Thunderer Ranger R402

Initial Review, 21,495 Miles on Tires

August 20, 2011

Having been disappointed with the OEM Goodyear tires wearing at @ 20k was happy to put some new rubber to the road. But seemed to go from bad to worse besides having to patch 3 puncture to the same tire. The Ride quality has been rough to rougher. But even more annoying has been the "noise" of these tires, and after 20K+ miles they've actually gotten louder! Average dry performance, surprisingly, the wet traction and especially good and the Hydroplaning has been impressive. Living in Hawaii we get torrential rains that seem like barrels of water in the matter of seconds on the road during our brief so called "Winter", and I know at 55 I hit a patch of water build up and run off that was at least 4 inches deep and I hit this about 15ft section and the car bogged down but never hydroplaned plowed right through shooting a 15 ft rooster tail behind and hitting the car behind me, poor guy almost Zero Visibility. Pretty scary but they got me through this but not worth the Noise torture that you have to endure for the 90% of the time! Now FYI after about 41K on the Mazda, the shop says the Front struts are blown and need to be replaced. Great! Apparent design flaw in this model. I've never had a car that I had to replace the struts for wear this early, but in mean time our potholes ore out of control and now getting uneven wear on the front set already awful tires. I most definetly don't recommend these tires at least to Mazda 3 owners. Better go with the Hankook Ventus one's if you want to save a buck!