Worried about AT Tire Rain Performance

[sport2004]

Getting a little concerned because I need to switch out some old Michelin's, but some of these nice descriptions may be lost on sticking with stock size AT's for a 2004 Sport...crud.

 

[kingofZroad]

My KO2's (E) have been amazing in wet conditions! The stock tires were not nearly as stable, in my opinion...


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[Throwback]

Thanks for the replies so far. I can't really find another tire out there that gets significantly better wet weather reviews so it's a bit of a quagmire.

I'm wondering how much air pressure plays into traction since the LR:C tire *should* flex more with less air allowing a better contact patch.

I'm currently running 35psi in mine since I never have more than two passengers and don't tow.

I had 42psi all around, but the other day I noticed while the truck was parked in the sun that I could see sunlight between the tire and pavement about 1.5" on each side, which says to me that only the middle 1/3" of the tire is making contact unless experiencing lateral force. That seems very dangerous for wet weather driving.

 

[1engineer]

Merged.

 

[Throwback]

It is bizarre that some people say the wet weather performance of KO2s is excellent and some say it's so bad they have to buy new tires right away.

 

[1engineer]

Tires performance is 50% compound and 50% displacement. You cannot get good wet traction out of a natural rubber tire (like BFG) unless your vehicle weights enough to compensate for the hard compound.

Please read this entire post before making a decision. TIRE TECH 101 you may find yourself shopping Cooper, Hankook or General tires.

Simply put, people buy BFG tires because they typically last a long time, they cost 30% more and last 15% longer and have far less wet and ice traction compared to similar high silicate compound tires.

It is bizarre that some people say the wet weather performance of KO2s is excellent and some say it's so bad they have to buy new tires right away.

Read the quoted link on Tire Tech 101 and also physical location playing a part.

 

[msp]

I've run both load ranges and am currently running KO2 Cs. No need for my purposes to run Es and add 6 lbs per wheel. They have served me well. But they're not passenger car tires. I haven't experienced hydroplaning. I have activated ABS a time or two under wet and dry conditions when I've been going too fast or been too close to the vehicle in front of me and had to slam on the brakes. That's on me. The tires are not the problem.

 

[1engineer]

I've run both load ranges and am currently running KO2 Cs. No need for my purposes to run Es and add 6 lbs per wheel. They have served me well. But they're not passenger car tires. I haven't experienced hydroplaning. I have activated ABS a time or two under wet and dry conditions when I've been going too fast or been too close to the vehicle in front of me and had to slam on the brakes. That's on me. The tires are not the problem.

There is a difference between hydroplaning (very few decent tires do this... it takes a slick or worn tire usually or a tire with no grooves lol) and wet weather traction. Slipping when accelerating, around low speed wet corners, braking on wet pavement pulling up to stoplight, those are wet weather traction issues and not to be confused with hydroplaning. Those were the issues I had with a half worn Nitto G2. I do not have those issues with the Coopers. That's why I went back to Cooper. Neither tire had hydroplaning issues.

 

[RonJR]

There is a difference between hydroplaning (very few decent tires do this... it takes a slick or worn tire usually or a tire with no grooves lol) and wet weather traction. Slipping when accelerating, around low speed wet corners, braking on wet pavement pulling up to stoplight, those are wet weather traction issues and not to be confused with hydroplaning. Those were the issues I had with a half worn Nitto G2. I do not have those issues with the Coopers. That's why I went back to Cooper. Neither tire had hydroplaning issues.

I agree with 1engineer on this. Hydroplaning is pretty subtle, and I doubt if very many people could recognize it when it happens. I only know of one example in my ~700,000 miles of driving where I can positively say the vehicle was hydroplaning, and that was going slightly uphill in heavy rain at 55mph with a FWD car, pulling a light trailer, and I noticed, based on the speedometer, that my front wheels were actually spinning. There was no other indication of the effect. It's kind of like encountering black ice at night - you don't really notice what's happening until you experience an unexpected loss of control.

Generally if you're not over-driving your visibility in heavy rain, you won't have a high likelihood of hydroplaning if you have decent tread.

That being said, I'm on my 3rd set of BFG KO/KO2's, and I have nothing but good things to say about them. We don't get a lot of rain in Colorado, but on snow/ice, both around town on the Front Range and going skiing every winter they perform great.

 

[e60ral]

What? You can definitely feel when you hydroplane. its not vague, its a pucker moment, especially if its in the front and makes your steering wheel twitch. But yeah, it shouldn't be typical in all-season or all-terrain tires unless they are getting bald.


I think I may have said this already, but my KO2's have better wet traction than the factory tires did. I am running about 38psi on the C-load tires, when I had them inflated to around 45 I thought the handling characteristics were very poor and the vehicle did not feel confident and I can imagine in wet weather they feel sketchy (however i quickly dropped pressure before i experienced that PSI in rain and don't have the handling issues at my PSI)

 

[MeefZah]

I'm getting analysis paralysis even though I already have a set of 265/70/17 LR:C tires on my '14 TE. Thanks to the internet I am now aware of many horror stories about hydroplaning, excessive ABS activation, and general poor wet weather performance with the BFG AT KO2s.

There was even a thread yesterday from a member who swapped out KO2s for Cooper AT3s due to what he described as dangerous wet asphalt performance, so things are looking pretty poor for the tire.

However, I'm starting to think that most of those who experience these ill effects are running a Load Range E tire, not a stock size Load Range C. I'd like to get some feedback on this from folks running either load range. I'm no engineer or tire expert but I am wondering if the stiffer Load Range E tire causes such little contact patch that the tire cannot get proper traction.

I have 10 days left on my 30 day "ride satisfaction guarantee" period so if I'm about to head into the wet season on tires that are dangerous for my wife and I to drive in wet, dark, congested conditions I need to remedy that ASAP.

I posted this in the 5th Gen forum since there's been several threads about AT tire wet performance, and I'm specifically interested in the tire sizes for 5th Gens.

:rain:

Load range E here. No issues in the wet. Are they as good as a tire engineered for rain use? No. Will you die if you drive in the rain or hit standing water? No.

 

[MeefZah]

Hydroplaning is pretty subtle, and I doubt if very many people could recognize it when it happens. I only know of one example in my ~700,000 miles of driving where I can positively say the vehicle was hydroplaning, and that was going slightly uphill in heavy rain at 55mph with a FWD car, pulling a light trailer, and I noticed, based on the speedometer, that my front wheels were actually spinning.

No.

.

 

[MeefZah]

It is bizarre that some people say the wet weather performance of KO2s is excellent and some say it's so bad they have to buy new tires right away.

People go into this with the expectation that an SUV will handle like a sports car, and that AT or MT tires will offer the same ride and performance as sticky summer performance rubber.

A lot of people who get 4Runners and end up modding them are not connoisseurs of the utility / all roads vehicle concept. They have no idea what they need or want, or what "normal" feels like in these things. They compare their 4Runner experience to the time they test drove a McLaren and they don't understand why there is a difference.

 

[RaceAddict]

No.

.

I'm glad someone said that...

 

[Throwback]

People go into this with the expectation that an SUV will handle like a sports car, and that AT or MT tires will offer the same ride and performance as sticky summer performance rubber.

A lot of people who get 4Runners and end up modding them are not connoisseurs of the utility / all roads vehicle concept. They have no idea what they need or want, or what "normal" feels like in these things. They compare their 4Runner experience to the time they test drove a McLaren and they don't understand why there is a difference.

I get that, but the stories that are interesting to me are when a guy removes his KO2s because they are about to kill him, and then installs something like Coopers and everything is a million times better.


The same truck in the same climate with the same driver - yet a rubber compound and tread pattern change makes such an enormous difference?

 

[Shando]

I have the K02s in 265 C load since I purchased my 2015 Sr5 in January of this year. I swapped the stock Dunlops for these after reading the reviews on this forum, and for the simple fact that they also have the snowflake rating, as it is a law in Quebec to have winter rated tires in winter from Dec 15th to Mar 15th.

I have since driven 20k kms (~13k miles) with them on, and have no issue in the rain. The worst rain conditions were during a road trip around Lake Superior with a T4R loaded with 3 weeks of camping gear and food, and a canoe on the roof. Along the eastern shore of Lake superior, the highway gets quite hilly and twisty. We hit some pretty severe rain storms, and had no issue with hydroplanning.

Also, last weekend the remnants of Hurricase Matthews dumped a couple of inches on the northeast, and I still did not have any issues with in the rain.

I'm part of the crowd that only offroads 0.5% of the time, but THAT is exactly the reason I bought these tires, as opposed to P rated ones, I need a failsafe exit strategy during those excursions.

 

[Hughwho]

A/T tires in rain

I have a 2016 Trail premium and replaced the stock Bridgestone Duellers 265/70/17 HT at 5000 miles with Falken Wildpeak AT3s in the same size.My suspension is stock--no modifications! I am in the So Cal area so until very recently we have been dry but these past few days I have ample opportunity to test them as it has been raining.I am very pleased with them and have have experienced no problems such as mentioned in the other posts.All of my recent "wet driving" has been on road and fwy.
Obviously this is subjective but I have found them to be a great tire for a newer A/T tire and perform as well as the revered BF Goodrich and a lot less expensive. There is a lot of good technical info available on all the tires here on this forum so use it ! That being said they are a great "bang for your buck" as are the Cooper Discoverer. To each their own.

 

[4Rager]

Natural rubber tires tend to perform better in climates where it it warm, so your feedback is likely valid. However, by nature, the natural rubber tires will be soft (good wet traction) when its hot warm outside and rock hard (bad for wet traction) when it's cold outside.

There are more factors like contact PSI (the pressure the tire puts on the ground, ambient air temperature, tire PSI and driving surface. This is the reason it so hard to say without a doubt what tire is in fact the best for any particular application. Your BFG tires are great in Texas, but would be sketchy in West Virginia

That's interesting. I haven't experience poor performance in wet weather here in NV, but even during snow storms it's barely ever below 20F which I would assume would still be considered "warm" compared to areas that are regularly in the single digits or below.

As far as hydroplaning goes. The only time I can say I 100% hydroplaned was this last weekend when I was out in my RZR. There were some puddles in the middle of an open and straight gravel road, and we've learned the faster you go the less you get sprayed. We hit two back to back going 55-60 and I wasn't necessarily expecting to hydroplane, but it was actually kinda cool. The vehicle didn't feel like it sunk down into the puddle at all, and it made a crazy sound almost like you were going over a rumble strip. The puddles were probably 20' long and 6" deep and the deepest point. But the RZR is also a lot lighter than a 4Runner.