Tire rack sells tires and says give them 500 miles. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say they have just a tiny bit more to lose than you do since that's their business. And if they say 500 it's probably being super safe and much less than that.
Are they the Kenda AT, or the AT2? I run the at2 tires on my truck, and they've been excellent in all conditions. The Toyo open country rt tires we ran on our Jeep would step out sideways on wet roads. I had to go down to a lower psi then i was already running to help.
It doesn't matter how fast you're going. If you lose control it's too fast for conditions. Think of it this way, can you pull away from a stop while turning 90-degrees onto a cross street and do this safely on a sheet of ice? If you spin sideways, you're driving too fast for conditions, because the conditions are such that any movement (driving) is too fast to maintain control. The only person capable of maintaining control is the driver, so the conditions warrant you not driving. If you drive 1 mph into into the ocean, you're driving too fast. No one but the driver in that case is responsible for drowning.
There are just some components you don’t cheap out on, tires probably being number 1.
My 1998 xj with stock gearing 3.56, 233,000 mile 4.0l motor with 190hp from the factory would overwhelm the Patagonia tire traction on the roll in damp pavement, and if wanted, would spin the tires into 3rd gear with the auto trans. The stock drum brakes would easily lock up the rear tires on damp pavement and the XJ would easily lock up all four tire and go into a skid if the brakes were applied hard. When taking off on damp pavement, you had to be careful with all the HP form the XJ so that you did not spin the tires. It was to a point that you had to be very aware and say to yourself, "hey the pavement is damp, double or triple your braking distance and do not pull out into traffic unless you have plenty of space." Then keep that in mind the entire time you are driving on damp pavement. Hate in my opinion may not be a strong enough word to describe how much I disliked them.
Exactly! Tires are the only thing between your vehicle and the road. Too many people put price and/or mileage ahead of traction. I’ve stayed with BF Goodrich KO2s for the last 10 years and have been really happy with their overall performance. However; when you gravitate to an ultra aggressive off-road tire I suspect you sacrifice on-road performance.
