I get paranoid in the rain, but never had any surprises. I even hydroplaned it once, not a problem. On occasion, I try to break it loose and it still sticks. Pretty good IMO.

 

Are you kidding? Why would anyone drive their S in the rain?

 

They are excellent in wet weather when new, not so great later in life. Not so hot in the cold tho

 

be careful with the stocks in rain -- take my word for it! -- I changed to 03's and have not been disappointed.

 

the reason why iasked this was due to hydroplaning. some tires are just worse than others.

i am an extremely careful and good driver. when it rains or snows, i drive like a grandma. but some tires are just HORRIBLE at moving water.
never driven an s2k in rain.

 

The S is fine in the rain. Reading the "experiences" on this board I half expected the car to be nearly uncontrollable or at least a handful. Well, it wasn't. The car is as easy to drive as ever. Just don't do stupid things when driving. Of course, I tend to follow that little rule of thumb regardless of rain/dry/snow.

 

As long as you respect the weather, you should be ok.

 

The S-02s are much better in the rain than I expected after reading a lot of the posts on this forum.

The thing to remember is smoothness counts as much, if not more, than the grip of the tire! Smooth steering inputs, smooth brake inputs, smooth throttle inputs, these are the things that will allow you to maximize the grip potential of the S-02s. And I would like to say the grip potential is very high for a street tire, even in the rain.

Bottom line, even with out smokey burnouts and constant oversteering through the corners, the S-02s will not last a long time. Some have consumed them in as little as 5,000 miles and some have gotten in the teens if memory serves me right. I have 5,000 miles on mine and it is obvious they have worn, I'm hoping to get 10,000 miles out of them. Time will tell.

 

Almost all high performance tires that come on high performance cars will be "less" good in the wet. ALL tires will hydroplane given the right circumstances - it's physics. I had "335" size tires on my last sports car. Yeah, they hydroplaned but I drove through the water pools at the same speed I would have in the dry. Nothing terrible happened because I didn't make any sudden moves while going through.
We are now beginning to see a change in the types of posts here. Where once we would get ..... "These tires are awful in the wet!" Now we get ........... "What in the he11 were these guys talking about. These tires are fine."

 

Having the right tires makes all the difference in wet weather handling.

I drive a '98 E36 M3 with Bridgestone SO3's that I put on the car 10 days ago. The tires are incredible in the rain (I drove two hours at night through a Florida downpour without white knuckles) and great in dry weather as well.

By, comparison, The Michelin Pilot MXX3's that came as OEM on my car were terrifying in wet weather, but great in dry weather.

When I lived in the snowbelt, I used to run Bridgestone Blizzaks (sp?), which on snow, and coupled with traction control, were great tires (not so great on dry pavement though).

My point? Don't expect your tires to do it all for you. Since you live in NYC, you'll probably be happiest running your stock tires on until it gets cold--then you can switch to a dedicated snow tire like the Blizzak, and drive with confidence.

But, if wet weather handling remains problematic, you could do a whole lot worse than SO3's. I've had MXX3's, Pilot Sports, and Toyo T1S' since buying my car in '98, and nothing compares (IMO) with the SO3's.