I purchased a nice used 05 Xterra last month and have been making some improvements. The tires are Cooper Discoverer H/T. The good news is that they seem to have ample tread left on them. The BAD news is that they perform VERY poorly on wet pavement.

I have to really watch it going around corners or it's easy to go into a skid. Also at stop lights, it's easy to spin (6 spd manual) on wet pavement- not as bad if I start out in 2nd.

SO what I'm trying to figure out is maybe it's the tires, or maybe with the short wheelbase this is normal handling for this vehicle. Slipping it into 4wd takes care of the starts at stop lights, but does nothing for cornering obviously.

Anybody else experience handling? Would appreciate longer term drivers sharing their advice. Thanks in advance!

Thanks for responding- interesting info on the part-time 4wd, which I did not know about the Xterra.

The problem certainly is not the 4wd. I almost never have it in 4wd and have never gone into a skid on 4wd on wet pavement.

So the problem is one of two things:
1) the tires suck on wet pavement and should be replaced to fix the problem OR
2) due to short wheelbase, poor design, or whatever this vehicle is simply prone to going into a skid in a corner at normal speed on wet pavement.

If the second one is the problem (design) and everybody experiences then maybe there's no fix and I'll have to learn to live with it. The same thing would continue to happen even with new tires, so that would be a waste of money right now.

So what I'm most interested in knowing is: are other Xterra drivers normally experiencing the same cornering problems and the same problems accelerating normally on wet pavement from a stop?

Thanks again for sharing your driving/handling experiences.