Thread: On-road wet weather tyres

Rick I did the same thing when I raced karts,eastern creek,monsoon conditiions and I pumped the tyres up as hard as I could get them and won by a mile.After 6 years regardless of tread the tyres are hard and have no grip,they are well past thier best. Pat

I have BFG Long Trail 205.16 on my RRC. They are different to most as they are made in France not USA.

They have a closed shoulder and good longitudinal drainage channels and are great on wet or dry bitumin. They have an open inner shoulder like an AT.

Long Trails are standard fitment on many US trucks.

If they made them in 235.85x16 , I think they would meet your needs well.
Regards Philip A

So it looks like my tyres are just getting old and hard

I'm gonna be down in Cairns this Friday, so I'll pop into a couple of places and see what they recommend, so far on the list I have;

Perrelli P600
Michelin XPC
and a new set of whats on there (Grabbers TR)

I noticed on Michelins website they don't mention P600 but recommend LTX ATs... any one used the LTX ATs?

Thanks all for your input.

The Michelin Latitude Tour HP are great in the wet. I run them as purely road tyres. They were great in the sand on Fraser too.

6 years old I'd be replacing them regardless.

I know the Kuranda Range very well and have driven it wet and dry on bikes and in cars and it can get very slippery, especially in the heavier forested sections.

Tyres do hard and you have also got the added issue of the more consistent higher temperatures of FNQ. One of the most common reasons I see for many people blowing tyres is the age of the tyres if they don't do a lot of mileage.

I live in Arnhem land and whilst its not as wet all year round as FNQ its very wet for several months. The General TR's proved good new when I got the Puma in Melbourne winter and have proved good so far up here in the wet. The Michelin are also a good tyre. In very general terms the more aggressive the tyre the worse its going to be in the wet on the bitumen, but of course the better on wet dirt.

Tyre age...

IME the rubber compound gets harder and less grippy as it gets older, but long highway trips accelerate the process. e.g. I have a set of MTRs which I bought new in 2003. When new, I could drive as hard as a IIA could manage (with some remaining sanity), and couldn't get them to lose grip on wet bitumen. In 2008 they were still quite supple, but a trip from Brisbane - Perth made them a LOT harder. I won't be replacing them till they are worn out, but I will drive more carefully on wet roads.

FWIW, heat cycles and UV exposure harden tyres.

What happens is that the natural oils present in the rubber evaporate out and how quickly this happens depends on the compound used, but it starts happening from new.

Most all race tyres get thrown away, not because they don't have any rubber left, but they have 'gone off' meaning they've lost their grip levels of a new tyre.
I've thrown away race tyres that had done one meeting of about twenty five laps of practice/qualifying and a ten and a fifteen lap race.
They had plenty of rubber left, but had dropped 1.5 seconds/lap three weeks after the first use. ie. a new set of tyres were 1.5 secs/lap quicker on a dry track

Originally Posted by isuzurover

Tyre age...

IME the rubber compound gets harder and less grippy as it gets older, but long highway trips accelerate the process. e.g. I have a set of MTRs which I bought new in 2003. When new, I could drive as hard as a IIA could manage (with some remaining sanity), and couldn't get them to lose grip on wet bitumen. In 2008 they were still quite supple, but a trip from Brisbane - Perth made them a LOT harder. I won't be replacing them till they are worn out, but I will drive more carefully on wet roads.

Interesting.. we drove the Landie from Sydney to Cairns a couple of years back (towing a boat full of chickens... but that's another story!). Plus my wife would use it to go visit her horse when we lived in Sydney - a round trip mostly on motorway of 150 km at least twice a week... so although overall the vehicle is low milage, a lot of the milage has been highway driving...