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Kenda tubeless tire: Cant use with sealant (stan's) / voids warranty

22K views 31 replies 22 participants last post by  MikeRock98 
#1 ·
So who wants to run a Tubeless tire without any Stan's style Sealant for security? Right... No one. One thorn could make you carry your bike down miles

Turns out Kenda tires do not support/warranty their tires with the use of Stans or any other sealant. I outfitted my two bikes any my girlfriends bike with over $300 in Nevegal Dual Compound UST tires. I used Stan's in all 3 for obvious reasons. Within 3 months all 3 bikes had tire failure. Two of them had big bubbles form in the sidewall and looked like they were going to pop after I pumped them up. One of them had the bead separate from the rubber and another had a huge hole punctured in it deep into a ride (I think this is like the bubble problem, except while out riding a semi-sharp rock/root punched a big nickel size hole that i could stick my finger through)... all within 3 months! :madman:

Knowing something was wrong I called Kenda after the 3rd blowout. After politely explaining the problem to Kenda basically told me that any Sealant use voids the warranty, and that is probably what caused the problema. I was basically out of luck. I checked the packaging that they came with, No mention of not using sealant. I checked the website, couldn't find any mention either. I asked my two big local shops here in LA, they didnt know this either. :mad:

CONCLUSION: Dont use Kenda UST Tubeless tires because I wouldnt dare trust a ride to them without sealant. They take thorns VERY easily and I would only run them if you are going to use tubes.

Just switched to Schwalabe Hans Dampf tires on one of my bikes (after calling them and asking if I can use Stans) and they are Amazing and have held 98% of the air I originally pumped into them a month ago.
 
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#7 ·
I use Stans too and I got bubbles on my Crossmark UST 26x2.1 after 5 months and ~1500km. the biggest bubble was a size of a central knob (and the knobs are pretty worn, the cross mark is just barely visible). Punctured the bubble with a needle, clear fluid squirted from the bubble, no air escaping at all.
 
#6 · (Edited)
So who wants to run a Tubeless tire without any Stan's style Sealant for security? Right... No one. One thorn could make you carry your bike down miles

Turns out Kenda tires do not support/warranty their tires with the use of Stans or any other sealant. I outfitted my two bikes any my girlfriends bike with over $300 in Nevegal Dual Compound UST tires. I used Stan's in all 3 for obvious reasons. Within 3 months all 3 bikes had tire failure. Two of them had big bubbles form in the sidewall and looked like they were going to pop after I pumped them up. One of them had the bead separate from the rubber and another had a huge hole punctured in it deep into a ride (I think this is like the bubble problem, except while out riding a semi-sharp rock/root punched a big nickel size hole that i could stick my finger through)... all within 3 months! :madman:

Knowing something was wrong I called Kenda after the 3rd blowout. After politely explaining the problem to Kenda basically told me that any Sealant use voids the warranty, and that is probably what caused the problema. I was basically out of luck. I checked the packaging that they came with, No mention of not using sealant. I checked the website, couldn't find any mention either. I asked my two big local shops here in LA, they didnt know this either. :mad:

CONCLUSION: Dont use Kenda UST Tubeless tires because I wouldnt dare trust a ride to them without sealant. They take thorns VERY easily and I would only run them if you are going to use tubes.

Just switched to Schwalabe Hans Dampf tires on one of my bikes (after calling them and asking if I can use Stans) and they are Amazing and have held 98% of the air I originally pumped into them a month ago.
Yup, that has been the policy for 5-6+ years.

I do not use sealant in UST tires. No sealant in tubeless ready tires, either, unless absolutely necessary.

No need to walk out if I get a puncture. I put in an inner tube. Still need to carry tubes with sealant. Can not seal all flats, cuts, punctures, broken valves...
 
#8 ·
I've heard the horror stories of bubbling Kendas. I took a gamble and installed two Nevegal DTC/UST tires with Stans. They've been going strong for almost a year now. I just recently (last night) replaced the rear Nev with a Slant Six. Hoping this one holds up just as well. Having sealant in there gives a bit more peace of mind then having nothing at all. Didn't take much to get a hole in my Nevegal from a thorn. I'm actually quite surprised to hear that the OP had tire failure after 3 months.
 
#10 ·
I feel like an idiot. I fully intented on using Stans with the new Slant Six I bought. Didn't realize Kenda has an STC (sealant version) for the Slant Six. Bought a UTC and already juiced it and installed it. Lol. Hope it holds up as good as the Nevegal UTC! I really hope the whole SCT thing is just marketing.
 
#15 ·
Not necessarily. The only tires Kenda says are ok to use with juice are their SCT tubeless ready tires. Their UST and non-tubeless ready tires are not gauranteed to work with juice. I have been running Kenda UST tires with juice in them for over a year now and haven't had any problems. Seems like its hit or miss with non-SCT tires although it also seems the bubbling issues are more rare these days.
 
#17 ·
UST was designed to be a tubeless system with which no sealant is necessary. I've run UST tires both with and without sealant. The bead on UST will lock in place and create it's own seal, so the sealant in the tire is stricly for punctures. In addition to that, UST tires have heavier denser rubber and sidewalls and are significantly less prone to thorns and cactus than regular tires.

Generally, when the bubbles form on tires, you're ok to pop em carefully and keep riding. Never had an issue with that. If you are set on running a sealant in a UST tire for thorns and such, consider using regular ol' Slime instead. It's cheaper and not toxic to tires to my knowledge. Slime won't seal a bead on a ghetto tubeless setup, but it'll work well to plug holes in a UST tire.
 
#18 ·
I was wondering if I should've ran sealant since UST tires are supposed to be more "thorn resistant". Isn't the case. You get one of those goat-heads in your tire and you don't catch and ride a few miles with it, those thorns will puncture right through. The sealant definitely helped. Rather have sealant in there rather than nothing at all. Haven't really messed with slime but Stans seems to do the trick.
 
#19 ·
I've had good luck with cactus and thorns in my UST tires when not running sealant, but that was quite a while ago. Personally, I run Stan's in my UST tires (Maxxis and/or Conti) and I have never seen the bubble issue on my own tires. We see it a lot in the shop, though, but it's primarily on older tires. Just thought I'd throw the Slime idea out there for folks that have had problems with bubbles and thornage. Slime works pretty good, know a lot of folks doing that.
 
#21 ·
Blew out my Nevegal

Bubble in my Nevegal, Blew and luckily a FS truck came by and gave me a ride the several miles back.
The suggestion a few posts back...don't run sealant and put in a tube when it gets a hole in it. That's obvious but then what? Buy a new tire? In the desert you get multiple holes almost every ride simply from debris in the trail. You can see Stans coming out of pin hole punctures after a ride that would otherwise leave you with a flat if you had no sealant. Obviously you bring tubes but that should only be as a backup after a total failure of your tire, loss of the bead seal, etc. Without a sealant a tubeless tire would probably go flat quite often. Would you try to warranty the tire for each puncture that occurred?
 
#22 ·
Bubble in my Nevegal, Blew and luckily a FS truck came by and gave me a ride the several miles back.
The suggestion a few posts back...don't run sealant and put in a tube when it gets a hole in it. That's obvious but then what? Buy a new tire? In the desert you get multiple holes almost every ride simply from debris in the trail. You can see Stans coming out of pin hole punctures after a ride that would otherwise leave you with a flat if you had no sealant. Obviously you bring tubes but that should only be as a backup after a total failure of your tire, loss of the bead seal, etc. Without a sealant a tubeless tire would probably go flat quite often. Would you try to warranty the tire for each puncture that occurred?
I think it would be helpful if people here would post what version of the nevegal's they are having issues with. I'm assuming most of these bubbles/blow-outs are with the standard NON-UST style tire. If so, it's not that surprising that bubbles form. I still haven't had a single issue with Stan's and my UST nevegal/slant six setup.
 
#24 ·
Unless you ride nothing but downhill smooth edged slick rock and roots, its time to move away from nevegals! They have a plethora of problems, tubed or tubeless.

Its just time to move on, theres drastically better tires out there now.
What's odd is that I'm moving back to them after being away for a while. There's other tires, different tires, but better is highly subjective to a wide range of variables. I ride a range of highly technical rocky terrain to fairly average medium-tech singletrack with roots and such.

I love the ride of my Specialized Cap'n Controls but after a few months, the sidewalls get weak and flexy to the point I have to worry about burping them over every log hop with a turn... and I have to keep adding more psi with each ride. So, is that better than the Nevegal? No, just different.

Every tire has a compromise. Nevegals are the best all-around mtb tire I've used in many years of riding. They just feel right. It's too bad about not using Stan's, though. I always use it and haven't had bubble or any of the issues I've read about. I guess I'm lucky... and I will test my luck again. I think the tire seats better when you use Stan's and it leaks less overall. Each ride pulls the tire a little bit and I just can't count on the bead to stay seated. I burp tires for some reason... if it weren't for Stan's, I think I'd burp even more.

-C
 
#28 ·
I just got a pair of Maxxis Advantage tires and found out tha Maxxis also voids the warranty if sealant is used. I totally get that an UST system doesn't need sealant to to hold air but in practice we know that flats do occur with UST tires even they're supposed to be more puncture resistant. I think most of us use sealant to prevent flats not to make the system seal, so why don't tire manufacturers really pay attention to what we need and happens in real life? to me a Tubeless tire doesn't make that much sense if we use sealant anyway, tubeless ready should be the way to go but the choices are limited.
 
#32 ·
Just bought a set of nevegal ust in feb. maybe 500 miles on them. Extremely rocky terrain. After my ride today in the parking lot I noticed a lump in my wheel at first I thought I toasted a rim today.

I looked at the tire and it seemed it hadn a small bubble. By the time I got home it was the size of a softball maybe larger. I popped it immediately cause it looked like it was twisting the rim(crossmax xl).

Add me to the list of sealant destroyed tires. I really loved this tire while It lasted. But the terrain I ride is not compatible without sealant. Lol
 
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