Postby albus415 » Wed Jan 18, 2017 9:33 am
I ended up getting the Cooper AT3 in 265/70/r17- my local shop had them in stock and I had a winter road trip pop up unexpectedly. They are great so far, 95% as quiet as the worn out Yokohama Geolanders that were on there. Did just fine in the snow- we went through a lot of fresh snow in Montana and they did great. More than enough to get me through a season of skiing and winter road trips (they're not m+s rated, but not snowflake). I took a 1.5-2 mpg hit, but overall very happy having tougher tires on the Pathfinder. (this could be exacerbated by the bigger tire size and the computer)
I did a lot of research on the Trail Grappler, and they're still my favorite here's some infos:
Called Nitto - the customer service person was pretty adamant that between the TG and the G2, the Trail Grappler was quieter, and had similar mpg due to their new tread design. This is surprising because the G2 is "less aggressive" than the Trail Grappler.
The other big factor for me was that the 265/70/r17 only came in an E rating, and weighted 51lbs. The 285/70/17 comes in the lighter c rating at 54lbs. Feedback from my mechanic was that putting the smaller E rated tire was going to be too stiff on the Pathfinder. The 285/70/r17 Trail Grapplers are still my favorite looking AT tire, and if I had a lift I'd be running them. Also, per Nitto rep, the 285s would be fine on the stock width rims. YMMV double check with your tire dude.
Sidenote, on my 2007 LE's speedo is now dead-on up through 85mph as a result of going up in size to 265/70/r17 from 265/65/r17 (even though it's a slightly larger size than the factory recommendation).