Kenda tire question

[Fat Baxter]

I got about 6500 on my original rear Kenda. I changed out the front tires around 12k miles because I was unhappy with them (bouncing and jittery), and found that the Kumho's I put on dramatically changed the feel of the ride for the better.

I was recently reading a discussion on a car thread about the generally crappy stock tires that come on most cars. The discussion conceded that the OEM tires are selected for pricing, not performance, and even the average cage driver will notice a substantial up-tick in handling if they replace the originals with almost anything from the higher end of a tire maker's roster of rubber (well, maybe Firestone excepted). But if one selects cheap-o tires, you'll get what you pay for.

Maybe something like that is playing out with Spyders. The OEM tires are "good enough," but from what I've read here, most everyone replaces their Kendas with higher-end tires. Thus we are noticing far better handling.

Also -- and I'm speculating here -- it may be that the Slingshot's tires are a more standard size, and thus Kenda has more experience with them as they might have wider applications. Spyders, not so much.

 

[IdahoMtnSpyder]

I was recently reading a discussion on a car thread about the generally crappy stock tires that come on most cars. The discussion conceded that the OEM tires are selected for pricing, not performance, and even the average cage driver will notice a substantial up-tick in handling if they replace the originals with almost anything from the higher end of a tire maker's roster of rubber (well, maybe Firestone excepted).

That's been the case forever. Forty-five years ago I bought a 1972 Datsun 1200 4-door sedan. It had some Japanese brand bias ply tires on it. When they wore out I mail ordered a set of Michelins and took the car to a garage for inspection and have the tires changed out. The guy at the garage asked if I was sure I wanted to do that. "The car will ride hard and rough with those stiff tires on it." I said put them on anyway. Man, the 30 mile ride home afterwards was sure smooooooth. There was no question the car was made to run radials but cheapo tires were put on it to sell it.