Poor unsafe wet pavement performance new tires

[Bailey525]

I just put Kenda Klever All Terrain tires on my 2018 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited 4 cyl turbo. One of the reasons I went with this tire besides the excellent reviews and price was it’s supposed excellent traction and performance on wet roads.

Well fast forward a few weeks and needless to say it’s downright awful on wet roads. It has hydroplaned, skidded, tires spinning and losing grip multiple times. My wife now doesn’t like driving it and even I’m getting concerned with safety..On dry pavement it’s fine, the looks of the tire are great, and road noise and ride are great, but the wet pavement performance is becoming a deal breaker.
Has anyone else had these issues with these tires? I noticed the tires may be overinflated as tire pressure has been 39-40 on average. Could this be the cause?? Do I have any recourse with Kenda??

Thanks

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[old mike]

When inflated to 40 psi, most any tire will be too stiff to give you good wet traction. To provide traction, a tire has to be a bit soft, to flex a bit, to squirm a bit, and sink down into the pavement a bit to grip it.

At 40 psi, those tires are hard as rocks and sitting way high on the pavement with minimal granular contact. On dry pavement that means very low energy loss due to flex, contact friction or internal friction heat and Jeep likes it that way because it adds up to high miles per gallon that they can brag to customers about and report to the government as good fleet mileage. But, on wet pavement, hard tires, less contact, and no squirm add up to no traction.

Lower your tire pressure just a bit, maybe even just down a few psi, and see if it helps. You might have to play around with it a bit to find the right compromise pressure and you might even have to get a taser or whatever to reset the trigger level for your dashboard tire pressure warnings. That might be an expense, but no more than wasting a set of tires that might not really be all that bad.

 

[turbosix]

Holy shit 40psi lmfaoooooo dude what

 

[Reinen]

That's a high tire pressure. Try lowering it before you make any conclusion about the tires. Dropping the PSI down a little can make a world of difference.

 

[viper88]

It's not uncommon for new tires to be slippery in wet. Sometimes it takes a while to wear off the mold release agent. The mold release agent can be slippery.
https://www.aitanachem.com/en/release-agents/mold-release-agents-for-rubber-and-tire-manufacturing/

 

[Deleted member 59498]

Way to hard on pavement. Drop to 35 or so and see how it handles. People do that in snow also the tires are just too inflated. I run Mud Terrain tires in the winter, just drove through a blizzard and had no problem in low to mid 30s psi. Prefer AT tires like BFG which are awesome on snow but Falken MT work ok. 14 inches of snow yesterday and did just fine. But not 40 psi.

 

[The Last Cowboy]

Put in in 4x4 on a straight dry road and give it a few good full throttle launches from a dead stop. This will wear the surface of the tread a little and take the smoothness from the mold away.

If they don’t do better after airing down to 35 and a few good launches then you can look into getting them siped.

Oh, never spray that greasy kid stuff on your tires, ever.

 

[turbosix]

Did you guys even read the post? He's been driving it a few weeks. The mold release agent is long gone by now lol.

 

[Bailey525]

Holy shit 40psi lmfaoooooo dude what

That’s what they were after having Firestone install tires, I assumed it was all normal until I looked

 

[turbosix]

That’s what they were after having Firestone install tires, I assumed it was all normal until I looked

Yeah drop them down to 37 and give it some more time.

 

[Strommen95]

If lower tire pressure doesn't work, you're driving too fast for the conditions.

 

[turbosix]

If lower tire pressure doesn't work, you're driving too fast for the conditions.

I can't take another one of those "I rear ended someone but it's not my fault" threads lmao

 

[Bailey525]

If lower tire pressure doesn't work, you're driving too fast for the conditions.

definitely not driving too fast, this is like 5-15 mph on turns and at lights

 

[Carlton]

Drop them to 32-34 PSI and see how they do.

 

[viper88]

Did you guys even read the post? He's been driving it a few weeks. The mold release agent is long gone by now lol.

It can take 500-1000 miles.

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