When and why do you need rain tyres?

Rain tyres are usually tyres with increased resistance to aquaplaning. Many motorists, when choosing tyres, think about how often they drove in rainy weather last season, and assume that a rain tyre is definitely a good thing. In truth it is not that simple, and not everyone needs such tyres, and not always.

The first thing to note is that the aquaplaning effect has nothing in common with skidding on the road right after rain starts, or on cobblestones. From the point of view of physics, and from the point of view of what is required of a tyre, these are entirely different things, so for simply driving around town at a gentle pace in the rain, rain tyres are of absolutely no use to you (they will not help).

A tyre with an umbrella drawn on it, or the corresponding marking (for instance, “rain”), is designed specifically to reduce the likelihood of aquaplaning, that is, losing control of the car when it hits a body of water at speed (read more about aquaplaning). Because of this, such tyres are given a matching tread pattern that resembles a winter one: large tread blocks and wide channels for clearing water from the tyre’s contact patch with the road.

A consequence of this pattern is a smaller effective contact patch, which in turn leads to worse braking and acceleration figures, as well as faster wear.

But the main point is that on wet cobblestones such a tyre is unlikely to behave any differently from any other tyre without a rain specialism, and it is genuinely needed only at high speed and when hitting a body of water (a large puddle or heavy rain).

Given all this, we can conclude that if (once again) you drive mainly around town and try not to break Ukraine’s traffic regulations, you have absolutely no need for a special rain tyre. If your budget allows it, such tyres can, of course, be bought, but certainly not with your last penny, because the practical benefit will be minimal.

See all the articles in the section “How to choose a summer tyre”