The initial reason for purchasing this Toyota Rav4 was as a pure boring-ass commuter device. Something simple enough to drive around with the boy, cheap enough that leaving it at the airport for a week wouldn’t stir a sitting dread, and reliable only as Toyotas are (and Hondas, let’s admit). Then the voices started in on us:

“If you find one of the all-wheel drive Rav4s, you can take it snowboarding.”

“The Rav4 is damn short. It’ll be a killer trail toy!”

“It’s a throw-away already! Think of all the fun you’ll have digging up replacement doors at the junkyard. What if you cruised it commando-style without the doors? Hah!”

Needless to say, the voices whispering in our collective ear haven’t the greatest grip on common sense, but some of the thoughts were sharp. We loved the approach angle of the first-generation Rav4. Many fun off-road and trail-ready parts were showing up online. Friends had offered us lots of support just for the sake of being involved with a Rav4 buildup (who does that?), including good hard bits like bumpers, lighting, drivetrain parts and a canvas roll-back roof. So it would not be a commuter zombie.

Project Trucklet needs some brand new shoes.

Tires for multiple use - a decision destined to be an overcooked compromise. We all know that you never find the best answer in a compromise. The most one can hope for is to cover the essentials and, perhaps, nail one or two of the varying requirements for functionality. In the case of this trail-crawlin’, snowboard-ballin’, three-year-old haulin’, parts-availability gallin’ Rav4 toy, we had about 72 bases to bring before the Lord of Compromise.

First thought for all tire consumers is what to do about the wheels. We figured a snazzy set of aftermarket rims would have nastied up the Rav4 just enough to make people think, but then the cost, plus the honest question of necessity of a new set of wheels wandered nigh. Why? It’s supposed to be a throw-away, and something that we can fix in the junkyard. The factory 16-inch steel wheels were robust and in good shape, could be repaired on the trail with a four-pound sledge, or replaced with about a billion other factory Toyota wheels. Keep ‘em!

Figure your needs and learn to compromise.

If you want to go crawling, you search out a tire with pronounced tread spacing and lug face that will make quick work of questionable traction. Aggressive treads need to be coupled with a sidewall that’s happy taking a rock or two, and likes to keep itself on the wheel. Problems with this sort of tire arise when you spend time on the road (the off-season?) instead of in the dirt, so an aggro tire will be noisier, and reduce the mileage of an otherwise efficient vehicle. Something small with limited power like the Rav4 would spend all its time fighting the tire.
We like the Goodyear MT/R, and had planned to hunt down a set of Jeep Rubicon take-offs. The Rubicon’s OEM MT/R uses a harder compound than the off-the-shelf MT/R to satisfy the manufacturer’s mileage targets, so it wears longer and won’t be such a pig.

The flipside of the tire coin was a piece of rubber squarely pointed at freeway and commuter use, and this was the original plan for the trucklet anyway. Why stray from the path? Because that’s where life begins. A tire designed to produce significant gains in mileage and deliver a quiet, pedestrian ride would neuter the Rav4’s trail and snow-driving potential, essentially restricting it to a slow death as mom-mobile and freeway slave. No way. The right shoes were make or break for the fun factor.

Factory rollers versus necessary function.

The original-equipment tire that came with this Rav4 (all-wheel drive, five-door) ranged from a 195 to a 215/60/16. With some research, we figured out the Continentals that were on it when we bought it were crap, and likely the source of both the trucklet’s vague ride and all the road noise.

We also figured there was a good deal of room in the wheel wells for more tire. Poking around on the web, we found a sizeable community of Rav4-lovers who’d done plenty of experimentation. A 235/70/16 was suggested repeatedly, so we took that dimension and a swing at the Tire Rack (tirerack.com), where we found the Dunlop Rover RVXT.

Universally applauded by citizen reviewers for low noise, reasonable service life, excellent snow capabilities, and also marketed by Dunlop for the snowy condition that snowboarders enjoy, the RVXT looked better every word we read. The only unanswered question was the sand and mud functionality of this tire, but with most of our needs handled we had to make a judgment call – did the tire look like it would work? With a deeply-siped tread, significant lug blocks and more spacing between tread blocks than street-only rubber, it looked like it could.

Sometimes you just have to pull the trigger.

We brought a set home, and before we’d even gotten the trucklet lifted, we’d run for the desert and some experimentation with a few Jeeper buddies (gotta have someone around when things break…). The results were shocking – really. The Rover RVXT, much quieter on the freeway than the OEM tires, and more confident during pavement-only maneuvering, was actually great in the sand and rocks. We even played with air pressure, bringing them down to 20 psi for some uphill one-gear crawling, and they not only kept the bead but worked without complaint. It was apparent this was not an MT/R or similar off-road tire, but the Dunlops worked remarkably well.

With the RVXTs aired back up to 40 psi for the drive home, it was back to the freeway. Linear control and predictable off-center movement were what you’d hope for in a street tire, and they made the 140,000-mile Toyota Rav4 an enjoyable drive (if still as slow as a dead horse). We have to admit, though, we have found a weakness – mud. The Radial Rover RVXT was not proficient in the soup, but that’s probably inevitable considering the generally cozy spacing of the tread blocks compared to something made for goo. We also need to remind you that though tires like this are made for snow, driver skill is far more important than a snow-tire.