Tyres - Wet weather worth it?

[OlberJ]

Seeing as we get the worst of the weather quite often up here, what do you lot wrap yer castors in?

Need some tyres for the new Mr2 and have been pricing up the usual T1R's etc.

Wondering if it's worth going for something designed for poor weather instead?

[abw280]

Compared to summer or sports orientated tyres then the answer is yes. I've had Uniroyal Rainsports and they are good in the wet and fine in the dry. Also had Goodyear Optigrip recently and they were superb all round, you may struggle to find them though in your size. I've also found both sets to be excellent in snow.

Only down side to wet weather tyres is that they can be slightly noisier and fuel consumption can dip very slightly (1-2 mpg).

The new tyre markings are supposed to guide you with grades on noise, wet weather and rolling resistance. I've still to be convinced however.

[F3RNANDO]

Olie - what size do you need and what price have you got?

[amccan10]

As above, had uniroyal rainsports on the subaru, great all rounder especially for our summers and of course the HH!

[OlberJ]

Cheers folks.

205/55/16 fronts and 225/50/16 rears are the sizes i'm after. Edit - £320 delivered off the bay.

195/55/16 fronts and 215/50/16 rears would be fine too, just need that 20mm stagger.

Edited by OlberJ on Tuesday 29th January 14:56

[OlberJ]

Had T1-R's on previous 2's and they were good, not amazing though.

They do need scrubbed in to work right or they're like having ice skates on.

[mazdajason]

I'm a T1R man as well, really like them but as someone above said - they do need scrubbed first to work well. Used them at a track day (ingliston) last year and compared to 2 years ago on Avon ZZ5's ( I think..?) the Toyo's were much better.

[anonymous-user]

abw280 said:

I've had Uniroyal Rainsports and they are good in the wet and fine in the dry.

I think these tyres can be quite 'car dependent'. I've heard owners of MX-5s rave about them, however I had them on a big old heavy E-Class and whilst they were awesome on the wet, they didn't inspire confidence in the dry - suggestions were that on wider profiles the large tread blocks move around quite a bit under hard cornering in the dry, agrees with my experience.

[scotty_d]

I run good year eagle f1 for mainly the reason they are very good in the wet best wet weather tyre I have used on my 7th set now hard to look past.

[The Flying Ox]

I had Toyo T1R on the back and Vrederstein Sporttrac 3 on the front of mine, and they were properly good. Excellent grip in the wet and dry, no real road noise to speak of, and they lasted ages. Sold the set of wheels they were on at about 12,000 miles and if they were even half-worn I'd be surprised.

[S2red]

Tyres ARGH! looking for 2 x 205/55/16 91H for family barge and you find a tyre which comes top in on magazine test comes 8th out of 10 in another

Decisions decisions

Edited by S2red on Tuesday 29th January 19:23

[KB_S1]

I usually have Rainsport 2s on the Imoreza.
Very impressed, especially in the wet.

Don't feel I have suffered in the dry, had them on when we did the Lanarkshire run last year.
It is a right PITA trying to get good tyres in the 16" bracket.
No P-Zeros, ContiSports or Michelin Pilots.

[Olivera]

Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 2 - simply fantastic in the wet and several generations ahead of a relatively old tyre such as the Rainsport 2.

[8bit]

We put Uniroyal Rainsport 2's on the mrs. MX-5 last year, very good in wet and dry. I've got Vredestein Ultrac Sessanta's on my Leon Cupra R, fantastic in both wet and dry, and much better than I feared in the recent snow. Only thing is that the Vredesteins are only available in a limited range of sizes. Personally if I couldn't get those in whatever size I needed I'd go for the Uni's.

[F3RNANDO]

Camskill have some very cheap prices for the Rainsport2.

Linky

[jamieduff1981]

Another Goodyear fan here. They utterly spank Toyo T1Rs in every objective or measurable test other than price.

[MarkRSi]

doogz said:

I'm on T1-R's with a 20mm stagger.

Decent in the dry, pretty crap in the wet IMO.

I said that on the owners forum (before I was banned) to be told I was talking nonsense, was totally wrong, and T1-R's are great in the wet.

I've got T1Rs on my MR2 and they don't seem bad in the wet. Grip doesn't seem to be worse than my (admittedly worn) RE040s on before and don't break away as suddenly.

Although they're utter kak in the snow!

[KB_S1]

Olivera said:

Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 2 - simply fantastic in the wet and several generations ahead of a relatively old tyre such as the Rainsport 2.

Available in these sizes though?

[OlberJ]

cheers Baz, bargain 275.

[cat220]

These guys are very good price wise...

http://www.oponeo.co.uk/

Cheers,
C