Five years ago when I purchased my BFG MTs for a combination on/off road tire, I found out quickly what so many others had said about the tires. In snow or wet conditions, the tires were horrible. Their lack of sipeing limited their ability for wet traction.

My Interco tires have been no different, both my former TSLs and the current LTBs.

I'd considered doing the sipeing myself as I remembered as a kid watching my uncle groove and sipe his tires. Just never seemed to get around to it until recently. I read all the articles I could find on the subject and found that sipeing could be done with a utility knife or a groove/sipe tool.

I set my utility knife for 1/4" depth (that's the recommended sipeing depth) and tried a few passes on my LTBs. Doable, but it did take a bit of effort. Next, to simulate a heated cutter, I clamped a utility knife blade to a piece of 1/4" stock I had and heated it with a torch. Cut through the tread very, very easily so I decided to order the groover.

I've done all 4 of my LTBs and getting ready to do the BFGs. As the articles stated, it takes about 15 minutes per tire. This wheelin' season will tell me how well the sipeing really does.

I'm not going to try to out wright what's been done so well before, so I'll posting up some good links on the process.

http://www.4crawler.com/4x4/CheapTricks ... ping.shtml
http://www.4x4wire.com/toyota/tech/sipe/

Interesting... Got a shot of the new grooves?

I didn't take any pictures as they wouldn't have been much different than what was displayed in the links I posted.

Maybe I will, if you insist.

The BFG and the LTB.

The BFG was definately harder rubber. Took about 45 minutes a tire.