Topic: Is there any tires on the market that dont hydoplain?

[streetmaster]

Yeah the crappy tires i stuck on my 04 TJ earlier this year, which really are'nt what most guys wouldnt put on a jeep. But at the time i had no choice, which are P275/60/15's a 28" radious tire that hydroplain very bad in the rain  , So if i go with 31's this time around, will there still be an issue?

[FourbangerYJ]

Most of the All Terrains do a pretty good job with rain/standing water. There are alot of tire choices for the 31. The BFG AT would be a good choice. It's the tread pattern that is going to determine how the tire does with water. Look for one that has lots of grooves across the tread pattern.

[Castr8r]

The BFG AT's are a good choice.  Don't go wider than necessary, and stay with radial tires; they are much less likely to hydroplane than bias ply.

[streetmaster]

Yeah i just stuck the P275/60's on because the Wrangler GSA's that came on the jeep had gotten bald and were really scary on ice. But it must be the short wheel base of the TJ, and the lighter 2.4 that makes my jeep skate around on a film of water like it does, because with the tires i have on it now, im afraid of going much over 45mph, and the P275/60's are still like new. Hmmm BFG TA's, sounds like a plan (ThanX)

[chrisfranklin]

I had some wet weather issues with BFG Long Trails.

I researched around for a while and bought some Bridgestone Dueler AT Revos because I had read good things on their wet weather performance.  And, yeah their wet weather performance and on road performance were great and their off-road performance wasn't half-bad either.    They lasted about 4 years.   

I wanted the same kind of decent wet-weather performance and on-road performance but in an MT for some better off-road traction.  So I researched around again and ended up buying some Firestone Destination MTs.  I've only had them for a few days and its all been on road and in the dry, but they seem alright thus far; will see how they do in the rain.

Anyway, probably lots of good ATs out there.  But I'd definitely say you would really, really have to do some crazy, wet-weather driving to make the Bridgestone AT Revos hydroplane.  At 65-70mph I never hydroplaned once. 

[streetmaster]

Yeah i dont believe i've ever had any vehicle hydroplain as much as this jeep does on thiese darn 275/60's, which kinda made me    weather i even want own a TJ, but then i slapped myseif and said my Electric Lime Green Peal little bundle of joy aint go'in nowhare. 

[jfrabat]

I used to have 31" Bridgestone Duelers H/T's (street tires), and they were fine in Miami (it rains a A LOT here in the summer).  I now have BFG's KM2 (33" now) and I am quite surprised by their street performance; they make about the same noise as the H/T tires, and handling in wet and dry pavement is about the same (OK, so not AS good, but ALMOST as good, which is FANTASTIC for an MT tire!).

[streetmaster]

Ok thanx guys, just sittin back read'in the mail  , got to go to work now.

But in any event i believe the 31X10.50 BFG AT's sound like a winner hopefully my 2.4L can handle a little taller tire with 4.11's, at least untill i can afford to regear to some 4.88's. 

[jcsanders79]

I've got 33X10.50 BFG'S and 4.88's, not to bad.

[FourbangerYJ]

Ok thanx guys, just sittin back read'in the mail  , got to go to work now.

But in any event i believe the 31X10.50 BFG AT's sound like a winner hopefully my 2.4L can handle a little taller tire with 4.11's, at least untill i can afford to regear to some 4.88's. 

I had 31's with the stock gears for a while. It's not to bad. With your 2.4 it should be better since it has more H.P. and torque. Not only that but the 275/60 tire is fairly wide which = weight. I would imagine a 31-10.50 and a 275-60 is fairly close to weighing the same.

[jfrabat]

I ran 31's with 4.10 for about a year and a half, and it's not that bad.  I then changed to 4.88 and fell in love with the performance, but me being me, I then upgraded to 33" MT's, and now I am almost (not quite, but almost!) back to where I started from (31's and 4.10) as far as performance.

[sharpxmen]

I had some 31 A/Ts and they were horrible in the rain - mind you i bought the Jeep with them on, so not sure how many miles were on the tires - they looked pretty sorry though, so they might do better new. Changed to 33'' M/Ts and these are definitely much better in the rain.

To try and answer his question "Is there any tires on the market that dont hydoplain?" - no, any tire will eventually get to the point where loses the contact with the road, but there are some factors that make them better or worse:
 - how heavy it rains at the time and how much water is on the road (considering that the road is nice and there are no tire grooves where the water would accumulate - that makes it worse even on light rain)
 - the wider the tire the more likely to have aquaplaning (for the life of me i'm not sure if that is supposed to be a double "n" or not and i tried to stay away from the hydroplane one) and since we are all running 9''s and up (i think, not sure what the stock width is) we are exposed to this phenomenon
- it also varies with speed, so the faster you go the more likely your tire will start waterskiing, so a cheap remedy would be slow down in the rain;
- it is also affected by how aggressive the thread is, the deeper and wider the grooves the better will "split" the water surface - so i guess you could also buy some good tires with real aggresive thread suited for heavy rain (prolly the Mickey Thompson Baja Claw look like would get rid of the water pretty quick http://mickeythompsontires.com/truck.php?item=BajaClawRadial) but give up some of the hwy comfort (which i don't think many of us care, well at least some of us don't care i'd say); i don't use these myself but the thread looks like is meant to disperse the water just like the racing intermediate tires.

As i mentioned at the beginning, i use BFG Mud Terrains, they have been quite a bit of improvement over the previous set i had and they do ok in the rain - i think it has to do with the aggressive thread on them, but they are 33''x12.5'' so when i say an improvement you can imagine how bad the other ones were.

Oh, and i ran stock gears (4.11) with 33'' tires - was ok, but 5th gear only downhills and with favorable wind

[SDWE61988]

I had some 31 in Kelly Safari's up until last year and those things were terrible in the rain.  I purchased Goodyear Wrangler silent armor AT's and they have been fine in the rain and snow.