Originally Posted by cfdfireman1

Rain tires. http://www.americastire.com/dtcs/tireSiping.dos

Originally Posted by billy_06EVOIX

The BFG KDW2's perform nicely in the rain. My brother has ran them on several of his cars and I've driven them all at times. They have a wicked looking tread pattern too

Originally Posted by KPerez

I hear what you are saying but the fact remains that the OP wanted an equivalent or better rain tire than OEM. Now TireRack has stated via their definition that Extreme Performance tires like the Direzza Sport Z1 compromise wet traction whereas Maximum performance tires are "unsurpassed in wet and dry". Now I am assuming that this means wet performance is superior to the latter relative to the former.
Now to your point of dry traction. Traction on dry surfaces is related to the UTQG rating. I think it is measure of/related to the softness of the tire surface. The lower the number, the softer the tire and presumably better traction. The Direzza has UTQG value of <b>200</b> while the OEM Yoko <b>180</b>. So from this rating difference, albeit our 20 points again, the Yoko is softer and, therefore, should grip better than the Direzza; at worst, it is equivalent. That is, the dry traction may be the same for these two tires so you are not necessarily "stepping down" when going to Ultra high performance tire. At this point you may say, "But the tread design is also important to the traction". I totally agree and we, the consumer, get a picture of the tread pattern from the manufacturer as the only measure of this important aspect of a tire. In short, this information is qualitative and completely inconsistent and uninterpretable relative to the quantitative parameters (like UTQG) supplied for each tire. Given these problems and the inability to test all tires both within and between the classes defined by TireRack/tire industry on the same vehicle with the same driver, it is very difficult to say this tire is better than that one. We are all stabbing in the dark when trying to decide on tires and IMHO this is exactly where the tire companies want us: confused and vulnerable to their hype.

Later, Ken

Originally Posted by jebus27

when you say 200, and 180 is that the thread wear rating on the tire???

Originally Posted by Fusionworks

Toyo T1-R

Originally Posted by KPerez

Yes. The first number is the treadware rating, the second, traction and third the propensity of the tire to heat up. But consult TireRack's discussion on these ratings for there are some some significant caveats to note.

Later, Ken

Originally Posted by jebus27

i was told by a michelin rep. that the threadware rating only applies to that company, and that i couldnt compare michelin's 200 threadware rating to dunlops 200 threadware rating, ...