Kenda DOT tire

What was the description of the e-mail sent?

Even though they are DOT approved are they intended for long range highway speeds and distances?

I bought a new Kenda tire from chaparral motorsports and it went 15 miles and the Nobby's started flying off as 50% of them are hollow not very fun at 65 mph on the freeway I'd love to get feed back on how a new tire can have hollow nobbys on one side when you email me back I'll add the photos of the tire that tried to kill me. Thanks

This is what he sent in. But if I worked at Kenda I would have handled it way different. Maybe call the customer and send the tire back to Kenda. Maybe pay for installing the tire, TWICE. Just makes me think about never installing a Kenda tire again.

Holy Sh#t...... thats obviously a bad batch of tires that came out of the molds. We had two guys in our annual Baja trip run them last winter. I was actually impressed how the K772 held up after nearly a 1000 miles. Very very well worn... but definitely no hollow knobs. I cant believe they changed the design in less than a year or intentionally manufactured a hollow knob. Your last picture is most telling, no knob I have ever run has chunked from the inside out (hence my belief you are right they were hollow). I'm going to follow this thread to hear how it plays out with Kenda. Please keep us updated.


I'm no pro fast desert guy, but riding Baja for decades. In that time I have run just about every brand of knob DOT or not in the desert with stretches of pavement. With that said, I have not come across any that I couldnt chunk in the right conditions. Tire pressure, speed, throttle aggressiveness, and heat (in that order) seem to factor most in knob wear on the pavement. While I hear about dual sport guys that claim they can get a few thousand miles out of a DOT knob I am skeptical as i've never witnessed it myself or with groups I've led.... and always assume it has to be old guys on KLRs.. Ive seen identical tires and bikes with one bike's tire chunking before the other. Air pressure being the biggest factor. Trying to do freeway speeds on a tire with offroad tire pressures always chunk on me within 100 miles. High 20's seem preserve the tires better if you have to run any sort of distance.

The tires that recently seems to hold up to some pavement use (I gave up on the 606 long ago for the same reasons as your buddy) are the Maxxis Desert IT and Motoz Tractionator Desert HT. Heavy and stiff as hell, especially the Motoz... but they will do a Baja trip with guys that possess heavy right wrists on powerful bikes like the 500exc. I dont think the Maxxis is DOT, but it holds up better than many DOT tires. On the cheaper end of the spectrum, the Kenda K270 rear if aired up can last and will do acceptable to ok if airdowned in dry hardpack conditions (if the Maxxis and Motoz are too pricey.) Not an equal offroad... but a doable compromise for some. Just my experience over many years. Others may vary obviously.

Sorry to hear about your experience and keep us posted as I was going to try and even recommend the Parker to some going on this winters Baja trip.

LOL dude you dont use knobbies on the road. If youre going touring get some street touring tires. Lmfaooo

Acidreamer wrote:

LOL dude you dont use knobbies on the road. If youre going touring get some street touring tires. Lmfaooo

LOL dude, DOT rating is supposed to mean you can.

Is that the Parker desert Tire don't believe that is dot rated the only kenda rear tires that I'm aware of that are , Trackmaster and the equilibrium.
That being said the Knobbies still shouldn't have been Hollow and you should have no problem getting your money back

Acidreamer wrote:

LOL dude you dont use knobbies on the road. If youre going touring get some street touring tires. Lmfaooo

ns503 wrote:

LOL dude, DOT rating is supposed to mean you can.

LOL dude DOT says DOT helmets are safe but theyre not.

I suspect somewhere in the fine print you'll find that these tires are only approved to do like 20mph on the freeway. You may not even get the warranty if you tell the dealer the knobbies came off while doing 70mph on the free way.

I used to use kenda trakmaster dot approved tires on my dirt bikes, and they worked very well. Giant knobs, and felt pretty good at highway speed .

It's funny what people say about tires. DOT, freeway use, ect.. Half the tire worked great. The other half they fucked up on the mold. Half the tire is fine, with the center knobs are perfect. The other half, the knobs are hollow. I think, I could be wrong, but when a tire is DOT approved, (like the 2016 KTM 500exc, which came with a knobby tire from the factory) you think would be ok to run 65 miles an hour on the freeway, right. I would hope so. If a shop has this Kenda tire in stock, go push on the center knobs and see if they are hollow. But if I worked for Kenda, I would want to see this tire.

That is a bad tire. That being said the 772 is a DOT knobby and at the end of the day still a knobby. A true Kenda dual sport tire would be a K270. You can get them really cheap and that do pretty well on asphalt. They are marginal off road but there is your trade off. My personal experience with Kenda has been very good.

My bad just looked at SRT website and you're right that is a dot tire, on my street and trail I like the triple front and equilibrium rear works on the street good works in the woods good.

Ok someone that knows what they are doing from Kenda contacted my buddy and is taking care of him. I'm sure that people have run Kenda tires and has had good luck with them. We know the tire was made improper and I hope they did not have a run that was bad. Thanks goes out to Kenda for stepping up and making it right. This could have been a lot worse.

That's cool , kenda does make a pretty good Tire and they're still reasonably priced. I usually keep a few on hand

Nice that Kenda realized this was a defect and willing to step up to replace the tire. This is what it is! It's NOT that a knobby was used on the road, It's not that the guy burned up the tire on the road! Plain and simple, a defect.