I've come to believe that the best tires for rainy weather and wet streets are not likely to be found among the all season tires. This is different than my previous belief, probably fed by tv advertising. I'm wonder about the opinion of others. What do you think is the clasification of tire likely to have the best wet performance on the street (I guess the easiest thing here is to use the tire rack's categories). I want a tire that is very good in the dry but which losses the least in the wet. I'm not overly worried about hydroplaning because I reckon if the road is that wet I can slow down. In cold weather I'll use snow tires. Could I be any more confusing?

 

The Tire Rack breaks a tire's rating down all kinds of ways. The best wet grip tires will be one of their Max performance Summer tires, but some of these will give up more grip in the cold than a top performing All Season, just change your tires early or be much more careful when it's cold and wet. Probably the tire that's closest in wet and dry grip is the Goodyear F1 Gs D3, I love mine but Falken Azenis are better dry tires and if the pavement is just wet or minimial standing water they still have great grip.

 

S03 and GS-D3's.

 

We do not get much rain out here in SO Cal so I never really took notice of my BF Goodrich KDW-2 215/45's supposed good wet weather claims. Well we have a traditional run out her every Jan 1 and low and behold it was raining. I could not beleive how well they stuck. We did about 125 miles of canyon running without one misstep. I have been thru 2 sets so far and in the dry they are very good , in the wet AMAZING.

Randy
M7 Tuning

 

GSD3s... i sat in my friends 05 with them and they are absolutely insane! grips and grips and grips.. and this is on a race track during a medium sizedn rainstorm

granted, he had LSD, i didnt

 

Another Goodyear Eagle F1 GS D3 fan here. Amazing dry and wet.

 

Thanks. The two options I see supported here both look good. I'm interested to see other opinions . . . meanwhile I'm working hard on wearing out my current tires.

 

pilots sports not as grippy in wet vs S03's and GS-D3's. ES100's were
not that great, Spec2's were only a tad better, Pirelli's P6's
gripped better in the wet than the Yoks.

 

For ultimate wet street performance with a tire that can be used for daily driving you'll do better with tires like the Bridgestone Potenza S-03 or Goodyear Eagle F1 GS-D3 as stated.

The downside to this option is the relatively higher cost and faster tire wear.
If that is not an issue then those Max Performance tires will also give you great dry traction/performance. Usually about 20,000 miles or one or two year of use then performance drops off and noise increases. Initially they are fantastic, especially so in the wet. I have the S-03s.

Yokohama ES100s are also good for the price but like All Season tires they will provide some wet traction but only up to a limit. On a sports sedan that isn't modded the ES100 will work fine in the wet or dry and be a better performer than most All Season tires but the wear will not be as long.

The big advantage with all Season tires is the size selection (good for those less performance oriented side walls), reasonably good tire selection, longer wearing with decent performance, and reasonable price range. You'll give up absolute performance in the dry and some in the wet. Most All season tires will work in light snow or worse (sometimes) but Max Performance tires won't work in the snow.

So in a place like Hawaii we have lots of wet all year long and for all out performance the S-03 or similar works great but it's new tires fairly often. The harder you drive on them the quicker you will wear out the fronts. The All season tires I save for the family sports sedan (BMW, Acura, Maxima, Volvo turbo, etc) and they work just fine and are cheap by comparison.

Talk to Alex@tirerack.com to find out more. Sometimes you are limited by the wheel size/ tire size that will fit.

 

Dunlop Sport Maxx would be (was) my choice for great dry and wet performance. Rated very highly on Tire Rack........I love these tires.

 

I also ordered a set of these from the Tire Rack. I live in Vancouver Canada and it rains here ALL THE TIME. The KDW2s stick like glue in the rain - far better than my set of Dunlop all seasons and better than my Pirelli snows... and they were cheap too!

 

Thanks guys. I'm in Northern New Mexico so it doesn't rain all the time but we do have a monsoon in the summer (started Monday this year). Everyday you see rain but only sometimes have rain fall on you. But if you're driving you are often in and out of rain and often come across damp roads where it recently rained.

In my mind winter is for snow tires. I no longer see a need to tiptoe around with all season tires when there are so many fabulous snow tires out there now. It isn't that much of a bother for me, it is actually a fun activity, to change tires if I'll be headed south or west (say San Diego) in the winter.

All of the tires discussed so far are tires I've thought about. I'm leaning towards the goodyear's right now.

By the way, no more runflats. I assume you all are talking about non-runflat versions of these tires.

 

another vote for the Goodyears...I just put them on earlier this month and have been running through quit a bit of rainy weather on them...they're great!

I run Nokian Hakk's in the winter...also great. All tires are non RFs.

 

http://www.caranddriver.com/features...the-tread.html

 

GSD3s all the way.

PS: Right now i am on PZero Rossos, and am extremely happy with them.

 

More and more pull towards the goodyears. But I see than many tires are close. Some of it has to be about feel and preference I suppose.

 

Another vote for the GS-D3s -- I drove through the worst rainstorm I've ever experienced a couple of weeks ago... buckets and buckets of rain were coming down, maybe an inch of water on the road, I would have pulled over but didn't have anywhere I could do so (highway was under construction with only two lanes open, there was nowhere to pull off to). It was a pretty scary experience.

The GS-D3s did phenomenally well. Held their grip throughout, only a couple of very brief instances where I felt I was starting to lose traction (and I regained it very quickly). I'm SO happy I ditched my runflats a month earlier.

 

I've got a set of Eagle F1s coming on Monday, hopefully. I've read many reports that these are an EXCELLENT tire both wet and dry. I'm looking to feeling the difference between the run flat and the Eagle F1. I'm sure it will be night and day. I'll report back once I get them mounted and tested. Can't wait!

 

I can vouch for the Bridgestone S-03's great performance in the wet (and dry).
Have them on my MC and my wife's VW Cabrio 3 seasons of the year.