TIRES

[doug1950]

I HAVE HAD A MINNY STROKE AND LOST SOME OF MY PAST MENORY NEED TOO ASK THIS QUESTION .

Wanting to change out tires on my RT. 2015 to car tires ,please advice me ,on the largest size and best tires out there and sizes PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE


THANK YOU

[Bob Denman]

Hi Doug,
I'm sorry to hear about your recent health issues
Unfortunately, the question of aftermarket tires, and their sizing; is far too vast to be able to offer a quick and easy answer...
But I like Kumho, in the stock sizing...

...And there'll be lots of other choices in here very soon, so have fun trying to decide!

[jaherbst]

Tires?? Ain't nobody here know noth'in bout Tires.

Jack

[robmorg]

Here are some forum threads I've bookmarked. Maybe some of them will boost your memory a bit on this subject...

http://www.spyderlovers.com/forums/s...-tire-question

http://www.spyderlovers.com/forums/s...!-Another-tire

http://www.spyderlovers.com/forums/s...n-tires-please

http://www.spyderlovers.com/forums/s...3662-Car-tires

http://www.spyderlovers.com/forums/s...s-Kandas-tires

http://www.spyderlovers.com/forums/s...51-Front-Tires

http://www.spyderlovers.com/forums/s...lacement-tires (front)

My personal choice for the rear is the Yokohama s.Drive tire, size 205/55R15, which is the same diameter, but slightly wider than the OEM Kenda (255/50R15). Derrick at Netzley tire said that it actually fit the Spyder's automotive rim better than the original tire. This tire has a very favorable UTQG rating of 300/AA/A. I haven't replaced the front tires yet.

[IGETAROUND]

My personal choice for the rear is the Yokohama s.Drive tire, size 205/55R15, which is the same diameter, but slightly wider than the OEM Kenda (255/50R15).

Rob,

How is that Yokohama in the wet?? On my second AND LAST Kumo, not at all impressed with is rain handling characteristics. Just had a 5 hour ride in the rain yesterday and the rear tire is dancing all over the road @ 60 mph!! And it's worse when I'm not pulling my Time Out trailer!!!

[Peter Aawen]

Igetaround, what pressure were you running in that Kumho?? Even if it's identical in size to the OE Kenda, it's not going to need to run the same high pressure to carry the load you & your Spyder placed on it because it's made with significantly stronger tread & sidewalls! So if you had the same pressure in it as you ran in the Kenda rear or took off the tire placard, it was almost certainly way too high for anyone weighing less than about 500lbs & hydroplaning was very likely if not almost certain on even just a damp road, simply because the tire tread was pumped up way too hard for it to flex sufficiently to 'pump' any water on the road out of the tread siping!! Your ride & steering might've been very 'firm' & quite direct too, but of more concern is that the tire wouldn't have ever been flexing enough to get up to the necessary temperature to make the tread compound 'sticky' enough to give you that tires optimum traction either!! The added weight of the trailer sounds to have improved your tires flexing & therefore temp & ultimately grip just a little, but still not nearly enough!

Car tires are made stronger than the Kenda's to carry the higher loads of automobiles, and yet the load from the Spyder is significantly less! It's the volume of air in the tire that carries that load, so stronger tires will need LESS volume of air in them & therefore less pressure in them to carry the load you & your Spyder impose!! Generally, a car tire under a Spyder won't need too much more psi than low to mid 20's, altho if you are light & the tire is stronger than most (or a harder compound touring tire like most Kumho's are rather than a sports performance tire like some Yoko's are) you might need even less air!! I rarely run my hard compound touring Kumho rear tire at more than 24psi cos my Spyder & me, the missus, plus a full load never weigh over 1000 lbs & yet not only is the traction, ride, & handling great, but it NEVER hydroplanes, even in water running across the road inches deep!! But then again, when the road gets wet, I tend to slow down a tad too!

[robmorg]

My personal choice for the rear is the Yokohama s.Drive tire, size 205/55R15, which is the same diameter, but slightly wider than the OEM Kenda (255/50R15).

Rob,

How is that Yokohama in the wet?? On my second AND LAST Kumo, not at all impressed with is rain handling characteristics. Just had a 5 hour ride in the rain yesterday and the rear tire is dancing all over the road @ 60 mph!! And it's worse when I'm not pulling my Time Out trailer!!!

I've read that before, here on the forum, about the Kumho tire. But I've never had one, so don't have any first hand experience. The Yokohama holds wet roads just fine. When riding in the rain, I can honestly say that there seems to be no difference from dry roads.

[IdahoMtnSpyder]

I'm not enamored by the wet road traction of the Altimax so many rave about. Less than 2k miles on it, 25 psi, and it breaks loose real easy on take off on wet, not water covered, pavement. Hydroylanes pretty easy too, even while pulling a trailer.

Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk

[Chupaca]

Igetaround, what pressure were you running in that Kumho?? Even if it's identical in size to the OE Kenda, it's not going to need to run the same high pressure to carry the load you & your Spyder placed on it because it's made with significantly stronger tread & sidewalls! So if you had the same pressure in it as you ran in the Kenda rear or took off the tire placard, it was almost certainly way too high for anyone weighing less than about 500lbs & hydroplaning was very likely if not almost certain on even just a damp road, simply because the tire tread was pumped up way too hard for it to flex sufficiently to 'pump' any water on the road out of the tread siping!! Your ride & steering might've been very 'firm' & quite direct too, but of more concern is that the tire wouldn't have ever been flexing enough to get up to the necessary temperature to make the tread compound 'sticky' enough to give you that tires optimum traction either!! The added weight of the trailer sounds to have improved your tires flexing & therefore temp & ultimately grip just a little, but still not nearly enough!

Car tires are made stronger than the Kenda's to carry the higher loads of automobiles, and yet the load from the Spyder is significantly less! It's the volume of air in the tire that carries that load, so stronger tires will need LESS volume of air in them & therefore less pressure in them to carry the load you & your Spyder impose!! Generally, a car tire won't need too much more psi than low to mid 20's, altho if you are light & the tire is stronger than most (or a harder compound touring tire like most Kumho's are rather than a sports performance tire like some Yoko's are) you might need even less air!! I rarely run my hard compound touring Kumho rear tire at more than 24psi cos my Spyder & me, the missus, plus a full load never weigh over 1000 lbs & yet not only is the traction, ride, & handling great, but it NEVER hydroplanes, even in water running across the road inches deep!! But then again, when the road gets wet, I tend to slow down a tad too!

great explanation...I have not had any problems with the Kendas (2) rears and (2) fronts and currently trying the arachnid rear. All the postings here have been about the mileage and very little about the handling and effect....

[TimC]

Here are some forum threads I've bookmarked. Maybe some of them will boost your memory a bit on this subject...

http://www.spyderlovers.com/forums/s...-tire-question

http://www.spyderlovers.com/forums/s...!-Another-tire

http://www.spyderlovers.com/forums/s...n-tires-please

http://www.spyderlovers.com/forums/s...3662-Car-tires

http://www.spyderlovers.com/forums/s...s-Kandas-tires

http://www.spyderlovers.com/forums/s...51-Front-Tires

http://www.spyderlovers.com/forums/s...lacement-tires (front)

My personal choice for the rear is the Yokohama s.Drive tire, size 205/55R15, which is the same diameter, but slightly wider than the OEM Kenda (255/50R15). Derrick at Netzley tire said that it actually fit the Spyder's automotive rim better than the original tire. This tire has a very favorable UTQG rating of 300/AA/A. I haven't replaced the front tires yet.

Rob, what are you running for air pressure in the Yokohama?

Thanks

Tim

[IGETAROUND]

I rarely run my hard compound touring Kumho rear tire at more than 24psi cos my Spyder & me, the missus, plus a full load never weigh over 1000 lbs & yet not only is the traction, ride, & handling great, but itNEVER hydroplanes, even in water running across the road inches deep!! But then again, when the road gets wet, I tend to slow down a tad too!

Ah Peter, your posts are always insightful and helpful.

I have tried running 20-22psi and it feels all squiggly". I am not a little person; like most people in the USA I'm obese @ 235#'s. I normally run the rear @ 24-26 psi and the fronts @ 22 psi. The trailer weight helps but the rear tire is still very iffy at anything above 60 mph in the rain, and at that speed, on the expressways, here you are very likely to have someone run right over top of you. And Yes I do slow down on secondary roads to between 50 & 60 mph. Thanks again for your thoughtful comments.

[robmorg]

Rob, what are you running for air pressure in the Yokohama?

Thanks

Tim

28 psi cold seems to be giving me an even tread ware (unlike the OEM tire). If I were a smaller guy, I'd probably run a bit less.

[remark2013]

I'm not enamored by the wet road traction of the Altimax so many rave about. Less than 2k miles on it, 25 psi, and it breaks loose real easy on take off on wet, not water covered, pavement. Hydroylanes pretty easy too, even while pulling a trailer.

Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk

We have about 10K miles on our Altimax tire and have not noticed an issue with traction, wet or dry. In fact our experience with this tire is the exact opposite of yours, with and without our trailer.


Kent

[ARtraveler]

Not now--I have a headache!

Lot's of information to sort through.

[Bob Denman]

I got 5700 miles out of the OEM Kenda...
The center tread section was completely shot!


But I'm at 10,000 miles on my Kumho, and it's STILL going strong!

[IGETAROUND]

I got 5700 miles out of the OEM Kenda...
The center tread section was completely shot!


But I'm at 10,000 miles on my Kumho, and it's STILL going strong!

Yep, got 17000 out of the first one; but they suck for wet traction and easy hydroplaning

[GOZFST]

Just ordered my Kumho Ecsta a few minutes ago, not as cheap as I had hoped, but better than I could find locally.

[Peter Aawen]

I dunno IGETAROUND, I think it's more likely that you've chosen a 'less than ideally suited' tire for what you really want from it or want it to do; & then you are setting the tire up for 'failure' in this way by running it at pressures that means it has no chance of functioning at it's best or even well in the wet, & then you're blaming it for things that really are due to your choices?!?

Does the weight on the rear tire of your loaded Spyder run as high as 1300 lbs?? If not, then 25 psi is just too high & you will very likely experience increased wear in the centre of the tread, an increased propensity for hydroplaning, and less than ideal traction on all roads but especial on wet roads!! Sure, if you drop the pressure down to say 22 or even 20 psi it'll feel 'squiggly' by comparison, but that's really only by comparison to effectively running on a tire inflated until it's rock hard so that it is likely to wear out the strip in the middle quickly, more prone to road damage & punctures because there's no flexion left in the tire to absorb road shocks, and it'll transfer a lot of the damaging impacts into the suspension and you!! Yeah, it'll grip better than the Kenda even at those pressures, but hey, my wheel barrow & my kids hot wheels toy cars have tires with better traction, ride, & handling characteristics than the Kenda's!! By adjusting your pressure on your 'all round better tires', you should be able to significantly exceed the Kenda's in all aspects of ride & handling, including wet grip & hydroplaning - if you aren't, something's not right, & it's possibly your choices?

Pnuematic tires (especially radial tires) are MEANT to have some 'softness' in their ride & handling, the radial ply construction & the sidewall flex (& resulting squiggly feel) is how they keep the bulk of their tread on the road!! So are you sure that 'squiggly' feeling you get isn't just because you are now pretty used to & comfortable with riding on a tire with too high a pressure in it?? Don't you remember all the complaints from all the old fella's when bias ply tires started phasing out & the much safer radial tires were introduced?? I do - they carried on about how the sidewalls bulged & the cars 'felt squiggly' & moaned that 'tires should never be run at pressures less than 40 psi' cos they'll get punctures at the drop of a hat, or they'll make cars roll, or they'll slide all over the road in the wet, and a whole heap more - but they were wrong!! These days we routinely accept that radial tires carrying 1300 or so lbs each are not only safe at 30ish psi, but the ride & handling & grip & safety that they deliver during daily use on our roads is quids ahead of that provided by most of the old style bias ply tires running 40 psi or more ever provided!!

But is your fully loaded Spyder imposing a load as high as 1300 lbs on that rear tire?? I suspect it's not, just like I suspect that you are running too much pressure in your rear tire for the load on it & THAT is why you are getting the wet weather handling & hydroplaning issues you are concerned about! Maybe you should try running your tire at a little lower pressure for a thousand miles or two & see how that goes before passing judgement on the tire for not behaving as it might if it weren't subject to your arguably 'questionable' choices??

Kumho publishes some great info about their tires (most manufacturers do) - if you go search their technical publications you should find a table for your tire model & size that tells you what pressure that particular tire needs to carry the load you've got on it! For just me on my 2013 Spyder RT without any special 'extra' load on it, the pressure recommended for my Kumho Solus KH17 225/60R15 is 18psi & not only is it waaaay better than the Kenda's in all ride & handling aspects, but so far I've got better than 5 times the life out of it too, without ANY hydroplaning or wet weather concerns, even when the 2wheelers all get off the roads cos they're 'too wet'! But back to pressures, then the tire size I chose is about as large as I can go under an otherwise stock Spyder, & the Solus KH17 is a relatively hard compound touring tire & the load I'm putting on it is right down the low end of the scale - if I was running say, one of the more sporty biased Kumho Ecsta tires in a 225/55R15, the slightly smaller air volume & the softer compound tire construction probably wouldn't need to go that low to get the tire up to optimum operating temp/pressure, in fact, too low & the tire would overheat & just shed tread, so it'd need a slightly higher pressure to carry the same load - but I expect it'd still be less than what you are running now!! What exactly is your tire (type, size, etc) & what pressures do you run? And do you know what the load is on your rear tire?? Or at least the load you regularly carry on your Spyder?? Given that info, I'll look the load/pressure details up for you if you want?

[TimC]

28 psi cold seems to be giving me an even tread ware (unlike the OEM tire). If I were a smaller guy, I'd probably run a bit less.

Thanks. I bought one yesterday...

Tim

[robmorg]

You make some very good points, Peter. Coming from a background in trucking, and owning a motorhome, I know what you are saying is completely true. It just never occurred to me toe apply the same principles to the Spyder, as the concern in a motorhome is running the tires overweight - not underweight. I'm a big guy and 18 psi on the fronts has always served me well on the OEM Kendras. I'm still running the original tires and they are wearing well. While my Yoko s-Drive on the rear does not hydroplane at all, and seems to be wearing smoothly, I believe i'm probably over-inflating it at 28 psi. I'm going to take it down to 24 (which is likely still more than adequate for my weight) and see if I notice any better performance.

One thing that I have definitely observed about the Spyder is that relatively small changes in tire pressure (either up or down) can make a big difference in performance and handling - probably due to the relatively low weight for an automotive tire. That observation certainly supports what you are saying above.

[robmorg]

28 psi cold seems to be giving me an even tread ware (unlike the OEM tire). If I were a smaller guy, I'd probably run a bit less.

Thanks. I bought one yesterday...

Tim

I think you'll be quite happy with that Yoko, Tim. WRT tire pressure, see my response to Peter immediately above. If you are a "normal" weight fellow, you would probably do very well running that tire at 20-22 psi on your RT.

[IGETAROUND]

I dunno IGETAROUND, I think it's more likely that you've chosen a 'less than ideally suited' tire for what you really want from it or want it to do; & then you are setting the tire up for 'failure' in this way by running it at pressures that means it has no chanceof functioning at it's best or even well in the wet, & then you're blaming it for things that really are due to your choices?!?

Does the weight on the rear tire of your loaded Spyder run as high as 1300 lbs?? If not, then 25 psi is just too high & you will very likely experience increased wear in the centre of the tread, an increased propensity for hydroplaning, and less than ideal traction on all roads but especial on wet roads!!

Ok Peter, you've made a good argument that I'm running too much air pressure. My Kumo is a stock size 225/50R/15. Before you get back to me I will drop to my front tire pressure of 22 psi. Like I said earlier I weigh 235#, I suspect the spyders weight is no more than 300# so put the combined weight with trailer @ 600#.

Will try the lower pressures and see if this changes it's wet handling and tendency to hydroplane. Like I said the Conti's on the front are rock solid no matter the amount of water @ 22psi.

Thanks again for your well thought out and supported positions that you take.

Al

After due consideration, reduced the fronts to 20 psi and will run the rear @ 18 psi and see what it does for wet and overall handling.

[robmorg]

All the great movements in the world began with a cup of coffee!

Al, I love your signature line. But every time I read it, my mind adds the words, "...or a swig of Milk of Magnesia".

Sorry. It's just the way my silly mind works.

[cyclekid58]

We have about 10K miles on our Altimax tire and have not noticed an issue with traction, wet or dry. In fact our experience with this tire is the exact opposite of yours, with and without our trailer.


Kent

Same as Kent, 10K plus and have not noticed an issue with wet or dry traction including freeway speeds in pouring rain, both towing and non-towing. Same goes for the federal evo's that so many bash, I run those at 21psi(seems to be the best) and the altimax at 26psi and when tires have to be replaced I will go with same.

[TimC]

I think you'll be quite happy with that Yoko, Tim. WRT tire pressure, see my response to Peter immediately above. If you are a "normal" weight fellow, you would probably do very well running that tire at 20-22 psi on your RT.

I stuck the tire to get a baseline. the two center grooves are 10/32 the two outside groves are 9/32. I'm going to start with 22lbs and check often to see how it's wearing and will adjust psi if needed. Thanks Much. Tim