We hammered the Kumho Road Venture AT51 in all conditions and here's How they treated us
For most Subaru and small SUV drivers, the most important thing when selecting an all-terrain tire is performance vs. weight. Some of the more popular truck tires are extremely durable but are so heavy that they make smaller CUV’s almost un-drivable. The drive trains on them are simply not geared to manage that type of unsprung weight.
The Kumho Road Venture may be the answer to many people’s search for the daily drivable tire that’s ready for any off-road adventures their day might throw at them. There are rumors of an AT52 coming out. But until we get our hands on those, check these out and see what you think.
NOTE: we are in no way affiliated with Kumho and were not compensated in any form for choosing this tire. It was purchased with our own cash as our dedicated trail tire.
The Road Venture is a great tire for someone who spends at least 50% of their time on-road. If your trail car also doubles as a daily driver, this could be one of the best options out there for you. The AT51 still allows our Forester to handle really well on pavement while being able to tackle just about any off-road terrain. They’re really quiet and we enjoyed them on long highway trips. We were also really impressed by the snow performance. The compound is designed to stay pliable even in cold temperatures.
If you’re a photographer, skier, snowboarder, hiker, or just love to explore the occasional forest road, the AT51 might be right for you.
To be frank, we beat the absolute dog piss out of these tires. In their early life they saw almost no road time that was not abusive. The Forester is a dedicated trail car and we’ve put it through snow, rain, mud, sharp rocks, gravel, rutted out ditches, small creek crossings with sharp rocks, driven over small logs, and even wet clay. The tires now have around 25K miles of mixed driving on them.
As soon as we installed these on the Forester we noticed how smooth and quiet the ride was. Despite being an all-terrain tire, the AT51 was engineered to provide a comfortable cabin experience while on the pavement. The tread pattern has a lot of differentiation in the design and it seems to cut down on noise a bit.
Kumho designed the Road Venture AT51 to meet the requirements for the 3 Peak Mountain Snowflake rating. Although it’s not a dedicated snow tire, it has handled wet snow and dry snow really well. The rubber compound retains pliability even in cold temperatures.
Like we mentioned before, weight is a big deciding factor for most when selecting an AT tire for smaller SUV’s. At 34 lbs. the AT51 feels really manageable on the car. It doesn’t feel like it’s overpowering the drivetrain or pulling the car around on the road.
Most 4×4’s have bigger engines, stronger axles, and a 4LO option that allows the car to spin bigger tires with no issues. However, us Subaru owners don’t have those luxuries and have to shop around for the lightest tire that still meets our performance needs. The Road Venture AT51 seemed like the perfect choice for this reason.
The AT51 did really well in most graveled sections and gripped solidly in any mildly muddy situations we took them in. Each time we had them in mud, they ejected caked mud pretty quickly. They also do really well on slippery off-road surfaces such as wet grass, or even slick rocks. We did manage to gouge the sidewall while driving up a loose rock shale section of the trail. No issues with it though. Still holds air and didn’t cut too far into the sidewall.
No one wants to dump a load of coin on all 4 tires just to take them out on the trails. At the time of purchase, we got these at $113 a tire and with free shipping. Tire Rack was also running a small rebate deal on them at the time so we took advantage of it. We couldn’t be happier. They’re around $200 a set cheaper than KO2’s in similar sizes and perform similarly on the Subaru.
This is only a small part of why we choose a specific tire. But we really liked the look of the Kumho Road Venture. The shoulder and sidewall pattern are really attractive in our opinion. It looks aggressive without being overkill.
The tread pattern looks comparable to other popular tires. It looks like a cross between BFG KO2’s and Toyo Open Country’s. We really like how it gives the car a little meaner look and offers really good grip.
This might sound odd, but the AT51 stays super clean. It seems to reject dirt and mud extremely well. Almost as if they have some sort of coating on them that keeps anything from sticking to the sidewall. It’s the first time we’ve had a tire do this. Many times our Method MR502 wheels are caked in mud and dirt, but the tire looks freshly washed. Again, this is really weird and probably doesn’t make much difference, but we thought it was worth mentioning.
There’s not too much to say here. When judged as an all-terrain tire, the AT51 stacks up really well. However, this is the spot where we’ll mention some of the things we noticed that you might want to consider before buying them.
Sidewalls are more prone to puncture: Even though they have nice sidewall tread, we still managed to put a small gash in them. It was mainly superficial. If you run a lot of trails that have deep ruts with sharp rocks sticking out, this might be a problem for you. But this gash didn’t cause any issues for us. Even now with over 25K miles on them, they still hold air perfectly.
Tread blocks can break down with hard abuse: This isn’t much of an issue because we truly have beat the crap out of these. But we have found a lot of chunks missing from the tread. It’s hard to find a tire that can withstand heavy abuse on the trails and also do well in the snow. But this is just something to remember when making your selection.
They skate on wet gravel: This is our only performance complaint. While no tire does well on wet gravel, we noticed that these slide side to side more than any other AT model we’ve tried so far.
Yes! We really felt like this tire was a great value for the price. If you do a mixture of pavement driving and off-road adventuring, this is a great option. They’re still running on one of our other daily drivers with no problems.
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