I've done a search, but all I can find is people saying the RE050's should be better in the wet than the SO2's. By this time someone out there must be a MY04 owner who had owned a prior model year and experience with both tires.

It doesn't rain in Norcal till November at the earliest, so I won't get first hand experience till then.

Tire rack has not had input yet on this subject.

 

I've driven in the rain with my 04. I intentionally worked the tires a bit to see where the liimts were. I didn't have any problems in rain & no problems when hitting a bit of standing water. I figure that they are better than the OEM tires on my pickup, better than the Dunlop D40's I had on my Porsche 944 ten years ago, better than the bald bias ply tires I had on my 74 dodge Dart 25 years ago, and way better in rain than they are in 5" of snow, so I'm happy.

One thing to keep in mind though (actually two things).

1) When it first start to rain after a dry spell, the first bit of rain floats all the oil & debris off the road. That stuff can be real slippery. After it has rained for a few minutes, the oil that dripped of the cars is floated off into the ditch & the roads have much better traction.

2) Dang - I forgot the second thing.........Ahh! I remember! The car has a locking read end, so when you do hit the limits of traction on the rear, you will break both rears loose at the same time, not one tire, and your car will want to swap ends real quick. I figured that out in January when I thought he roads were all clear of snow. I found some snow drifts across the highway out of town aways & hit them at 50mph or so. The rear end definetly was tired of following the front all the time & was more than ready to take the lead through the drift.

Anyway - I used to road race motorcycles at 120mph in the rain, so maybe my perception of available traction is distorted.



--Mike

 

jankemi-

I'm not sure I agree 100% with number 2. Yes, the rear has limited-slip diff (I'm not sure it's locking- I thought it was a Torsen-type). And, if you punch the throttle mid-corner, this can easily yield both of the rears breaking traction.

BUT, this is not the only case in which the rear loses traction. Going in with neutral throttle, or even maybe constant throttle, isn't the weight transfer going to result in the inside tire breaking traction laterally before the more heavily loaded outside tire?

P.S.,
Racing bikes at 120 in the rain- more balls than I've got!

 

jankemi-

Thanks for the info.

I know what you mean about LSD cars and wet pavement. Years ago I had a 300ZX twin turbo, my first car with LSD. The day I bought it, I punched it on a freeway onramp. The back end came around 90 degrees, the tires caught, and launched me though some trees onto the frontage road before I knew what happened. Fortunately I missed all the trees, and the only thing damaged was my ego. I am now very careful with throttle input on curves and wet pavement. I'm looking forward to wet weather so I can test my ability to recover from terminal oversteer on my S2K.

People talkk about wanting to use the S for a drifting vehicle. Drifting is not something I'm interested in, but in my experience it would be a lot easier to drift a car that did not have a LSD.

 

The RE050 is going to be better in the wet than the S02 but it really doesn't matter because the RE050 is not available for the older cars. If it is wet traction you are looking for the S03 is far superior to both of the other tires anyway.

Jim

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jim@tirerack
The RE050 is going to be better in the wet than the S02 but it really doesn't matter because the RE050 is not available for the older cars.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Destro
I'm not sure I agree 100% with number 2.

 

Hey Jim,

What about using 17" RGRs on a 2002? Wouldn't this be a good combination?

F1DNA

Sebring/Black

T.D.