Hankook Kinergy PT is a very under rated standard touring all-season tire, providing you with superb dry and wet performance. Let’s check this tire out in greater details.
Table of Contents
Key Takeaway
So overall, the tire excels when it comes to:
- Wet performance, with superior siping predominately.
- Dry performance, offering excellent longitudinal grip and handling along with steering responsiveness.
- Winter performance on ice, with efficient siping providing excellent traction for the most part.
- Tread longevity, with a unique rubber composition that resists high temperatures and a design that maintains structural integrity, leading to an impressive 90,000-mile warranty.
However, there are some weak points of this tire too where it needs to improve in:
- Noise comfort, as it is one of the louder tires in its category due to more voided shoulder lugs and a heavily siped tread pattern.
- Winter performance in snow, where the tire lacks mostly due to the absence of “multi-directional” notches.
- Fuel economy, where its just average and can be improved a little.
Available Sizes
Hankook Kinergy PT comes in 14 to 19 inches wheels, with following specs.
- Speed ratings: T, H and V.
- Load ratings: SL and XL.
- Weight range: 16 to 28.7 lbs.
- Tread depth (/32″): Vary in between 10, 11.3 and 8.4.
- Treadwear warranty: 90k miles.
- UTQG: 800 A A.
- Internal construction: 2 ply polyester, 2 steel belts, and a single ply nylon cap ply.
Wet Performance
Wet traction involves effectively removing water from beneath the tread. And this is challenging because water cannot be compressed, meaning it must be expelled quickly to prevent it from accumulating under the lugs and causing slippage or, in worse cases, hydroplaning.
When hydroplaning occurs, the tire essentially floats on the water’s surface, losing all traction.
Now to combat this, tires need efficient grooves and sipes. Why is that? Well because the grooves take out majority of water, and the leftover is sucked/absorbed up by sipes in their slits.
And this is where the Hankook Kinergy PT excels, standing out among standard touring tires. Sure it has similar groove structure compared to other tires in its group, it still offers a superior quantity and quality of sipes.
I mean the tire features a relatively higher number of sipes, improving water clearance. And these sipes are designed with varying angles from rib to rib, preventing them from becoming rigid during extreme maneuvers.
This in particular improves wet handling (as seen by lap times on averaged tests).
For Your Info: In my list of best standard touring tires, I’ve rated Kinergy PT the best for overall wet performance.
Dry Performance
Two things come under dry performance. Tire’s longitudinal traction and handling. Let me discuss both.
Longitudinal Grip
The performance of a tire’s longitudinal or “braking” grip is significantly influenced by the interaction between the central tread area (in particular) and the road surface.
Why this area? Well because rolling straight, it has the most weight pressure on it. So lugs there make a more solid contact with the surface.
Now the Hankook Kinergy PT stands out as an above-average option here providing superb braking performance. The tire comes with a design featuring sleek, longitudinal ribs, including a central rib with a more continuous pattern and surrounding ribs with multiple zigzag notches.
And this design ensures extensive rubber-to-road contact and effective traction, significantly enhancing the tire’s overall longitudinal grip.
To give you an idea about the Kinergy’s amazing performance here, you should know that it does slightly better compared to the Continental TrueContact Tour (review), with a difference of less than half a foot in average braking distances from 60 to 0 mph in my averaged tests.
Lateral Grip and Handling
The overall handling of a tire is evaluated based on its steering responsiveness and the lateral grip.
In terms of lateral traction (which is measured by g forces), I have no complaints at all with the Hankook Kinergy PT.
The tire truly shines where its superior performance is largely due to the tire’s nearly continuous running shoulder ribs, which have minimal tread features.
This design results in fewer sipes on the shoulder blocks, allowing more of the shoulder rubber to maintain contact with the road.
But why focus on the shoulders? Well its simple actually, as the tire corners the weight on it shifts towards sidewalls, making shoulders to contact more with the ground.
Additionally, the Hankook Kinergy PT also provides superb steering responsiveness. This is thanks to its solid, reinforced foundations under the lugs which prevent excessive bending of the tread.
Essentially, all lugs are supported by an even stiffer layer of rubber, reducing their flexing. This is crucial for stability, as excessive bending of the lugs can delay the response time between steering inputs and wheel outputs.
So yes the tire is pretty great not only on wet roads but also dry.
Noise Comfort
Tire noise primarily arises from the interaction between air and the tire’s structure.
Here’s whats happening: As the tire rotates, air gets compressed within its tread pattern, creating turbulence against the tread walls. And this generates a primary noise source, which then leads to in-groove resonance and cavity sounds.
Now here the thing. The Hankook Kinergy PT is actually one of the louder tires in its category. And it makes sense looking at its design.
I mean the tire features more voided shoulder lugs, which allow greater air entry, resulting in pronounced in-groove resonance. Additionally, the tire’s heavily siped tread pattern contributes to the overall noise by producing a growling sound.
Plus the tire also emits loud cavity sounds, similar to the resonant noise produced in a hollow chamber, which is actually reminiscent of the sound a basketball makes when it bounces on a surface.
But yes, the tire recently updated its compound and had some design alterations, which improved its pitch sequencing. So it’s a little better now than before, but it still needs to improve here.
By the way, pitch sequencing is a technology that adjusts the lug pattern to create varied frequencies as air particles strike them, preventing the noise waves from amplifying in unison and reducing the overall noise level.
Winter Performance
Overall I think its pretty safe to say that the Hankook Kinergy PT delivers a surprising performance in winter conditions.
Although the tire falls short in snow braking, acceleration, and handling, it excels on ice, outperforming its direct competitors in these tests.
Basically this tire’s advantage on ice is attributed to its efficient siping, rather than the tread biters found in its competitors.
The sipes are angularly oriented and have an interlocking design, with longitudinal siping slits on three out of five ribs. These features provide excellent ice gripping capabilities.
But yes the lack of notches means the tire doesn’t provide sufficient snow-to-snow contact, which is crucial for snow traction, as rubber does not adhere well to snow.
Tread Wear
The Hankook Kinergy PT may not be the absolute best in tread longevity among its competitors, but it is still appreciable here.
The best thing about this tire is that it features a unique rubber composition that resists high temperatures, reducing wear. So its tread is designed to maintain structural integrity over extended use.
Plus the tire is relatively lightweight due to its less dense internal construction, and its lugs have robust foundational supports underneath, reducing heat generation as they rub against the road.
This contributes to the tire’s impressive 90,000-mile warranty, which is the highest I’ve ever seen on any tire.
But don’t get me wrong its not the absolute best here. And if you’re wondering that spot is taken by Michelin Defender 2 (review).
Fuel Economy
Fuel consumption is influenced by various factors, including rolling resistance, tread depth, and the tire’s weight and structure.
Now here, the Hankook Kinergy PT performs averagely in fuel economy, similar to its direct competitors.
It features a single ply polyester and a single nylon cap ply, which helps keep its weight low.
This design reduces the pressure on the lugs as they contact the road, minimizing the generation of rolling resistance and ensuring that fuel economy is not significantly compromised.
To Sum Things Up
In conclusion, the Hankook Kinergy PT stands out for its exceptional wet performance, with superior siping and grooves that effectively expels water and prevents hydroplaning.
Its dry performance is also great, where the tire provides excellent longitudinal grip and handling, thanks to its sleek rib design and nearly continuous shoulder ribs.
In winter conditions, it excels on ice but struggles in snow due to the lack of notches for snow-to-snow contact.
However, it falls short in noise comfort due to its more voided shoulder lugs and heavily siped tread pattern.
Other than all this, the tire provides pretty decent fuel economy too. But yes its not as impressive as its tread longevity that’s for sure.
