Mickey Thompson Baja Boss A/T vs Goodyear Wrangler All-Terrain Adventure with Kevlar tires

When it comes to light trucks, Jeeps, SUVs, and crossovers, all-season tires are just fine for the same reason that people who drive sedans and minivans love them. All-season tires mean dependable traction year-round with long treadwear, competent handling, a quiet and comfortable ride, and great road manners. If you need to get off the pavement in mud, snow, gravel, or loose dirt (or if you have to negotiate severe winter conditions), you’re likely to find out quickly that those all-season tires aren’t going to get the job done for you.

Modern all-terrain tires are designed for a great balance between durability and off-road performance along with composed and civilized behavior on the street. Their design teams develop them around the horsepower, torque, center of gravity, weight, handling, and braking properties of modern trucks and SUVs. They’re rugged and durable with confident traction off the highway, but can still deliver the kind of performance on a long road trip that won’t leave you exhausted from a teeth-rattling, noisy, droning ride.

Today we’re going to look at the Mickey Thompson Baja Boss A/T and Goodyear Wrangler All-Terrain Adventure with Kevlar. These are both premium all-terrain tires from well-known brands, with an extensive reputation for quality and performance, and both are loaded with top-quality materials, great features, and innovations. In the course of this head-to-head comparison, you’ll see us make reference to the SimpleScore numbers for each tire. If you aren’t familiar with SimpleScore, it’s the system that the team at SimpleTire developed to give you a quick overview of a tire’s capabilities and value. We look at reviews, specs, and other data points, then take that info and distill it down to a 1-10 numerical value for the categories of handling, traction, and longevity, as well as an overall average SimpleScore for any given tire. For the Mickey Thompson Baja Boss A/T and Goodyear Wrangler All-Terrain Adventure with Kevlar, the SimpleScore numbers are as follows:

Mickey Thompson Baja Boss A/T

• Traction: 9.8
• Durability: 9.7
• Longevity: 8.8
• Overall average SimpleScore: 9.3

Goodyear Wrangler All-Terrain Adventure with Kevlar

• Traction: 9.6
• Durability: 9.5
• Longevity: 8.3
• Overall average SimpleScore: 9.0

Like with any 1-10 rating system, anything with a SimpleScore of 9 or better is obviously delivering some pretty good performance and value in that category. The Mickey Thompson and the Goodyear are both very capable tires, but of course, SimpleScore is designed as a 30,000 ft view that doesn’t really go into detail on a tire’s strengths and weaknesses. While the Mickey Thompson and the Goodyear are both great tires, they have some key differences that we’ll take a closer look at in this head-to-head comparison.

Mickey Thompson Baja Boss A/T tires

Chances are when you think of Mickey Thompson, you either think of competition-grade tires for the track or dragstrip, or competition-grade tires for off-road rallies. The Baja Boss A/T draws on that expertise; it’s a tough and tenacious all-terrain tire that’s ready for the worst you can put it through. The Baja Boss A/T features a silica-infused tread compound for both damage resistance and enhanced traction in wet or dry weather, and its Powerply internal construction adds a ply of denier cord to the angled third ply, for enhanced puncture resistance, high-speed stability and quicker steering response.

The asymmetric all-terrain tread of the Baja Boss A/T is designed for surefooted traction in gravel, loose dirt, snow, mud, or sand, with a generous void ratio in the grooves so it can easily shed mud, gravel, and debris, leaving a clear section of the tire to dig in as the wheel turns. The Baja Boss A/T features Mickey Thompson’s ExtremeSidebiters at the shoulder for enhanced lateral grip, making it easier for the tire to claw its way out of ruts and making cornering ability predictable and neutral. The Mickey Thompson Baja Boss A/T performs admirably in winter conditions, earning the 3 Peak Mountain Snowflake (3PMSF) certification for severe winter service. The Baja Boss A/T is covered by a 50,000 mile manufacturer’s treadwear warranty for light truck sizes, and a 60,000 mile warranty for SUV sizes. SimpleTire’s prices on Mickey Thompson Baja Boss A/T tires start at $189.09 per tire.

Goodyear Wrangler All-Terrain Adventure with Kevlar tires

What comes to mind for you when you think of DuPont Kevlar? You probably think about the tough fibers that are used in body armor and other heavy-duty applications, and Goodyear designed this tire with Kevlar fibers as a component The Goodyear Wrangler family of all-terrain tires has been around for decades, and the Wrangler All-Terrain Adventure with Kevlar is faithful to the Wrangler line’s reputation for enhanced durability and performance.

The Wrangler All-Terrain Adventure with Kevlar starts out with a cut-and-chip-resistant tread compound that’s also designed to deliver exceptional traction in wet or wintry conditions. Sidewalls are reinforced with Goodyear’s Durawall system, and internal construction includes twin steel belts and a spiral-wound ply of Kevlar cord (Pro-Grade iterations of this tire are even beefier, with a thicker belt package and two plies of Kevlar). The Wrangler All-Terrain Adventure with Kevlar has the 3PMSF rating for severe winter service and its aggressive all-terrain tread includes deep, wide grooves with open shoulder blocks and ridges designed to easily shed mud, snow, or debris as the wheel turns. Goodyear covers the Wrangler All-Terrain Adventure with Kevlar with a 60,000 mile manufacturer’s treadwear warranty, and SimpleTire’s price on this tire starts at $166.96 per

Mickey Thompson Baja Boss A/T vs Goodyear Wrangler All-Terrain Adventure with Kevlar tires on traction

How are these tires looking as far as the traction category? With a SimpleScore of 9.8 for Mickey Thompson and 9.6 for Goodyear, the only word for both of them is “outstanding.” While the Goodyear does have a superb SimpleScore for traction and both tires have the 3PMSF rating, the Mickey Thompson does have some differences. The aggressive tread pattern and Sidebiter design of the Mickey Thompson means off-road performance in mud and dirt that’s a bit better, with a definite edge in lateral traction. That lateral traction part can mean the difference between getting through mud and sand or having to winch your truck out of there, so our call is:

ADVANTAGE: Mickey Thompson Baja Boss A/T

Mickey Thompson Baja Boss A/T vs Goodyear Wrangler All-Terrain Adventure with Kevlar tires on durability

Obviously, the Baja Boss A/T and Wrangler All-Terrain Adventure with Kevlar are both built tough for rugged use; you can’t have any kind of serious all-terrain tire that’s vulnerable to cuts, punctures, and other damage. With its Kevlar construction, the Goodyear gets a very strong SimpleScore of 9.5 for durability, but the Baja Boss A/T beats it with a SimpleScore of 9.7. We’d chalk that up to the denier cord reinforcement ply of the Mickey Thompson, along with its tough silica-rich tread compound and deep initial tread depth of 18/32”. The Goodyear is a tough tire alright, but our call goes to:

ADVANTAGE: Mickey Thompson Baja Boss A/T

Mickey Thompson Baja Boss A/T vs Goodyear Wrangler All-Terrain Adventure with Kevlar tires on longevity

This one is a little tougher call at first glance since the Goodyear has a 60,000 mile warranty vs 50,000 (or 60,000, depending on size) warranty for the Mickey Thompson. Yet, the Mickey Thompson weighs in with a SimpleScore of 8.8 for longevity vs a SimpleScore of 8.3 for the Goodyear. We’d say that owes a lot to what we mentioned above for durability – the tread pattern, tread compound, denier cord layer, and extra tread depth of the Mickey Thompson all add up to a longer service life. Our decision:

ADVANTAGE: Mickey Thompson Baja Boss A/T

When to use each

Right off the top, the most pertinent question is probably: how often do you take your truck off the pavement? If the answer is “well, sometimes but not really that often,” you might be better off with a set of all-season tires. But if you do really like to go way back in the backwoods from time to time, all-terrain tires like the Mickey Thompson Baja Boss A/T and Goodyear Wrangler All-Terrain Adventure with Kevlar are the way to go. Both tires are centered around performance that’s confident and dependable mud, snow, loose dirt, gravel, or snow. As far as snow is concerned, both the Goodyear and the Mickey Thompson have the 3 Peak Mountain Snowflake certification for severe winter service. The tire industry sets the bar pretty high for a 3PMSF rating, so that’s a pretty impressive certification for any tire. With a 3PMSF rating, winter traction is only surpassed by studded tires (which aren’t even legal everywhere). So if you go off-road on rough oilfield lease roads, logging trails, or ranch roads or have to handle the kind of winter weather where several inches of snow might be on the roads for days at a time, the Goodyear or the Mickey Thompson could both be great options for you.

Which one should you choose?

So now you know more about what these tires are all about and what to expect from them. They’re both very robust and dependable tires that are designed for some of the roughest off-road conditions and toughest use. Both have the 3PMSF rating for winter, both have solid SimpleScore numbers that are head and shoulders above much of the competition. When it really comes down to it, though, the Mickey Thompson Baja Boss A/T outperforms the Goodyear All-Terrain Adventure with Kevlar in every key category, even though it does come in at a somewhat higher price point. That being said, if we were in the market for a tough all-terrain tire for a light truck or SUV, we’d probably opt for the Mickey Thompson over the Goodyear.

Still not sure which tire to buy? Fortunately, SimpleTire is here to help as our helpful agents are more than happy to assist you in selecting the right tire for your ride and budget.