I’ve been running the new Baja Boss AT on my 2021 Isuzu Dmax for the past month, with roughly 8000kms of on and off road terrain. First thing you notice about the Boss AT is the smooth consistent ride from the tyres, especially in the front. The steering of the vehicle has a lot more feel of the road with a smooth, flat footprint from the new design. When looking at any tyres, it’s always important to note how much actual tread is touching the ground when inflated to the correct road pressure.
Unlike a mud tyre or a cheaper Chinese road tyre, you get a much wider and true full-width footprint that gives the feedback of a high quality road tyre, but with all the benefits of an aggressive all terrain tyre. They not only look the part with their side wall design and new style tread pattern, but also give you square, moderately spaced tread blocks for those off road situations.
I’ve been measuring the depth of the tread since my recent South Island trip and some decent towing missions and I have been very impressed to find there has been very little wear and no damage to the edges of the tread blocks on the tyres. This is always important to see when you have been towing or carrying a considerable amount of weight on the vehicle which in turn can cause some tyres to work harder then they were designed for. The tyre size I’ve been running is a 305/65/17 (basically a 33inch) on the 2021 Dmax.
The market for all terrain tyres in NZ is vastly populated with all sorts of options making it hard to choose. I feel that the New Mickey Thompson Baja boss AT does well to fill the shoes of the previous ATZ Mickey Thompson All terrain model and certainly has raised the bar with how well an All Terrain tyre can be so useable as an off road tyre and yet perform so well on road for the A to B commuter.
In summary, I believe the new Boss AT is definitely a tyre that lives up to its name and pedigree through real world testing in all forms of off road motorsport and listening to customer needs to create a tyre to suit the diverse requirements we have for today’s market!
