Tires for wet road conditions

Bought my truck brand new in 2005 in North Carolina. Moved back to California. My question is I have had 4 sets of tires since I bought it. All of them suck for traction on wet roads. Had BF Goodrich tires. Those were really bad. Currently have Michelin and they are almost as bad. Anyone out there have any good luck with tires on wet roads? I know your supposed to put tires on that reflect 90% of your driving. I had bought off road tires for my Bronco back in the 80s big mistake as most of my driving was on the street. So any recommendations would be greatly appreciated! TIA

 

Welcome to TW! Are you looking for all-terrain, or street tires? The stock street Michelins that came on mine absolutely sucked in any kind of moisture, rain or snow. The Cooper Discoverer AT3s I had on my trailblazer did really well in the wet.

For the AT realm, I love my General Grabber ATx's. Fantastic for off-road, wet, and snow, damn quiet for highway use, look awesome IMO, and they wear like iron. Just put a new set on after getting 3 years and 70k outta my last set(mostly highway but plenty of dirt, gravel, snow, sand, and terrible winter roads in the mix), and they still had almost 30% tread. Only changed em due to a mix of age, and rocking a piss poor alignment for too long wore them irregularly and made them obnoxiously noisy.

Granted, I wouldn't run a rainy Le Mans in them but they have perfectly adequate, predictable performance in wet and snow. Just gotta lay off the loud pedal a little bit like anything else. or add some weight in the bed over your drive axle.

Surprised to hear you didn't like the BFGs, were they KO2s? I'm not one of the diehard BFG fanboys but I ran them in my 94 Pathfinder years ago and never had a single complaint, similar to the Grabbers. That little beast just went anywhere you pointed it. Its only bottleneck was its grossly undersized brakes.

inb4 yet another TW anectodal/fanatical tire war

 

And as I alluded to above, a good alignment can/will make ALL the difference in the world as far as traction and longevity, even if it "feels fine/drives straight" in the dry. With slight discrepancies that are barely noticeable on dry pavement, adding slippery stuff will let those wheels start fighting each other for who gets the most traction at any given point. Not to mention wear the treads irregularly and make way for less overall contact and channeling the wet stuff where it's not supposed to go.

If your truck has some years and miles on it, bushings and suspension also make a big difference in maintaining grip. Worn bushings, shocks, balljoints, etc, both create slop in the alignment and let the wheels bounce more over all the micro-bumps in the road, further lessening your contact patch at any given time.

Pardon the overly verbose response. Lol this is how I keep occupied at 4am on night shift.

 

When I bought my 09 a little over a year ago, I made a list of everything I "needed" to do to get it set up the way I wanted it. First on the list? Even thought they were almost brand new, I was going to replace the cheap, bargain brand tires that I'd never heard of and get something I'd had previous good experience with before, i.e. General Grabbers. In the process, I looked up the company and the online reviews, just out of curiosity. Turned out that the tire, Travelstar Ecopaths, had pretty good reviews! Since I didn't have enough spare change at the time, I focused on some more immediate concerns and, over the course of a few thousand miles, came to realize that the Ecopaths were doing a darn good job in the rain and light off-roading. I've kept them for almost 10k now and they've handled everything I've asked of them, including working better in snow my beloved Grabbers...

 

Is OP's truck an access cab or double cab? Never heard of the term "king cab" used with Tacomas before.

And do prerunners have TRAC?

And what tire PSI? Seems a lot of truck guys run at max sidewall for some reason, but this just reduces contact patch. Door jamb PSI is there for a reason.

 

All trucks suck in the rain. Especially when unloaded. I've had a cap on every truck I've ever owned and the extra 180-200 lbs sitting on the rear axle makes a huge difference.

 

I can back up both of these sentiments. Love my General Grabber ATX tires so far. After 10-20k miles they have only gone down 1/32" of tread and still feel like new. Great in the rain and snow which we get a fair bit in Wisconsin. I have previously had BFG KO2s and Duratracs and I will never go back to those for my needs as the Grabbers outperform them for every one of my needs - onroad or offroad.

I have a Leer cap and a custom-build drawer system which adds a few hundred extra pounds on back. Never get the feeling like rear end is sliding out, always feels planted on pavement. I barely ever need to 4WD even when I'm offroad.

Are they made of magical fairy dust and perfect in every way? No. But they are dang close in my opinion.

 

Especially a Tacoma since they are light in the arse with a composite bed.

 

I agree that the truck is light in the rear end especially as I only have a tonneau cover on it. I can get anti sway bars for it but not sure that would help without traction. Maybe 8 bags of concrete in back a long with different tires. Thank you all for your ideas!

 

coarse sand… (or DG, crushed limestone, cinders, etc.) in a couple of those fabric tube bags, you can dump it out for a little quick traction if you get sort of stuck on snow/ice

 

This...plus a bed mat (which weighs maybe 30lbs) and the cover about 100lbs.

So, you haven't felt a difference?

Good point on the recommended tires in this thread.

E
****

 

Live on the coast in NC and duratracs have been great down there for me. Lots of standing water on the road and haven’t had any issues with hydroplaning.

Plenty of sipping.