Toyo Open Country A/T III vs Firestone Destination A/T2 tires

Light trucks, Jeeps, crossovers, and SUVs are everywhere on the roads, and in most cases, all-season tires are a great tire option for them, for all the same reasons that people who drive sedans and minivans love them. You can depend on all-season tires for consistent traction year-round with great tread wear properties, capable handling, a quiet and compliant ride, and civilized, composed road manners. But (a pretty big but)...if your truck is equipped with 4WD and you need to venture off the pavement on a regular basis in mud, snow, gravel, or loose dirt (or if you have to deal with severe winter conditions), you’re likely to find out right off that those all-season tires are going to fall short of getting the job done for you.

Modern all-terrain tires are designed to deliver the best of all possible worlds: durability and off-road capability along with behavior on the street that’s sedate and predictable. Tire manufacturers’ design teams develop their all-terrain tires around the horsepower, torque, center of gravity, weight, handling, and braking properties of modern trucks and SUVs. They’re durable with confident, consistent traction off the highway, but can still deliver the kind of ride quality and road manners on a long road trip that won’t leave you worn out from a bumpy, noisy, droning ride.

Today we’re going to look at the Toyo Open Country A/T III and Firestone Destination A/T2. These are both premium all-terrain tires from prestige brands, with a lengthy history of quality and performance, and both are packed 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 came up with to give you a quick at-a-glance idea of a tire’s performance and value. We look at reviews, specs, and other data points, then take that info and process 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 Toyo Open Country A/T III and Firestone Destination A/T2, the SimpleScore numbers are as follows:

Toyo Open Country A/T III

• Traction: 9.8
• Handling: 9.3
• Longevity: 8.3
• Overall average SimpleScore: 9.3

Firestone Destination A/T2

• Traction: 8.4
• Handling: 8.2
• Longevity: 8.9
• Overall average SimpleScore: 8.5

Like with any 1-10 rating system, any tire with a SimpleScore of 9 or better is obviously delivering some pretty good performance and value in that category. The Toyo and the Firestone 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 Firestone and the Yokohama are both great tires, they have some key differences that we’ll narrow down and take a closer look at in this head-to-head comparison.

Toyo Open Country A/T III tires

Since an up-to-date truck or SUV is designed to be just as much in its native element off the pavement as on the highway, there needs to be tires that can do both jobs equally well. The Toyo Open Country A/T III is exactly the kind of tire that can lend the traction and durability you need for off-road forays in sand, snow, mud, or rocks. That’s all with minimal compromise on the low noise, responsive handling, good road manners, and comfortable ride that you’d expect the best all-season tires to offer. That might all sound like some pretty lofty expectations, but the Toyo Open Country A/T III is exactly that kind of all-terrain tire.

Toyo designed the Open Country A/T III to be tough enough to stand up to rough terrain, with a durable cut-and-chip-resistant rubber compound, polyester casing, two steel belts, and a spiral wrap polyamide cap layer. Toyo covers the Open Country A/T III with a 65,000 mile limited manufacturer tread life warranty, which is all we needed to hear at SimpleTire to give the Open Country A/T III a solid SimpleScore of 8.3 for longevity. The symmetric all-terrain tread easily sheds stones, mud, and debris thanks to its high void ratio so there’s always a clear section of the tire to dig in. It also features an extra-deep initial tread depth for long wear as well as traction. The Toyo Open Country A/T III has the Three Peak Mountain Snowflake certification for severe winter service for a traction score of 9.8. Cornering, braking, and steering responses are also confident and immediate without being twitchy, thanks to the shoulder design, sipe pattern, and stable internal construction of the Open Country A/T III for a SimpleScore of 9.3. All in all, the Toyo Open Country A/T III is a strong, capable choice, with performance that’s equally at home on or off paved surfaces. SimpleTire’s price on the Toyo Open Country A/T III starts at $162.81 per tire.

Firestone Destination A/T2 tires

So what’s the Firestone Destination A/T2 all about? Firestone designed the Destination A/T2 with a tough, reinforced casing and damage-resistant tread compound, along with an aggressive all-terrain lug tread that wraps around from the shoulder onto the sidewall for great lateral traction, which is helpful for clawing out of ruts or for precise cornering. Like with the Toyo, the Firestone’s 12/32” initial tread depth helps with its wear properties and excellent traction (SimpleScore of 8.4). The shoulders and sidewalls of the Firestone are reinforced for damage resistance and rigidity, which also helps enhance handling and steering response (SimpleScore for handling: 8.2).

Full-depth 3D sipes round out the traction package while also giving a boost to handling and cornering ability. Like the Toyo, the Destination A/T2 is Three Peak Mountain Snowflake certified. With its SimpleScore of 8.9 for longevity, Firestone covers the Destination A/T2 with a 55,000 mile limited manufacturer’s tread life warranty. SimpleTire’s price on the Firestone Destination A/T2 starts at $157.99 per tire.

Toyo Open Country A/T III vs Firestone Destination A/T2 tires on traction

How do the Toyo and the Firestone stack up when it comes to traction? With a SimpleScore of 9.7 for the Toyo and 8.4 for the Firestone, this one’s not even close. While both tires are 3PMSF certified, the self-cleaning design, shoulder design and aggressive lug tread of the Toyo gives it a distinct edge in mud, loose dirt, sand or gravel. The Firestone is tough and tenacious, but we have to give this one to the Toyo. Our decision:

ADVANTAGE: Toyo Open Country A/T III

Toyo Open Country A/T III vs Firestone Destination A/T2 tires on handling

In the handling department, again…it’s not even very close, with a SimpleScore of 9.3 for the Toyo and 8.2 for the Firestone. It’s not realistic to expect an all-terrain light truck tire to have the nimble handling of a performance tire or UHP tire, but reviews point to the Firestone being a little slow and sluggish when it comes to steering response and cornering. The Toyo, on the other hand, has the rigidity to its shoulders, sidewall and tread face that a good tire needs to resist the momentum of cornering and prevent tread deformation and squirm. Our decision:

ADVANTAGE: Toyo Open Country A/T III

Toyo Open Country A/T III vs Firestone Destination A/T2 tires on longevity

SimpleScore ratings for longevity for the Toyo and Firestone are 9.6 and 8.9, respectively. This is one where the limited manufacturer’s tread life warranty coverage tells the whole story: 65,000 miles for the Toyo, and 55,000 miles for the Firestone. When it looks like that and the SimpleScores have that much of a spread between them, it’s an open and shut case. Our decision:

ADVANTAGE: Toyo Open Country A/T III

When to use each

When it’s time to buy tires, the question you need to ask yourself is: what do you really need out of your 4WD-equipped truck or SUV? If you go off-road regularly, if you live on a farm or a rurall area with gravel roads, ranch roads, oilfield lease roads or logging trails, all-terrain tires could be perfect for you. Or, if you live in a part of the world where you have to handle rough winter weather and snow that stays on the roads for days or weeks, a premium set of all-terrain tires are a great choice.

The Firestone and the Toyo are both 3PMSF certified for difficult winter conditions, and are both capable of getting you around in conditions where all-season tires are going to fall short. They’re also tough and reliable enough to really prevail in rough off-road conditions but are refined enough to not drive you nuts with road noise, vibration and twitchy handling on a long road trip. Both tires are capable and composed for everyday driving duties, so if that sounds like your situation with your truck, we’d recommend either the Firestone or the Toyo without reservation.

Which one should you choose?

When it comes down to an A/B choice, it’s sometimes a tough decision to make a recommendation. In this case, though, it’s pretty clear-cut. The Toyo outperforms the Firestone in all the pertinent categories as well as in its overall average SimpleScore. While the Firestone Destination A/T2 is a great tire on its own, the Toyo Open Country A/T III demonstrates better traction and handling, has a longer tread life warranty and uses better materials and design, and it’s backed up by reviews from SimpleTire customers. Sometimes in an instance like this, we’d also take price into account but in this case, there’s just a few dollars’ difference in starting price between the two tires. Given the choice, we’d have to go with the Toyo Open Country A/T III.

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.