but I can still see they have plenty of sipes.
In fact, each one of the treads has at least, well one,
and then on each one
of these shoulder lugs have three sipes, and I did check,
they do go all the way down to the base
of the tread as well.
So it really helps with if you're going through water,
it kind of takes up some of that water into these sipes.
Or if you're on snow,
it'll pack that snow into these sipes
and snow on snow or ice-packed in here on snow
or ice really is what helps give it
that extra traction capability.
So I can see it doing really well,
even in some of those winter conditions, on ice or snow.
Obviously a 3PMF-rated tire does have a little bit different
of a tread compound blended together,
where it doesn't get as brittle
or as hard at colder temperatures.
So getting back to these pretty massive evacuation voids
in here or tread voids in-between the tread logs.
Now I did go ahead and pick ourselves
up a little tread depth gauge here,
which measures by the 30 seconds.
And this particular tire,
the EXP does measure at 18/30 seconds,
which is a pretty decent tread depth
or tread void depth for this type of tire.
So you're gonna have that extra room
in between the tread lugs to really bite, grip, claw,
and remove some of that loose stuff
that you might be going through, snow, mud,
whatever it may be, water.
So pretty decent tread depth on here.
So Mickey Thompson gives this tire
a 50,000-mile tread wear warranty,
which is pretty good for a hybrid type of tire.
Usually, when you start getting into that hybrid
to that mud terrain sort of tread compound,
you do start to get more of a softer tread compound
for that more adhesion for off-roading,
a little softer in the rocks for that extra adhesion there.
So having a 50,000-mile tread wear warranty is
really exceptional for a hybrid tread design pattern.
And then moving out to our shoulder lugs here.
Obviously staggered,
that's a pretty common tread design
with mud tires or more aggressive tires, hybrid tires.
You get these staggered different-sized shoulder lugs
on here, which help in that scooping ability
when you're going through the mud or snow.
You can see that it does have these little,
now I don't know exactly what these are.
These little grooves in-between
that are built in to these shoulder blocks here.
But my guess is that when there's some sort of loose debris,
whether it's mud or snow or something like that,
or even water, that when this tread void that fills up,
it does have another exit point
to evacuate out in-between these tread lugs, maybe.
I can see that being another advantage to.
I can also see that with a little less surface area
on every other shoulder tread lug here,
you do get more pressure per square inch on this tread lugs
to help with that additional traction,
whether it's on the road or on the trail.
So maybe that's what it is, maybe not.
I don't know, I'm kind of guessing here,
but I think that makes sense, we'll see.
It's just interesting that they have these little cutouts
on every other shoulder lug on here.
So the other thing is obviously,
you're gonna see your typical stone ejectors
in-between the shoulder lugs here.
That's pretty common to help keep those stones and things
from sticking in-between the shoulder lugs.
Again, alternating scallop-shaped outer shoulder lugs here
to help with that scooping of the mud and sand and dirt
and whatever else that you're going through.
And even too when you're aired down,
when you're off-roading,
having these alternating shoulder lugs here,
these scallop-shaped alternating shoulder lugs will help aid
in that additional footprint traction
as the footprint starts to spread out a little bit
when you're aired down to help bite and grab at the dirt
and rocks and everything else that you may be going through.
So pretty cool design, the sidewall here.
It does have that little bit more aggressive sort
of side biters here too,
which does also aid in that extra traction.
It provides an additional contact patch while aired down.
They are alternating in size and also depth as well.
So it gives you a little bit of extra traction there
and they are the same on each side.
There's no white walls or any option like that.
It's just black walls on both sides.
The side biters are identical on both sides.
So you get that uniformity there.
There's not an extra option if you want white walls or not,
or if you want one of the design spacing out
or anything like that.
So it does have a pretty aggressive,
pretty aesthetically-pleasing design look to it.
It's got that muscular, strong, bold,
aggressive look to the tire.
So it's gonna look good on your vehicle,
gonna look good going down the road,
and it's gonna perform well.
And of course,
Mickey Thompson definitely has a great reputation,
so you won't be disappointed there.
Another really cool fact real quick
before we wrap this up is they are gonna be introducing this
in 41 different sizes,
which we are in the process of getting all
of those different sizes uploaded to our website,
that TrailBuilt Off-Road,
and we'll have a link in the description below.
So hopefully, that won't be too long.
You guys will be able to see this on our website.
Other than that,
let us know what you guys think
of the new Mickey Thompson Baja Legend EXP.
Just let us know in the comments below.
Other than that, guys,
we definitely appreciate all of you for watching
and all of your support.
I'm Josh from TrailBuilt,
and we'll see you guys out on the trails.
(tire taps)
(catchy music)