Drivers generally report the Uniroyal RainSport 3 delivers standout wet-weather performance, with excellent aquaplaning resistance and strong wet braking/traction that boosts confidence in heavy rain. Many also find it good-to-very-good in the dry for normal road use and strong value for money, often with a comfortable ride. The most repeated downside is rapid wear, and a notable minority mention soft sidewalls that can reduce steering precision or feel unstable when pushed hard (especially on heavier or more powerful cars).
What owners mention most counted across 257 reviews
Long story short, please don't ever think about to buy these tires. Absolutely rubbish. Let's say this was a short 1 year "performance" test for a "performance" tyre and the tyre failed. Not really understand how they managed good ratings/reviews for this tyre.
Buy Michelin Pilot Sport, Conti SportContact or Good Year Eagle or any other premium brand for nearly same price. However, if you driving 20mph everywhere that should be fine, but I'm sure if someone wants to buy these kind of tires they are expecting good performance specially at the limit. When all other tires are failed these ones has to be on top. Remove this tires from your list.
I bought these tires in March 2019 as I thought these tires supposed to be the best on wet road in rainy days. I wish I could test it before. I would pay the £5-10 differences for the other premium brand. Such a shame...
After not even one year and 15.000 miles the front tires are nearly gone, threads are 3.6mm! Yes, I know, tires needs to be rotated 6-8.000 miles...so my fault. The rears are still have 7.3mm, so if I did rotated now I need to replace 4 tires - after one year - not only 2, thank you for the advice Uniroyal.
Black Shark...haha...definitely not...terrible experience, lots of struggle with under-steering on wet roads and corners even on dry road.
I had a factory fitted Pirelli Cinturato before on this car, fitted from 0 until 48.000 miles and still had 3.8mm on each. Just too see the full picture I bought the car with those Pirelli tires at 33.000 and 5.5mm thread, after 1 year at the next MOT at 48000 still had 3.8-4.0mm
So let's face it the cheapest eco Pirelli basic factory tires made 15.000 miles with 1.5-1.7mm loss
Uniroyal Rainsport 3 made 15.000 miles with 5.0mm loss with the same driving attitude.
I had Conti, Falken Ziex, Yokohama etc. on my previous cars, so I know what can I expect after 20 years on the road, specially from a "performance" tires.
Dry grip - ok, only if the road is real dry! When the road gets wet - not even with rain - the tires start slide and you have to reduce your cornering speed and you need to slow down in the middle of a roundabout which is silly.
Wet grip - ok, if you brake in straight line...
Road feedback - ok
Handling - as per above, these tires are not designed to drive at the limit. So don't try or you fail and crash your car.
Wear - not lasted a year with 18.000...
Comfort - noisy and if you run through on a 50Pence you can feel it was heads or tails...
And by the way, the car is a normal D3 engine with 150PS, no modifications, no racing boy equipment etc. I had think about the Polestar upgrade, but the tires needs an upgrade first...not the car. Used mainly on motorway and in town, not on Brands Hatch...I wish I could. Driving with normal speeds within the limit so 70 is 70, 60 is 60 (yes, 60 not 30 or 35...unbelievable isn't it) and so on...
Also we have Smart fortwo with Kumho tires with much better handling...so no more comment.
Have a mk 5 golf gti. Changed from Falken Azensis to these all round. Worst and costly mistake I ever made with tyres. They are way to soft and feel horrible going in hard round a bend. No confidence on these tyres. The Falkens were way better with miles more feel and stiffer sidewall. I'm going back to Azensis.
Check out how the BEST all seasons tyres perform against premium summer and winter tyres!
This was the second set of these tyres I have bought, but unfortunately never again for my Impreza.
I only noticed problems when I moved a pair from the front to the rear wheels having previously run Toyo Proxy R1s. The problem with the Uniroyal Rainsport 3 is the lack of strength in the tyre wall. When cornering hard, the tyre wall would collapse to nearly half its height and scuff mark could be seen around the tyre wall, so much so the corner of the car would suddenly sink. The grip in the wet is superb and I'd have to wring the cars neck hard to get all four wheels spinning in the wet. The tread cuts through standing water very well and you feel safe on the motorway in very bad weather.
This tyre is an excellent choice for a car that isn't going to be thrown into bends and you want good stopping power in dry and more so wet driving conditions.
Not driven enough in the snow.
Very good wear, 30,000 miles wear on a 4x4 transmission
Which tyres do you drive?
Researching the Uniroyal RainSport 3? Rate the tyres you actually drive - and help the next buyer choose.
Driven for 12,000 miles on the front of a bmw 3 series. The car never would understeer, purely because these tyres are like glue. The wear was fantastic. Deep tread cause everso slightly vague feedback at times and a little more noise, but that's the trade off for such good all round performance. I drove my car hard and these never failed. At 12,000 I would say they were 50% worn, but weren't fitted to the driving wheels. If they did them in the right size for the back wheels then I'd have got them.
Had those tyres fitted to two of my cars when i bought them.
A Delta Integrale EVO 1 and a Honda Integra DC2 Type R.
Both almost new, and the rubber was fresh. The cars were in tip top condition, new bushings, suspensions and properly aligned and what I have to say about those tyres is pretty bad.
They are properly scary in the wet and close to useless. I had the begining though both cars were starting to be dated but when i switched to some other tyres the grip level went up...a lot !
Good tyres for dry otherwise but in the wet they are very dangerous and will slide out with out warning with a very low grip level. I did 4000km with them on both and ditched them that's how bad they were in the wet.
I purchased theses tyres for my 2006 BMW as replacements for the damn awful Bridgestone run flats that came with the car. I don't do a lot of miles per year maybe 5000 or so, after 18 months of ownership I am delighted with my purchase and would recommend these wet weather tyres to anyone. I don't push my car to the limits on public roads but find grip in both wet and dry very satisfactory to my needs. Wear limits have not been an issue and ride quality compared to run flats is very noticeable, though not all together super smooth as I still have the M sport suspension to contend with.
Had two fitted on the front. In the wet they were quite good and never had any issues. In the dry again not bad although when pushed a bit on cornering they could at times feel on the limit without going too fast.
After 12000 miles they're done and wonder how some of the reviews have good mileage on rear wheel drive cars.
Generally good all round but the wear for me is the downside. Time to go back to the goodyear eagles.
Fitted a set to the wifes diesel punto old car 2004 model with some after market alloy wheels on 195/50/15.
I wanted her to be safe in the wet as most branded tyres are good in the dry, she had a slide with Michelin energy tyres fitted when it was wet and it scared her so we opted for a tyre known for wet grip to put her mind at rest. Suspension and tyre pressures were all correct as was alignment.
Four fitted and I have to say they are awesome I took it out the first time it rained and did it rain bouncing heavy rain and I give it some as it is like driving a go-cart, It gripped like a track tyre in the dry. I took her out with me and she said wow she couldn't believe what a difference different tyres can make to the handling.
They look good they grip very well in the dry and phenomenal in the wet they are very comfy and she has now done about 12k on them and the rears are like new still and the fronts have about 5mm left so all in all that is very good.
She hasn't noticed any difference in fuel economy which is unusual going from Michelin Energy to Uniroyal Rainsport 3 but it does do over 60mpg it is only a 1.3 td.
All in all best wet grip I have found but it is a small car. I have Dunlop sport maxx on my Focus and they are good but I dare say the Rainsport3 would be even better.
Rainsports always seem to get great reviews so I thought I would give them a go as more of an experiment really than anything else,a full set not being that expensive. The main reason I decided to try them being I was I was after a softer compound tyre.
The car they were being fitted to does minimal mileage and as a result the recommend tyres go 'off' really quite alarmingly,maybe 18 months before the compound starts to harden with no amount of heat cycles bringing them back. Pretty much within the first 5 miles of driving you can figure these rainsport tyres out. First thing is yes,they are soft,it's a wet bias tyre so to be expected,but I then remembered having an early version of rainsports fitted it a car years previously and I had forgotten how much the mass of the car floats on the tread blocks when steering is applied. It reminds me of really bad winter tyres. The result is you tend to make two inputs to any corners when you're travelling at any reasonable speed,not a good feeling because you get the initial load from turning in then a split second later you get a 2nd load as the mass of the car catches up when the tread block settles down,the best way I can describe it is as if someone is nudging the side of the car part way through a corner,very unnerving and you're almost waiting for the inevitable following oversteer. The result is turn-in on the car has all but vanished with this tread block/side wall movement (to be fair to fit this tyre to the front of this vehicle a higher aspect ratio has to be used so that doesn't help the side wall movement) It was a warmish day they were fitted and the road surfaces around the area where quite polished,the result was quite a lot of chirruping from the fronts when braking with even moderate force. This did disappear on rougher surfaces but braking distances have markedly increased in the dry with some instances where I was thinking this car isn't going to stop on some heavy braking. What these tyres are good at is wet conditions not surprising really I guess,it's probably why they are used as 'wets' by a lot of club racers. That tread block then comes into its own clearing standing water extremely well and wet braking is very good.
I've covered about 1000 miles with half of that at decent speeds and heavy braking and they do seem to be changing their character slightly,the secondary movement on turn-in has reduced quite a lot but it's still present and feed back is as vague as ever. As an experiment they weren't a success so they will be coming off shortly.
Member
BMW
255/35 R18 W
6,000 miles
Mostly Country Roads
Spirited
I have them in a staggered setup so 225/40r18 on the front and 255/35r18 on the rear of my bmw. They are a phenomenal tyre in the wet, but yet with a progressiveness when they start to slide. This characteristic is also apparent in the dry, very progressive as they lose grip.
My only criticisms of them is how they deal with heat and abrasion. The following is understandable due to their focus on wet weather performance, but they do suffer from overheating when pushed hard on the road, and the tread blocks on mine have become distorted and in some cases have partially torn away. Even when the rears are overheating they retain their progressiveness.
As for wear, they have worn quickly, but again they are optimised for wet conditions, and have been driven hard in both wet and dry conditions so I was expecting the wear rate I have experienced with them.
Overall they're a good tyre for the road, and inspire confidence no matter if it's wet or dry.
Just purchased another set for VW Tiguan. I've had these tyres on a VW Eos and a Mercedes SLK 55 AMG and cannot fault them.
They are hard wearing, I managed 20,000 miles on the rear of the SLK before I sold it and there was plenty tread left.
The tyres are quiet and although I don't drive everywhere fast, they offer excellent grip in both the wet and dry. The previous tyres on the Tiguan were also impressive in the snow for traction.
Not doing much miles per year, but I've always liked how these handled wet roads. I'm usually driving fast, and I'd recommend them to anyone if not few problems. I have a XL version
- noise (definitely on the noisy side), the pattern is very noisy on some roads.
- they often catch small pebbles in the channels (and big enough to catch bigger pebbles, so you will hear them)
- soft while cornering, may be because of the wall height.
- they do smell funky
- unconnected feeling despite the harshness of the XL version.
