With the Desert Hawk HT3, Achilles presents a highway-terrain tire for light trucks, SUVs, and CUVs that offers much the same versatility as all-season passenger tires. That means the versatility of year-round traction (with the exception of heavier snow), a quiet and comfortable ride, handling that’s predictable and consistent, long tread life with a generous limited manufacturer’s tread wear warranty, and road manners that are secure and solid at highway speed. Those are some of the best traits of all-season passenger tires, and the reason why they’re such a popular choice for most drivers. With the Desert Hawk HT3, Achilles brings all those pluses to the table along with the beefed-up construction and materials that light trucks and SUVs need to handle their weight, power, torque, and load rating easily. Best of all, the Achilles Desert Hawk HT3 comes in at a very affordable price point, while offering some of the same kinds of design features, materials and performance you’d expect from premium brand tires that cost much, much more. Let’s get in and take a closer look at what this tire has to offer with this Achilles Desert Hawk HT3 tire review:

Features and Benefits

Here are some of the great design features and innovations that make the Achilles Desert Hawk HT3 a great performer and a solid value in a highway-terrain tire for light trucks, SUVs, and CUVs:

• Next-generation highway-terrain tire designed for sporty handling and great roadability in all kinds of weather and road conditions
• Resists hydroplaning and delivers great wet-weather grip with a system of circumferential grooves that force water out of the tire’s contact patch
• Advanced tread compound is designed for great wear properties and enhanced wet-weather or dry-weather grip
• Continuous center rib helps to deliver solid straight-line stability and road manners as well as steering response that’s light and quick
• Shoulders are designed for improved handling as well as encouraging long, even wear
• Optimized tread pitch combination is computer-tuned to keep road noise low, canceling certain frequencies and harmonics for a quiet, peaceful ride
• Wet-weather and winter traction gets a boost from a dense network of sipes, hair-thin slits that multiply the tread’s surface area and traction with hundreds of tiny biting edges that chew through water, slush, and snow
• Covered by 55,000 mile limited manufacturer’s tread life warranty
• Tread pitch and design also help to isolate vibrations and roughness for ride comfort
• Stone ejectors built into tread grooves to easily rid the tread of debris, protecting the casing
• Reinforced shoulder blocks give the Achilles Desert Hawk HT3 additional stiffness across its tread face for enhanced handling and cornering ability

Pros and Cons

In the case of the Achilles Desert Hawk HT3, this is a tire where the Cons are far outweighed by the Pros:

PROS:

• Excellent handling, roadability, and stability at highway speed
• Cornering and steering response are consistent and confident
• Great traction and resistance to hydroplaning on wet roads
• Ride is quiet and refined
• Best-in-class limited manufacturer’s tread life coverage at its price point

CONS:

• Not good off-road
• Not good in heavier snow or winter conditions
• Can be noisier on some pavement surfaces

SimpleTire’s view on Achilles Desert Hawk HT3 tires

Yes, light trucks, SUVs, and crossovers are everywhere on the roads these days. They’ve become so popular for good reason: every passing year and every generation of trucks and SUVs gets a little more refined, a little more sophisticated and comfortable, with better performance, better handling, and more amenities. They’ve taken over the roles that used to be left up to family sedans, station wagons, and minivans because they’re so versatile and practical. Many of those trucks and SUVs are equipped with four-wheel-drive (4WD) drivetrains, but the truth is that many of them are never going to leave the pavement for their entire service lives. That’s why highway-terrain tires like the Achilles Desert Hawk HT3 make such good sense.

With the Achilles Desert Hawk HT3, you get a highway-terrain tire that has many of the same pluses as premium all-season tires for passenger cars and minivans. That means the same kind of year-round versatility and durability you’d expect from premium all-season or highway-terrain tires that cost far more.

Are you familiar with SimpleScore? SimpleScore is the proprietary ratings system that was developed by the SimpleTire team to give you a handy, at-a-glance idea of any tire’s strengths and weaknesses. We take into account the tire’s technical details, manufacturer info, warranty coverage, customer reviews, and other data points, then that all gets processed to a 1-10 numerical value for the categories of traction, handling, and longevity, along with an overall average SimpleScore. For the Achilles Desert Hawk HT3, the SimpleScore numbers break down this way:

Achilles Desert Hawk HT3:

• Traction: 7.5
• Handling: 7.8
• Longevity: 8.7
• Overall average SimpleScore: 8.0

Those SimpleScore numbers are all pretty promising, and they look even better when you consider that SimpleTire’s price on the Achilles Desert Hawk HT3 runs from $88.99/tire to $224.96/tire.

On the highway, the Achilles Desert Hawk HT3 is composed and confident; its continuous center rib delivers a solid feel for highway miles and good stability that needs little correction. On the other hand, that stability never seems sluggish or numb, as the Achilles’ response to driver input is light, quick, and accurate. The reinforced shoulder blocks of the Achilles give it handling ability that’s capable and accurate, with cornering that’s crisp and precise (if maybe not up to the standards of a performance tire). Wet-weather grip is excellent with short braking distances and little evidence of hydroplaning. The ride quality of the Achilles Desert Hawk is more along the lines of what you’d expect from a Grand Touring passenger tire, with muted road noise and little in the way of vibration and roughness making its way to the passengers. Ride quality and roadability don’t even get jittery over broken pavement and rougher road surfaces.

A 60,000 mile limited manufacturer’s tread life warranty is the kind of coverage that not long ago was only reserved for tires that cost far more. And we’ll grant that the Achilles Desert Hawk HT3 isn’t a great tire for heavier snow or for off-road use, but then again that’s not what a highway-terrain tire is really intended for anyway. It’s our take here at the SimpleTire team that the Achilles Desert Hawk HT3 is a tire we can recommend without reservation, and would make an especially good choice for an older vehicle where you don’t want to drain a 401k account to get a set of tires.

Vehicles the Achilles Desert Hawk HT3 is a good replacement tire for

The Achilles Desert Hawk HT3 isn’t featured as OEM on any trucks, but it would make a great replacement tire for light trucks, SUVs, and CUVs such as:

• Ford Explorer
• Buick Enclave
• GMC Acadian
• Mazda 6
• Chevrolet Trailblazer
• Jeep Grand Cherokee
• RAM 1500
• Honda Pilot
• Nissan Murano
• Hyundai Santa Fe
• Chevrolet Equinox
• Kia Rio
• Toyota 4Runner
• BMW X5
• Dodge Journey
• Genesis GV70
• Jaguar F-Pace
• Lexus RX350
• Tesla Model X
• Volkswagen Taos