Why mud tyres are overkill on your caravan

Just about every caravan manufacturer these days sells a so-called off-road or off-grid caravan. While there's no strict definition of what an off-road caravan is, you’ll see many that are eight metres long (minimum), 3000kg mass (at least), and come equipped for a nuclear winter – or at least peak season winter up north...

These remote expedition caravans can also be recognised by their jacked up, high-off-the-deck bodies furnished with rally-ready dual-shock independent suspensions, brush bars, checkerplate everywhere, and the gnarliest-looking Mud Terrain tyres you’ve ever seen.

There’s nothing really wrong with any of that; checkerplate looks the part and does a bit of panel protection, while independent suspension reduces the chance of your gear being shaken to bits on rough Outback roads. But there’s a strong argument that those big, pricey Mud Terrain tyres on your mud-plugging 26-footer full-size van are totally unnecessary...

What is a Mud Terrain tyre anyway?

Mud Terrain tyres are the heaviest, strongest construction of all passenger vehicle tyre types, with typically a blocky, deep tread pattern, a low speed rating and a high load rating.

Their tread pattern is designed for 4WDs to rip ferociously through mud and spit it out on the mudflaps, as the tyres gouge into the earth with the tenacity of a pitbull. Did I mention that many MT tyres have enough thick rubber in them to ever avoid going flat while keeping a rubber plantation in business for a year?

For a 4WD heading off-road that sometimes has to grip and go at both ends in slippery terrain, this sort of tyre makes perfect sense for certain off-road situations. The driving wheels need to get purchase, and the chunky mud terrains are a way of finding it.

For a caravan, there are no driven wheels, so the effect of grippy tyres do little to help the caravan stop sliding or slipping towards wherever gravity and/or inertia might take it.

It’s about here mud-terrain advocates will pipe up and say that caravan tyres have to grip – and brake too –  and who has never found themselves towing a van deep in the bush when the weather suddenly goes bad and turns the tracks into soapy goop?

If you willingly take a decent-sized caravan into this sort of terrain, then you’re an adventure thrill-seeker who’s up for the challenge. And you’ll probably be too busy winching out a bogged three-tonne caravan somewhere in the desert to read this anyway!

‘Muddies’ with big knobs on their outer surface might make some sense if fitted to a smaller, light camper trailer, because they’re often purpose-built to drag into the bush behind your 4x4 after towing thousands of kilometres on tarmac to get there.

Also, if you can have the wheels and tyres matched to your tow vehicle, the main advantage of fitting big-knob tyres is that you have a spare tyre or two that can be used on either tow vehicle or trailer. Job done.

As for dragging a big caravan somewhere slippery, mud tyres make as much sense as fitting a steel bullbar to the front of your caravan, in case a ’roo makes a dive for the A-frame as you pass (I can see the advertising execs scrambling to make that pitch now!).

They’re also more expensive than other tyre types; are much noisier on bitumen; often wear more quickly; offer less grip on the road, especially in the wet; and their added rolling resistance due to their extra weight and block tread increases towing fuel consumption.

And there is little if any off-road grip advantage in having MTs instead of less chunky ATs (All Terrain) on a caravan as they are not driven wheels.

Then there is the spare wheel or two, usually hung out the back on the rear bumper because there’s no room anywhere else to put them. That could add up to an extra 100kg or so for a spare M/T tyre combo, swinging out in the breeze behind your caravan; potentially unbalancing the rig and increasing the risk of trailer sway.

Given that newer tyres are more puncture resistant, two spares is probably overkill.

If you’re going to be slipping and sliding on a muddy track, a good All Terrain tyre with an open tread pattern in a Light Truck (LT) construction is going to do as good a job of keeping the caravan straight as a Mud Terrain tyre in most situations. If your big van is trying to swap ends with the tow vehicle on soapy mud, then you should ask yourself why you’re attempting to tow it through there in the first place.

Many on-road caravans are fitted with LT or commercial-rated tyres, and they’re often the best compromise in terms of price and sufficient load rating. Like off-road caravans, All Terrain tyres (or Mud Terrain, for that matter) is not an industry standard; it’s a marketing term.

So not all tyres wearing these descriptions are the same, or offer the type of tread pattern or carcass that will produce the best grip and puncture resistance when travelling in the bush.

So what’s the solution? Don’t fall for the marketing hype when buying a new caravan, or at least when replacing the Mud Terrains on your existing van. Instead, get a lighter, better wearing Light Truck tyre of the correct load rating for your van, and enjoy the weight and cost savings...