DrewQ35

Are wider tires easily able to hydroplane? Ive had 3 different tires and all of them Ive felt hydroplane, I thought wider was better for traction. I am running a mild stretch 255/35/20 on a 20x10 rims.
I have had the Hankook Ventus, Falken 452 and now I am running the General Gmax tires and I have felt hydroplaning on all 3 and the Gmax have the more aggressive tread pattern thats supposed to help channel water away and the reviews on them have all been supposedly great in the rain.
I also drive a 2005 altima as a daily with factory size tires and rims and I dont feel any hydroplaning and I have cheap no name tires on that car. The only thing I can thing of is the width of the tires.

Can anyone provide any input on this for me.

thoiboi

width is one thing, but compound of the tire is another. Have you looked on tirerack.com to see how those tires fare in the wet?

DrewQ35

Yup, I have and they all have good performance ratings in the rain especially the Gmax.

ExcelerateRep

There's contradicting answers to this across forums and message boards, but it can be hard to find an answer to that question; and that's because there's quite a few factors other than width. Tirerack did a write up on hydroplaning, here's what they had to say:

"The speed at which a tire hydroplanes is a function of water depth, vehicle speed, vehicle weight, tire width, tread depth and tread design. It depends on how much water has to be removed, how much weight is pressing down on the tires and how efficient the tread design is at evacuating water. While deeper water, higher speeds, lighter vehicles, wider tires, less tread depth and less efficient tread designs will cause tires to hydroplane at lower speeds; all tires will be forced to hydroplane at some speed.

As a rule, tread design affects hydroplaning resistance at high speeds and in deep water. Tread compound affects wet traction at lower speeds or in shallow water."

If you wanted to read the full write up, you can see it here: https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiret....jsp?techid=16

I realize that doesn't give a yes or no answer to the question, but I hope it gives you some kind of an idea!

For all of those looking for tires, feel free to send me a PM, we do that too!

Contella

20x10.....Do your wheels look like this / \ ?
Neg. camber reduces the tires effective footprint, and if toe is off too, it can be a hand full in wet....from experience.

gregwils

I am late responding, but the short answer to your question is "yes", the wider the tire the greater the propensity to hydroplane. The tire least likely to hydroplane is a bicycle tire, but that wouldn't be practical for a number of reasons. Tire engineers attempt to negate a wide tire with novel tread patterns and have come a really long way in channeling water away from the contact patch. You need to approach wet traction from a number of perspectives and find some balance, which tire rack does in their assessment as XLR8 suggests. For example, acceleration, cornering and braking all benefit from a wider tire with the negative effect of a wider tire at high speed - hydroplane.

horseshoez

iTrader: (2)

I agree with @gregwils, all else being equal, a wider tire will definitely hydroplane before a narrower tire. To @DrewQ35's comment about traction; linear traction comes into play when accelerating off the line, and wider tires will typically have better low speed traction, even in the wet, than narrower tires, however, when you're tooling down the freeway at say 70 mph and encounter some standing water, the wider the tire the greater the propensity to ride up and surf over the top of the water. The flip side here of course is a narrower tire which would effectively slice its way through the water layer and maintain contact with the road surface.

losiglow

iTrader: (1)

I agree with horseshoez. It's really just a matter of physics. Less weight per surface area of the tire (which is the case with wider tires) increases traction on dry where "cutting" through water isn't necessary, but reduces the ability of the tire to press down through water and snow. It's sort of a "can't have your cake and eat it too" thing. However, if it's a tire that is rated well in rain, exercising good judgement with wider tires will likely be sufficient to reduce hydroplaning. I would simply slow down a bit on the highway with the same tire that was wider than narrower. At slower speeds around city streets it probably won't be as much of an issue. Again, this is all assuming the tire is rated well in rain to begin with.

Sean Mc

Just a sidenote. The General G Max were highly rated. Loved the agressive tread. Looked mean. Quiet for the first 15,000, then began to roar. The wobble sound became unbearable. Faithfully rotated them. Could not take it anymore. Scored some Pirelli P7's. I'm in love with my '11 again.

horseshoez

iTrader: (2)

I put P7s on my TL back in may, they only have about 10,000, and they are pretty wonderful so far.