Wet weather conditions in places like Florida and Washington State are notorious. That doesn’t mean they aren’t as equally challenging in other parts of the country. Here in Charlotte we get some wicked torrential downpours this time of year.
Wet weather tires for rain shedding and hydroplaning resistance are important to me for the safety of my family and myself. I’m sure the same is true for you.
Not all manufacturers of wet weather tires are able to produce a tread pattern and rubber compound that can keep your car, truck, or SUV sure-footed in the toughest of conditions.
Best Tires For Rain Traction
The best tires for rain traction are the Michelin CrossClimate 2s. Customers rated them highest out of all season tires for rain performance and hydroplaning resistance.
Best Car Tires For Rain
- Michelin CrossClimate 2
- Continental ExtremeContact DWS 06 Plus
- Vredestein Quatrac Pro
- Pirelli Cinturato P7 All Season Plus II
- Michelin Pilot Sport All-Season 4
- Vredestein Hypertrac All Season
Best Truck/SUV Tires For Rain
All-season tires are meant to be used all year long, as the name implies. This means that they have to try to perform well under many different types of conditions. That is usually quite a tall order. At least that’s what you would expect.
As it turns out, we’ve put together a list of outstanding rain performance all-season tire choices for you.
Let’s take a closer look.
Best Car Tires For Rain
Good grip in rainy weather is just part of what makes a good wet weather tire. The best tires for rain have to also perform well on hot and dry days too. An all-season tire also needs to have good cold weather performance.
On top of all of that, the best tires should also have excellent tread life and preferably a good treadwear warranty backing them up.
Tests are not always the best method of trying to understand tire performance. Ultimately, results from customers under real-world conditions paints the most accurate picture of how a tire performs.
We’ve ranked the top six best wet weather tires for cars based primarily on how well the grip in wet conditions. We then ranked them based on their overall customer feedback and have a list we are confident are the best tires for rain that money can buy.
#1 Michelin CrossClimate 2
View Manufacturer’s Product Page
Customer Rating
- Overall Score: 9.18 of 10
- Rain Traction: 9.4 of 10
Uniform Tire Quality Grade (UTQG)
- Treadwear: 640
- Traction: B
- Temperature: A
Treadwear Mileage Warranty: 60,000
Reseller Links
Description
Michelin often tops lists of the best tires, and this one is no different. The CrossClimate 2 has excellent wet traction but is equally impressive in almost every other way.
Its tread pattern is a unique directional “V” shape that is designed to better channel water away from the contact patch and provide a quiet and comfortable ride all year round.
The “V” tread pattern puts more rubber in contact with the road surface across the face of the entire tire. Most tires rely on wide circumferential grooves around the tire. The diagonal tread blocks help keep the rubber more consistently gripping the asphalt.
Even though these all-season tires are more of a touring tire than high performance tires, they have amazing grip on dry roads.
Review
Customer feedback on the CrossClimate 2s is almost flawless. These tires are (at the time of publishing) the best tires for rain or just about any other weather condition.
Customers have voted these the best wet traction tires and are as equally pleased with their performance on dry pavement as well. In fact, performance in both dry and wet conditions were each tied for the most highly rated aspect of these tires.
In a sense that isn’t saying much since the margin of difference between every measured aspect was minimal. The lowest rated feature is snow traction at just five tenths lower. To show just how high of a score this “lowest” score is, it places it at the top of our list for all-season tires for snow traction.
#2 Continental ExtremeContact DWS 06 Plus
View Manufacturer’s Product Page
Customer Rating
- Overall Score: 8.86 of 10
- Rain Traction: 9.2 of 10
Uniform Tire Quality Grade (UTQG)
- Treadwear: 540
- Traction: A-AA
- Temperature: A
Treadwear Mileage Warranty: 50,000
Reseller Links
Description
The ExtremeContact DWS 06 Plus is an all-season tire, but one that has a performance oriented tread pattern instead of a more relaxed touring tire.
Despite their sporty tread pattern and tread compound these Continentals make excellent rain tires. Their tread pattern is a bit of a hybrid of a more traditional design with a diagonal pattern in the center for better grip and water-shedding capabilities.
The tread compound is a bit softer which helps boost traction, but it comes at the cost of some tread life.
Review
Customer feedback is extremely good for the ExtremeContact DWS 06 Plus. It trails behind the Michelin CrossClimate 2s but is still an amazing tire in dry and wet conditions.
Customers are most displeased with the tread life, but displeased is really the wrong word. Maybe loved the least is better since they rated treadwear very high. Just not as high as any of the other aspects rated. Dry performance is its top-rated feature, followed closely by traction on wet roads.
#3 Vredestein Quatrac Pro
View Manufacturer’s Product Page
Customer Rating
- Overall Score: 8.84 of 10
- Rain Traction: 9.2 of 10
Uniform Tire Quality Grade (UTQG)
- Treadwear: 400
- Traction: A
- Temperature: A
Treadwear Mileage Warranty: 50,000
Reseller Links
- TireRack.com
DiscountTire.comTireBuyer.com- SimpleTire.com
- PriorityTire.com
Description
The Quatrac Pro is an all-season tire with a touring tire focus. It is very highly rated as a touring tire and one of the best rain tires on our list.
Where the Vredestein excels is comfort in a tire that also has amazing traction. It absorbs bumps and has amazing ride quality for a tire that has this level of performance.
Review
Customers rave about the performance in dry and wet conditions. Light snow traction was the lowest rated aspect but still excellent compared to most all season tires.
Ride quality and comfort was very highly rated as well. Which makes sense for a touring tire.
Tread life was also not as highly rated, but like with snow traction, it’s very good. You have to remember, we’re covering the best of the best tires for rain so minor flaws in otherwise exceptional tires knock you down the list.
#4 Pirelli Cinturato P7 All Season Plus II
View Manufacturer’s Product Page
Customer Rating
- Overall Score: 8.92 of 10
- Rain Traction: 9.1 of 10
Uniform Tire Quality Grade (UTQG)
- Treadwear: 700
- Traction: A
- Temperature: A
Treadwear Mileage Warranty: 70,000
Reseller Links
Description
These Pirellis are designed as a grand touring tires and are meant for premium luxury vehicles. They’re all season tires and some of the best tires for rain on this list.
The tread compound is exceptionally durable and backed by the longest treadwear mileage warranty of any of the competition at 70,000 miles. Keep this in mind if you’re shopping based on price since every dollar you spend on this tire will get you significantly further than the other tires.
Review
The Cinturato P7 All Season Plus II is a shockingly good tire with only one minor flaw that knocks it down this list. Snow traction is much lower than all of the tires above it on this list.
Customers raved about dry traction and wet weather grip. Amazing tread life and exceptional comfort.
If you only see occasional light snow and rarely see ice or other winter weather conditions, I’d push this tire up toward the top of this list and give it serious consideration.
#5 Michelin Pilot Sport All-Season 4
View Manufacturer’s Product Page
Customer Rating
- Overall Score: 8.68 of 10
- Rain Traction: 9.1 of 10
Uniform Tire Quality Grade (UTQG)
- Treadwear: 540
- Traction: AA
- Temperature: A
Treadwear Mileage Warranty: 45,000
Reseller Links
Description
The Michelin Pilot Sport All-Season 4 is a high performance all-season tire. As such, it has some predictable performance characteristics that can easily allow you to dismiss it or add it to your must-have list.
Wet and dry traction is incredible, is it tends to be with most performance-oriented tires. These are easily some of the best tires for wet roads or dry.
Review
Customers love this tire. It has excellent wet traction, especially when compared to most other all-season tires.
Where customer feedback tends to fall off is comfort and tread life. As with most high performance tires, the sidewalls are less forgiving and the tread compound is less durable.
If comfort isn’t a priority and you can tolerate the shorter 45,000 mile tire warranty in exchange for maximum grip, this could be the tire for you.
#6 Vredestein Hypertrac All Season
View Manufacturer’s Product Page
Customer Rating
- Overall Score: 8.80 of 10
- Rain Traction: 9.0 of 10
Uniform Tire Quality Grade (UTQG)
- Treadwear: 500
- Traction: AA
- Temperature: A
Treadwear Mileage Warranty: 50,000
Reseller Links
- TireRack.com
DiscountTire.comTireBuyer.com- SimpleTire.com
- PriorityTire.com
Description
Like the Michelin Pilots, the Hypertracs are high performance all-season tires and prioritize traction over comfort and tread life. Wet roads don’t stand a chance against the advanced tread compound and aggressive tread pattern design.
Even though this isn’t the best rain tire on the market, it holds its own with the other tires on this list.
Review
Customer feedback gave dry and wet grip high mark. While it provides good grip in heavy rain and wet braking, wet performance was ever so slightly behind the other competitors.
Despite its performance-oriented design, the Vredestein has better than usual comfort for a sport tire.
Light snow traction and treadwear were lower as is predictable with high performance tires.
Best Truck/SUV Tires For Rain
While we’ve put together a list of the best truck tires for rain, we should point out that these are best suited for larger trucks and SUVs that require higher load ratings due to either more total weight of the vehicle or the need to tow or carry heavy objects.
Most of the tires listed for cars above work perfectly fine and are even preferred for smaller trucks and SUVs.
You likely won’t need to figure this out for yourself since the OEM tire size of smaller trucks and SUVs won’t be available on most of the large truck tires.
If you’re uncertain, search for tires via the links provide to the different tire retailers and search by your make and model and they’ll show you the tires that will fit your vehicle.
#1 Michelin CrossClimate SUV
View Manufacturer’s Product Page
Customer Rating
- Overall Score: 9.04 of 10
- Rain Traction: 9.5 of 10
Uniform Tire Quality Grade (UTQG)
- Treadwear: 580
- Traction: A
- Temperature: A
Treadwear Mileage Warranty: 40,000-50,000
Reseller Links
Description
The CrossClimate SUV is essentially just a CrossClimate 2 that is available in sizes and load ratings appropriate for larger trucks and SUVs. Because of this, it shouldn’t be surprising that it tops our list of best rain tires for trucks.
The design and performance is similar to the smaller design and it has amazing grip and hydroplaning resistance on wet roads and rainy weather. Braking performance in rainy conditions is also incredible.
If your budget allows, this is our pick for your truck or SUV.
Review
Customer feedback is more or less the same for this big brother to the CrossClimate 2. It gets near perfect marks across the board.
It does drop a few tenths for comfort and treadwear when compared to the CrossClimate2, but this is largely due to the increased sidewall strengthening for the larger load ratings and the heavier mass it has to support.
#2 Pirelli Scorpion AS Plus 3
View Manufacturer’s Product Page
Customer Rating
- Overall Score: 9.24 of 10
- Rain Traction: 9.3 of 10
Uniform Tire Quality Grade (UTQG)
- Treadwear: 800
- Traction: A
- Temperature: A
Treadwear Mileage Warranty: 70,000
Reseller Links
Description
This grand touring tire should technically be in first place, but since it is slightly worse than the CrossClimate SUV in wet weather handling. And I do mean slightly.
Probably the best feature of this tire is its amazing tread life. Pirelli provides a 70,000 mile tire warranty which blows everyone else away. This is especially impressive for large trucks and SUVs that push tires to their limit.
Pirelli has developed different tire materials for the tire compound to allow this to not only be one of the best grand touring tires for large vehicles, but it has excellent hydroplaning resistance in heavy rain and very short braking distances.
Review
Customer feedback overall places the Pirelli ahead of the Michelin, but this is a review of the best tires for rain. The Michelin beats it out in that category narrowly, but the Pirelli beats it everywhere else.
Dry grip and treadwear are mindbogglingly good and wet performance and comfort are both nearly as good.
#3 Michelin Agilis CrossClimate
View Manufacturer’s Product Page
Customer Rating
- Overall Score: 9.06 of 10
- Rain Traction: 9.2 of 10
Uniform Tire Quality Grade (UTQG)
- Treadwear: N/A
- Traction: N/A
- Temperature: N/A
Treadwear Mileage Warranty: None
Reseller Links
Description
The Agilis CrossClimate is a bit more of a commercial-grade tire than a consumer-oriented tire. It’s meant for both work vans and trucks as well as SUVs or similar family style vehicles and pickups.
It does a great job handling this more heavy-duty task. It is capable of supporting heavier loads and can do so in wet conditions and snow with ease compared to much of the competition.
This tire is even quite capable with light off-road use on construction sites and frequent use on more difficult dirt and gravel roads.
Review
Customer feedback is outstanding in every category. It’s lowest reported performance category is as a snow tire, but it still does extremely well for an all-season tire.
It works excellently as a rain tire and the tread pattern and tread compound handle wet conditions nearly flawlessly.
It should be noted that customers loved the tread life they saw from their Agilis tires. Even though Michelin doesn’t provide a treadwear warranty for this tire, tread life was exceptional.
#4 Continental CrossContact LX25
View Manufacturer’s Product Page
Customer Rating
- Overall Score: 9.04 of 10
- Rain Traction: 9.2 of 10
Uniform Tire Quality Grade (UTQG)
- Treadwear: 740
- Traction: A
- Temperature: A-B
Treadwear Mileage Warranty: 65,000-70,000
Reseller Links
Description
The advanced tread compound that Continental has developed as really allowed them to produce grippy tires for rain that last an extremely long time.
Tread life helps increase the miles per dollar spent, making these exceptional tires for rain more attractive.
They also have a low rolling resistance design that also helps save money but increasing fuel economy which also boosts their appeal.
The combination of these premium tires perform so well on wet surfaces have such incredible tire wear make them some of the best tires for rain.
Review
Customer feedback for the CrossContacts is excellent in all areas with the only exception being snow traction where it is still very good.
Rain traction and dry weather handling are both top rated. Treadwear is also equally well rated and it shows in the outstanding tire warranty Continental provides.
While it might not have the best snow traction of the bunch, it still performs very well in winter weather and wouldn’t be a deal breaker for me even if I did experience heavier winter weather conditions that didn’t require dedicated winter tires.
#5 Pirelli Scorpion Zero All Season Plus
View Manufacturer’s Product Page
Customer Rating
- Overall Score: 8.82 of 10
- Rain Traction: 9.1 of 10
Uniform Tire Quality Grade (UTQG)
- Treadwear: 500
- Traction: A
- Temperature: A
Treadwear Mileage Warranty: 50,000
Reseller Links
Description
The Scorpion Zero All Season Plus is specifically designed to provide exceptional handling for crossovers and SUVs. While it isn’t an ultra high performance tire, it has amazing grip in heavy rain and normal rainy conditions.
The asymmetric tread pattern is designed to improve steering response for a more sporty feel.
Review
Customer feedback proves these are good rain tires. They receive excellent reviews for wet handling and dry performance making them a good choice. But they are lacking a bit on treadwear and winter grip.
If cold temperatures and snowy weather isn’t much of an issue for you and the somewhat shorter tire life isn’t a problem, they are an extremely good choice for heavy rain and wet surfaces.
#6 Firestone Destination LE3
Visit Manufacturer’s Product Page
Customer Rating
- Overall Score: 9.08 of 10
- Rain Traction: 9.1 of 10
Uniform Tire Quality Grade (UTQG)
- Treadwear: 700
- Traction: A
- Temperature: B
Treadwear Mileage Warranty: 70,000
Reseller Links
- TireRack.com
DiscountTire.comTireBuyer.com- SimpleTire.com
- PriorityTire.com
Description
These highway tires are exceptional in rainy weather. They also are efficient with a low rolling resistance design which also helps keep them quiet.
It’s optimized to reduce hydroplaning during heavy rain in addition to being great on hot, dry asphalt as well as frozen ice and packed snow.
The bonus is the 70,000 tire warranty which ensures you’ll get your money’s worth for this high performing set of rain tires.
Firestone should be quite proud of how well this tire holds up to some fierce competition, and I’m sure they are.
Review
To be clear, there isn’t a bad tire on this list. You may now be at the bottom of the page, but customer feedback on the Destination LE3 is extremely positive just like the other rain tires on this list.
It’s worst customer feedback was related to how well it performs as a winter tire. Even though it may not be the best tire for snow and cold weather, it does an admirable job dealing with light snow.
It is one of the best rain tires that you can buy and the tire life you can expect from it makes it an excellent choice for anyone looking to get the most out of their tires.
Resources
Below are some links you may find helpful when learning about tires
Final Thoughts
Knowing what specifically to look for when trying to pick the best tires for rain performance can be confusing and challenging. That’s why this comprehensive list exists.
The easiest way to know what works well and what doesn’t is to hear exactly what customers have to say about how well the tires work from them in heavy rain. It’s also important to hear what they say about the other important aspects such as how well the grip when dry or how long they last.
In the end, price tends to be the most critical factor so we’ve armed you with overviews of all of the customer feedback and links to check prices at all of the major online tire retailers.
If we missed anything, send us a note and we’ll see if we can incorporate it into this review to ensure we’re providing the most comprehensive article possible.
