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Last updated 7/09/2024 - Originally published 7/09/2024
Written by SimpleTire
From one year to the next, the all-season tire category continues to be the biggest-selling, most popular class of tires for sedans, minivans, coupes, and crossovers, and for good reason. All-season tires are designed for dependable year-round performance in all kinds of weather. They feature a tread design that delivers consistent grip on wet, dry, or snowy pavement, with a refined and quiet ride, capable handling, good straight-line stability and road manners, great wear properties (usually with a decent limited manufacturer’s tread life warranty) and steering response that’s quick and accurate. Seeing as how all-season tires are like the Swiss Army Knife of the tire world, it’s no surprise that they’re a popular go-to solution for most drivers’ needs. It’s also not a surprise that all-season tires are available at every price point, from affordable tires from obscure brands to spendy ones from tier-1 tire makers. In most cases, those affordable tires are a “you get what you pay for” caveat emptor kind of equation, but the lesser-known brands keep putting out products that are better and better and exceed expectations, punching far above their weight class when compared against the price.
Today we’re going to look at the Thunderer Mach 1 Plus and Kenda Vezda Touring A/S (KR205), two very capable all-season tires that come in at a budget price point. Are you familiar with SimpleTire’s SimpleScore system? SimpleScore is the ratings method that the SimpleTire team developed to give drivers a quick at-a-glance idea of a tire’s strengths and weaknesses. We look at the tire’s specs, the manufacturer info, customer reviews, and other data points, then process all that to a 1-10 numerical value for the categories of traction, handling, and longevity, as well as an overall average SimpleScore for the tire. In the case of the Thunderer Mach 1 Plus and Kenda Vezda Touring A/S (KR205), the SimpleScore numbers look like this:
Thunderer Mach 1 Plus:
- Traction: 7.6
- Handling: 8.0
- Longevity: 9.8
- Overall average SimpleScore: 8.4
Kenda Vezda Touring A/S (KR205):
- Traction: 8.1
- Handling: 8.4
- Longevity: 8.7
- Overall average SimpleScore: 8.4
It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about tennis shoes, cookware, or bowling balls – anything that rates solidly in the 8s on a scale of 1-10 is doing pretty well. As handy as SimpleScore is, it’s still the 30,000-foot view that doesn’t give you a good detailed idea of a tire’s value. That’s where we have to go in and get a closer look with this head-to-head comparison of the Thunderer Mach 1 Plus and Kenda Vezda Touring A/S (KR205).
Thunderer Mach I Plus tires
Thunderer tires originate in the Philippines and are imported by American Omni, which is also home to brands like Vercelli, Venezia, Americus, and Lancaster. The Mach 1 Plus is designed for long wear and enhanced handling and road manners, along with dependable year-round performance and stable, predictable handling dynamics.
The Mach 1 Plus is designed with an all-season tread that features strategically placed tie bars across tread elements that (along with a reinforced shoulder) shore up the tread’s rigidity to avoid tread deformation and help to deliver precise cornering. A solid center rib helps to enhance straight-line stability at highway speed, road manners, and steering response. The contact patch is optimized with high-angle tread blocks that ensure more rubber in contact with the road for even wear, dependable traction and handling, and shorter braking distances. For dependable winter traction, the Thunderer Mach 1 Plus features a dense pattern of 3D sipes that multiply the tread surface and grip with hundreds of thin biting edges to slice through standing water and slush. Circumferential and angled grooves evacuate water from the tire’s contact patch to resist hydroplaning.
A solid center rib gives the Mach 1 Plus excellent straight-line stability and tracking on the highway along with enhanced steering response. The tread pitch of the Thunderer is randomized and computer-tuned to cancel certain frequencies and overtones, helping to keep road noise to a minimum. With its long-wearing tread compound, Thunderer covers the Mach 1 Plus with a 70,000-mile limited manufacturer’s tread life warranty. SimpleTire’s price on the Thunderer Mach 1 Plus starts at $50.97 per tire.
Kenda Vezda Touring A/S (KR205) tires
Now we come to another great value in an all-season tire, the Vezda Touring A/S (KR205) from Kenda. The Kenda Vezda Touring A/S is designed for superb handling and cornering, with strategically placed tie bars and reinforced shoulders that give the tread extra rigidity to resist tread squirm during hard maneuvers. Its asymmetric all-season tread features four wide grooves to route water away from the tire’s contact patch and resist hydroplaning. A decoupling groove helps to boost year-round grip, as well as encouraging long and even wear. Speaking of wear properties, Kenda stands by the Vezda Touring A/S (KR205) with a 65,000-mile limited manufacturer’s tread life warranty. Like the Thunderer, the Kenda features a tread pitch that’s computer-optimized for a quiet ride and sipes that help to enhance grip in wet or wintry weather. The Kenda is designed for ride comfort, low noise, road manners, and long service, and it certainly delivers on all those counts and checks all those boxes. SimpleTire’s price on the Kenda Vezda Touring A/S (KR205) starts at $91.64 per tire.
Thunderer Mach I Plus vs Kenda Vezda Touring A/S (KR205) tires on traction
How do the Kenda and the Thunderer compare to each other when it comes to traction? The Kenda Vezda Touring A/S (KR205) weighs in with a SimpleScore of 8.1 in the traction category vs. 7.6 for the Thunderer Mach 1 Plus. Both tires do quite well in wet or wintry weather (also worth noting here that neither tire has the 3 Peak Mountain Snowflake certification for severe winter service). Both tires have similar patterns of grooves and sipes for wet weather, both tires deliver short braking distances and confident grip on the highway, but the decoupling groove of the Kenda does make a difference when it comes to winter performance. Our decision:
ADVANTAGE: Kenda Vezda Touring A/S (KR205)
Thunderer Mach I Plus vs Kenda Vezda Touring A/S (KR205) tires on handling
With a SimpleScore of 8.4 for the Kenda and 8.0 for the Thunderer, both of these tires offer handling, cornering, and steering response that are pretty competent. The solid center rib of the Thunderer does help with steering response and straight-line stability, but we’re impressed with the tie bars and reinforced shoulder of the Kenda when it comes to cornering ability. Asymmetric tread designs like on the Kenda generally help with handling as well, with the outer segments of the tread designed for wet-weather performance and the smaller blocks toward the inboard side aimed at dry-weather grip and handling. As capable as both tires are, our decision is:
ADVANTAGE: Kenda Vezda Touring A/S (KR205)
Thunderer Mach I Plus vs Kenda Vezda Touring A/S (KR205) tires on longevity
Like you’d expect in most cases, the limited manufacturer’s tread life coverage tells most of the story when it comes to the longevity category, and the Kenda gets a SimpleScore of 8.7 vs a near-perfect 9.8 for the Thunderer. The Thunderer comes to the game with a 70,000-mile warranty, which is nothing short of incredible for a tire at that price point, vs 65,000 miles for the Kenda. This is an open-and-shut kind of decision for us:
ADVANTAGE: Thunderer Mach 1 Plus
When to use each
Like we said up top, all-season tires are just a great choice as a Jack-of-all-trades, one-stop-shopping solution for most drivers. That means competent handling, easy road manners, a quiet and comfortable ride, long wear, and great stability on the highway. About the only kind of situation where most all-season tires don’t do well is in deeper snow, like the kind of snow that piles up for several inches and lingers on the roads for days on end. Caveat here, though: if you’re the kind of driver who has a sporty sedan or crossover and you really like to push the limits of your car’s performance envelope, neither the Thunderer nor the Kenda might be right for you, and perhaps an ultra-high-performance or summer tire would be a better choice. But if you just need a dependable tire for interstate road trips or day-to-day city driving, you can’t go wrong with what the Thunderer Mach 1 Plus and the Kenda Vezda Touring A/S (KR205) have to offer.
Which one should you choose?
When it comes to the “which one should you choose” question between these two tires, it’s a genuinely tough call. Both get outstanding overall SimpleScores of 8.4, and of course, the 70k mile limited manufacturer’s tread life warranty of the Thunderer is exceptional for a tire that starts out well under $60 – at one time not long ago, a tire at that price point would likely have not offered any mileage warranty at all. It’s true that the Kenda Vezda Touring A/S (KR205) does edge out the Thunderer Mach 1 Plus in the other categories, but then again the Kenda starts at $91.64 per tire vs $50.97 per tire for the Thunderer. It’s our take here at the SimpleTire team that you’re not going to be disappointed with either tire, really. Our suggestion would be if you can afford the Kenda, go for it – and if you’re on a bit more of a budget, go with the Thunderer. Both make excellent replacement all-season tire values, and both would be great for an older vehicle where you need tires but don’t want to clean out a bank account to do it.
Still not sure which tire to buy? Fortunately, SimpleTire is here to help, and our helpful agents will be more than happy to assist you in selecting the right tire for your ride and budget.