Living in Florida has its challenges. We often get large amounts of rain, and often at unpredictable times. My car had Kumho 712s on it when I bought it in March. Decent in front, badly worn in rear, and in the wet, let's just say it was interesting! So I replaced the rears with a new set of 712s this week (just in time for the tropical storm/hurricane double-whammy).

As I looked at replacement tires, I noticed there seemed to be two varying schools of thought in producing tires that are good in the rain.

One school of thought seems to be to place angled grooves from the center of the tire toward the outside, to channel water away from the tire. This seems to have been popularized by the Aquatread tire of years ago, and seems to be the racing tire choice of the sports cars (like the Le Mans cars). You can currently see this style on the Kumho 712, the Toyo T1S, Goodyear top sport tire, etc.

The other school of thought seems to be popularized by modern F1 tire design and consists of several deep grooves in the tire to give the water somewhere to rest under the tire rather than pump it away. I suppose the idea is that pumping water away has physical limitations that occur as speeds increase. This style can be seen in the Michelin PS2, the Bridgestone S03, etc.

Both styles seem to be quite effective in handling wet weather. My new Kumos effectively pumped water away this week while I was doing about 80 mph on my daily commute through Tropical Storm Bonnie. The 712 had a very deep and wide center channel which channels water to angled grooves. So it's a combination of the two styles.

Does anyone have thoughts on these two varying styles of tire, and perhaps which one is in fact more effective? When I replace these Kumhos next year, I'd like to install tires which are maximally effective in wet use, as that is most important to me. All of these tires have dry grip that is beyond what I need.

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

You made reference to F1 style tread patterns which are primarily dry weather tires but are acceptable in the rain for street use. When watching F1, what do they do as soon as the track gets legitimately wet? They will put on a directional treaded tire to evacuate the water from the contact patch not just hide it in some deep grooves. If you want maximum wet performance go with an aggressively directional tire like the T1-s.

 

The Bridgestone S03 is teh same tread pattern and design as the F1 Bridgestone tire. They also have a rubber compound that is made to have better wet traction. The third thing that makes the S03 very good in the rain is the dual layered compound. As the tire wears down it exposes another rubber compound that sticks even better in the wet. This will keep the same level of wet traction for the life of the tire.
The Pilot PS2 and the GSD-3 would also be very good options. I don't think you can go wrong with any of these options.
If I can help let me know.

 

The PS2 would be my TOP choice for a tire if it was available in a 16" tire. It's what I wanted from the moment I read the reviews. The Goodyear would have been wonderful had it not presented such a narrow tread for it's size.

The SO3 is a very likely choice for my next tire, or the Proxes T1S. I did have a chance to look at the OEM tire on the STI today and that was quite nice. I don't know what sizes they are available in though.

 

Remember that grooves on FA1 tires are primarily to slow the car down (slicks are against the rules). I'd look at their intermediates as one user indicated as to what they use for rain tread patterns.

 

I've not watched much F1 in recent years, but to be honest, I haven't seen these rain tires. I've looked through a couple of my F1 magazines and can't find pictures of them either.

Do you happen to know where I could find a pictures of them? Anyone?