So I live in AZ, where it doesn't rain much, but every now and then, like today it rains pretty heavily. One thing I've noticed is that my very tail happy 05 sedan just doesn't get any traction in the wet. I have Michelin primacy mxv4 tires, with a decent amount of tread left. I've only owned the car a few months, put about 4k miles on it.

I've had cars not have good traction in the wet, and usually its the tires, but they have all been FWD. all of my RWD vehicles have been trucks/jeeps. But these tires (per tire rack surveys) are good wet/rain tires.

But when I go from a stop, the traction control kicks in quite a bit, even from, at least what I perceive to be, pretty tame take offs. heaven forbid I goose it. I can turn off traction control, but that leads to a lot of wheel spin, and if I accelerate hard, I just sit there spinning my tires...

is it me? is it the tires? or is this car just not very good at getting traction in the wet (like a truck with an empty bed)

 

It's not the tires. Where you live, as you say, it doesn't rain much, so road dirt, oil and grease collects on the roadway for months at a time. The worst time to be on the road is right after the rain starts. All that slick stuff just floats to the top and it's not good for traction. You may have noticed that you don't have the problem AFTER a good HARD rain because it washes all that gunk off the road.

You can, if you wish, add about 2-3 psi of air to your tire when it rains, it does help the hydroplaning.

 

I have the exact same tires as you but I live in British Columbia Canada. Which has weather comparable to Washington state (A lot of rain). Just got the tires last year, plenty of tread left and I rarely break traction. But my driving style is more on the conservative end. If I were to hammer it a bit (Say pedal halfish way) then I break traction which will be natural since I run P215s on the rear. Asides from that it's been solid tires for the money All in all, I agree that it's the dirt in the road mixed with the rain.

 

Ok, that makes sense. Driving to work today was frustrating.

On all my other cars, I've run continental DWS, and haven't experienced this as much. Probably helps that they have been FWD, with the engine sitting on the drive wheels. (They've had similar power, 260hp/260ft/lbs.)

 

make sure you have a full tank of gas when you see rain the forecast.

i pump a full tank of gas before the snow up here in the northeast..
yes it does make a big difference.. ~100+ extra pounds on the drive wheels.

 

Tires do play a role, but not 100% of the cause.

Changing the open differential to a limited slip would help as well as when you jump on the power, if one wheel loses traction, it will just spin. With a LS, both wheels would receive power.

But the type and brand of tire play a role too. When i used to daily drive my Mustangs, i would notice a HUGE difference in rain performance between tire brands. $100 tires would never do as well as $200+ tires or so (depends on the tire not the cost). There were some tires i had no issue doing 80MPH in a downpour with, and other tires that would be a white knuckle ride at 50MPH.

I have the conti DWS's on my car, but it's AWD so driving in the rain is pretty much point and shoot.

 

I have the same tires and the same car except with sport package, therefore VLSD. On dry pavement, I can barely get the wheels to spin with VDC off. On wet, it's a totally different story. If I turned VDC off, I could do 360*'s all day.