Uniroyal Rainsport

This is a review of the Rainsport 1's on the front of my car, a follow on from my previous review of these on the rear.

I have to say that I have really not been overly impressed by these. You get more feel of how good or a bad a tyre is when theyre on the driven wheels and what felt like an alright if a little grip deficient tyre on the rear felt completely numb on the front.

Straight line grip in the dry was actually quite good. I didnt find wet grip to be any better or worse than any other tyre ive had, so dont get this tyre if your sole concern is better grip in the wet. As I have said, the tyres feel very numb and made the steering of my car feel overly heavy. One of the biggest things about the st170 is its sublime steering feel, but with these on it was reduced to what i can only describe as steering through sludge, no sharpness or directness. Although there was little feel, the tyres progressed into understeer gradually. The main issue I feel is that the sidewalls are incredibly soft, ompared to continential sport contact 1's, pilot sport 1's and my latest rainsport 2's. I can squash the sidewall with my hand incredibly easily with the rainsport 1's. This soft sidewall is totally apparent in any kind of at speed cornering. Going round a large roundabout with the window open, you can physical hear the point where the sidewalls of the tyre fold on themselves. At this point you still have some grip, but zero feel.

Wear has been ok, at a total of 24000 miles. Not as good as the Michelin Pilot Sport 1's which lasted 30000. Comfort is excellent, I assume as a result of the soft sidewalls and quite soft compound. Of course, in a 'sport' tyre this isnt really what your looking for.

Always run Michlin Pilot Sports on my BMW since I bought it and always had good traction wet and dry with more than just spirited driving and very rarely saw any traction control lights even after I had a DMS remapto 270bhp/410Ibft.
Thought I would see what tyres other people rated and saw these rainsports were in the top 3 when my michlin's were rarely in the top 20 so I thought I would give them a try. Must say they were harder to get hold of but they did come in cheap @ £150 each. I had both rears changed to rainsports and kept the Michlin's on the front as they are only 1/3rd worn. First impressions were not good as the tyres had zero grip like most new tyres but they also have very soft sidewalls so the car feels like the rear tyre's are flat even though they are pumped up to 3 bar. They got better after around 500 miles but they are still struggling to maintain grip. I find when I exit a motorway and the road bends round the DSC flashes on the instrument and I can feel the car automatically braking individual wheels to keep the car from sliding out as the rears can not live with the front grip. I wouldn't mind if I was really pressing on but this happens when driving normally. (depending on what you class as normal I suppose)!
Overall I'm dissapointed with the Unirayal's mainly in the dry but they are no better than the Michlin's in the damp so I think the reviews for these tyres have been posted by someone from Unirayal's sales team!
You do pay for what you get I suppose so I'll be back on to Michlin's asap.

bought these to replace the pirellis that i fitted on my car. Infinatly better than pzero rossos. The grip in the dry was fantastic. The grip in the wet made the road feel like it was dry. the ware rate was pretty good as well with one lasting 25k miles on the front of my mondeo zetec s, the other sadly failed in its prime after hitting a 1.5 meter long 8cm deep pothole at 70mph! They have good size rim protectors as well. They were as good as goodyears F1 GSD3s but were cheaper .

This is a review of these tyres on the rear of my car.
A good all round performance tyre.

Dry grip has been good if not exceptional. If anything the problem is not the rubber itself but the somewhat soft sidewalls which give and make the car slide out under hard cornering. This was shown markedly when driving a very twisty mountain pass in the Peak District where almost every hard corner had the tyres sliding a little. This was definitely not a huge issue though and even in this situation the actual grip was still good and very controllable. For normal driving these tyres are faultless. I found them quiet and comfortable.

I didnt really find these 'rainsports' any better in the rain than my previous michelin pilot sports, although they did get up to temperature and optimal grip faster.

Wear rate has been good. They started with a thread of 8mm in the centre and 6-7mm on the outsides and have gone down to 7mm centre and 5mm on the edges in the 15000 miles they have been on the rear.

All in all not the ultimate tyre but for the money a very good one.

The wet weather king, they also grip/last better in wet and DRY than the eagle f1's that replaced them.
Awsome tyre, WARNING though go below around 5/6C and they don't work very well at all, seems to need heat to get good results, so if very cold don't get as much grip which can catch you out.
This apart I would defo use again the original rainsport(1)

Excellent tyre,great in dry and wet,long life and quiet.Just bought 4 new ones,old ones had 3.5mm left on them after 27k,recomended.

great in both wet and dry, spiritted driving is not a worry as you feel 'on' the road with these tyres.....highly recomended

Overall these are a fantastic tyre - wet grip is great, and dry grip isn't far behind.

Wear is about average, there are better lasting tyres, but they tend to be hard and noisy; which these tyres are not.

I was so happy with the Rainsport 1's that I've just ordered 4x Rainsport 2's, so you may need to add a new section soon!

Very good road & occasional track tyre.
Superb in the wet - had all the majors before - Toyo, F1s and these are the best. dry grip as good as F1s
Not the cheapest, wear is reasonable for a soft tyre.