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215/55/yr17 Uniroyal Rainsport 3 Tyre Review


Grogey
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Hi,

I have had Uniroyal Rainsport 3 tyres fitted to my Avensis TR for just under 20,000 miles. I have been very happy with the performance of these tyres generally. Good grip. Great in the rain. Great through standing water. Secure road feel. Adequate in icy conditions for a summer tyre.

My driving style is steady, to suit the conditions, but always driving at highest safe speed up to the speed limit. 50% Motorway, 35% A & B roads, 15% Urban. Tyre pressure checked every few weeks and before every long journey. Pressures maintained at 40psi F & R

At new tread depth is 12mm. Rotation can only be F to R same side only as the tyres are asymmetric and unidirectional. Depth listed below is tread remaining. Miles listed below is cumulative from time of fitment. I have a space saver spare so do not include in rotation.

Wear stats are as follows:

First tyre check at 5895miles F= 6.5mm, R=9mm - Tyres then rotated. Comment - In first 6000miles tyres are initially vey soft with very rapid wear. 5.5mm lost of F

Second check at 11932miles F = 7mm, R=6mm - Tyres NOT rotated. Comment - In second 6000 miles wear is less than a third of that before. 2mm lost of F

Third Check at 19630miles F = 2mm, R=4mm. Tyres then rotated. Comment - Closer to 8000miles here but wear has accelerated again. 5mm lost of F.

Varying wear rate is hard to explain. I would have expected the wear rate to reduce or stabilise, not accelerate again. If using these tyres again, I will shorten tyre check interval to 3000miles.

I will get over 20000miles before doing a complete 4 tyre replacement.

Interested in your opinions and comments. Not sure whether to refit or try a different tyre.

Cheers

Grogey

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Interesting that at new tread depth is 12mm on these - generally on most new tyres it's 7 or 8mm.

How heavily laden is your car, generally? 40psi is higher than recommended for your car especially on the rear. On my car (2.2 on 225/45 18") 40psi is recommended for the fronts but I am going to drop it down as the resulting wear pattern is typical of over inflation.

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Hi Scott,

My Tyre placard is 40psi front 37psi rear for 5 people and light luggage. I most commonly drive ladden in a similar configuration, 2 adults, 3 kids under 6 with bulky child seats and light to medium luggage. I fairly regularly will also carry a heavier load; say, once a week, for 80miles approx. I've kept the tyres at 40psi to suit this heavier set up. Being aware of this and generally interested, I've always asked the tyre fitter to tell me for any signs of uneven or irregular wear. None has ever been noted.

Once a year, the car will be ladden to near it's maximum for a camping trip. These tyres saw one of about 2000 miles just before the second check, when wear was really light. The trip before the third check was 600miles by comparison. When loaded to near maximum vehicle load capacity, I up the rears to 43psi.

If I didn't rotate, the rear tyres could still have up to 6.5mm of tread left, after nearly 20,000miles and with nearly half that wear in the first 6000miles. Good for another 12000 maybe 15000.

If I didn't rotate the front tyres, I'd have had to replace at about 16000.

Is 20,000miles reasonable for a large family car?

In Australia I've driven part-time 4wds exclusively for the prior 8 years to purchasing this car. Being mostly on road in 2wd drive, (rear wheels), tyre wear on these vehicles was very similar front to rear, I checked these vehicle tyres every 3000miles and always rotated front to back and side to side. I could easily get 40,000 miles plus out of a set of ATs. Some retailers offered warrantys up to between 30000miles and 60000miles, depending on the particular tyre, as long as you loged regular checks and rotations with their retailer.

So I'm particularly interested in why a 3Ton truck in Australia gets 40,000 miles, yet a 1.6Ton car in the UK gets little more than 20,000miles. Rear wheel drive must be a big reason in limiting front wear, but I suspect European tyre compounds are very soft to achieve high braking efficiency.

Cheers

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Bigger diameter wheels tend to last longer than smaller ones just because they have more surface and have less revolutions per given distance.

Is the compound quite soft on the Uniroyal Rainsport 3's?

They're on my list of potential candidates for my next set.

I've got some Cooper CS2's on at the moment and they are horrible - Okay in a straight line but poor lateral grip which makes my naturally understeery Yaris more exciting to drive than I would like...

Before I had some Continental Premium Contact 5's, which were fantastic but soft as heck (They wore down to 3mm in something stupid like 6000 miles! But they were so quiet and grippy in rain or dry! Well, until they wore down, then it was understeer city again!).

I may just go back to the Contact 2E's, which were their predecessor - Those were very good and are still going on my old Yaris that my brother now drives!

Am also curious about the new Dunlop Street/BluResponse tyres as have been hearing good things about them. Problem is I can't really use the tyrereview website as they rate the CS2's very highly and the Premium Contacts fairly low, whereas I'm experiencing the opposite!

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Bigger diameter wheels tend to last longer than smaller ones just because they have more surface and have less revolutions per given distance.

<snip>.

Before I had some Continental Premium Contact 5's, which were fantastic but soft as heck (They wore down to 3mm in something stupid like 6000 miles! But they were so quiet and grippy in rain or dry!

Unless sticking to the same tyre/profile you can't really generalise as larger/wider/lower profile tyres are often biased to being more sporty hence grippier/softer/quicker wearing. Even sticking to the same tyre can see changes from year to year as the manufacturers continuously play around with compounds.

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"My Tyre placard is 40psi front 37psi rear for 5 people and light luggage. "

Interesting, which wheel/tyre size does it have on?

"Is 20,000miles reasonable for a large family car?"

How long is a piece of string? There are lots of variables but on a largish modern fwd car like an Avensis/Mondeo etc. without rotation I would expect to get ~20,000 on the front & nearer 40,000 on the rear.

"In Australia I've driven part-time 4wds exclusively for the prior 8 years to purchasing this car. Being mostly on road in 2wd drive, (rear wheels), tyre wear on these vehicles was very similar front to rear, I checked these vehicle tyres every 3000miles and always rotated front to back and side to side. I could easily get 40,000 miles plus out of a set of ATs. Some retailers offered warrantys up to between 30000miles and 60000miles, depending on the particular tyre, as long as you loged regular checks and rotations with their retailer.

So I'm particularly interested in why a 3Ton truck in Australia gets 40,000 miles, yet a 1.6Ton car in the UK gets little more than 20,000miles. Rear wheel drive must be a big reason in limiting front wear, but I suspect European tyre compounds are very soft to achieve high braking efficiency."

I imagine that the tyres on your ute were of a much higher profile & probably biased towards more utilitarian use rather than sporting handling? Tyre profile, tyre compound, road surface etc. all will affect tyre wear (& braking, handling etc.). Even whether the roads are mostly straight or twisting & the style of your driving on those will have an effect. & yes, fwd versus rwd or 4wd will have an effect.

Similarly in North America people expect their tyres to last a lot longer than in Europe (but they also don't service their cars as often either) so I suspect that manufacturers also tailor their products to local market demand/expectations.

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Is the compound quite soft on the Uniroyal Rainsport 3's? ...........................

Hi Cyker, Yes, I was gobsmacked that the fronts lost 5.5mm in the first 6000miles. However on the plus side these tyres perform great. Grip feels very positive. They live up to their name in very wet conditions. Plus their has been no detectable reduction in performance with where.

The tyres i replaced were just above minimum thread and were very skittish through puddles and under steered easily. Maybe this is why I've thought so highly of the Rainsports.

Cheers

Grogey

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"My Tyre placard is 40psi front 37psi rear for 5 people and light luggage. "

Interesting, which wheel/tyre size does it have on?

"Is 20,000miles reasonable for a large family car?"

How long is a piece of string? There are lots of variables but on a largish modern fwd car like an Avensis/Mondeo etc. without rotation I would expect to get ~20,000 on the front & nearer 40,000 on the rear.

Hi Heidfirst,

Tyre size is 215/55/YR17.

So 16000miles front and 32000miles rear does sound on the low side for my RainSports on a 2wd Avensis.

I'm fairly new to this website and maybe need to do some more searches, but I'm thinking over the years some knowledge must have built up on what tyres are value for money in term of performance and durability. I'll have a look and maybe start a new thread. The Rainsports are a medium priced tyre at about £95 per corner all in. The premium tyres seem to start in at £130. I'm wondering if spending more might actually be more value for money.

When you calculate it; a £130 Tyre would need to give me a minimum of 22000miles to break even, with my Rainsports,and 22,000 miles on the front sounds exceptional, if achievable at all for any tyre here.

I agree with your points in respect to Australian tyres, but do think the compounds are softer here, and probably justifiably so. Our roads are colder and wetter in general.

Cheers

Grogey

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I'm finding that this T27 seems to go through front tyres quicker than my T25 did (& it's service history suggests so did the previous owner). Whether that is due to the car (it seems to spin the fronts a lot more easily than the T25 did even with TC & VSC on) or the larger, lower profile tyres (limits choice of tyres to more sport orientated options rather than optimised for durability) I don't know. However, the wear pattern on the fronts (2mm on the crown whilst still 4-5mm at the edges) is typical of over inflation despite being run at the 40psi recommended for it so the next set on the fronts is going to be run a few psi lower to see if that makes a difference.

I'll have to go out to the car to check what my manual say 215/55 R17s should run at. *

Looking on sites like Oponeo the premium tyres (Goodyear/ Continental etc.) are available for ~£10-15 more than your Uniroyal - in fact you can get Continental EcocContact 5 for essentially the same price (V rated but your car can't do their 150mph let alone the 186mph of a Y rating).

Hankook seem to be up & coming at cheaper price than the current premium manufacturers.

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/accessories-tyres/91856/tyre-reviews-best-tyres-2015

* my manual lists 3 different types (A, B & C - don't ask me what the difference is but if I had to guess type A would be petrol, type B 2.0 D4D & type C 2.2 D4D) for 215/55/R17 94W tyres & I'll list the pressures given for sub 99mph running:

type A: fr 35, r 34

type B: fr 35, r 34 (also lists Eco pressures fr 38, r 35)

type C: fr 35, r 34 (Eco fr 41, r 35)

Eco pressures may reduce fuel use but imo at the cost of increased tyre wear as well as handling etc.

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Is the compound quite soft on the Uniroyal Rainsport 3's? ...........................

Hi Cyker, Yes, I was gobsmacked that the fronts lost 5.5mm in the first 6000miles. However on the plus side these tyres perform great. Grip feels very positive. They live up to their name in very wet conditions. Plus their has been no detectable reduction in performance with where.

The tyres i replaced were just above minimum thread and were very skittish through puddles and under steered easily. Maybe this is why I've thought so highly of the Rainsports.

Cheers

Grogey

Hopefully the high initial wear was just down to the deep treads!

It turns out they don't make the rainsport 3 in my car's size (Boooo) so alas they're out of the running for me!

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Hey I just noticed something; The tyres have an asymmetric directional pattern but they only seem to do one 'side' so when they're mounted on the other side the tread pattern is upside down!

Is that how they are on yours? Have you noticed any difference between left and right grip levels?

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