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No matter what I drive, I slow down for the rain. I never had any problems with my C6 in the rain and I drove my C7 today in the rain. No problems. Slow down and avoid big puddles.
As stated above standing water is not your friend. No sudden moves ie, brakes, throttle, lane changes, etc. Tires are more than half the battle. OEMs suck. Everything thing else will be better.
IMO the OEM Goodyear tires are not very good in the rain at all. I usually don't drive mine in the rain but I have been on trips and had to go through some fairly heavy rain. To me it felt like if I went over 60mph the tires wanted to get a little loose, especially the rears.
I have since tried Michelin PS2 (run flats) and Nitto Invo (non run flats) and they are both much better handling wet roads.
That said, watch your speed and you should be fine.
just watch the back end.Don't drive like it's dry when it's wet and you'll be fine.Bring an inflatable boat, however, in case these cars really do melt in the rain.
This is a coincidence because the exact same thing happened to me. I bought my car on a Saturday afternoon and when I started home the bottom fell out and it was dark! I had a 100 mile trip at night in the rain on roads I wasn't familiar with.
I took it as a good omen. It's like the first scratch, after you get one the rest are not so bad !
At least now I don't care about driving in the rain.
Drove through a heavy downpour driving my car 3 hours home from the dealer I bought it at. Perfect rain manners compared to some other sports cars I've driven in the rain. Now the ice/snow storm that came out of nowhere on my way back home from Alabama... that's a different story. Eventually my Corvette became the pace car after 5 or 6 cars passed me (I was doing a risky 45 in snow and ice) and each and every one of them ended up in a ditch. One was a Porsche 991 or something similar, several sedans and a couple SUV's, and even the police officer that responded ended up in the ditch. The 'Vette handled it like a champ, but got squirrely quite a few times.
I guess they figured I'm the guy with calls big enough to drive a Corvette in an ice-storm, I should be the safety guage as well. When I sped up, they paced me, when I slowed down, they paced me. Kinda flattering really.
Rain with the right tires is ok. The frozen stuff is a little harder ...
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Not even on a bet!!!!!
I remember days of my youth in a TR-8 running wide 60's playing sit and spin on the every so slightly hill when the light turned green getting caught in the snow, where I never had the same problems in 911's, nor the 63 with shaker rear end.
Now a days (older and wiser), have a 4X4 sport cab truck with 33" T/A all terrains that I drive if there is even forecast of snow within the new three days. And in it, I'm fearless, even I if have to drive through snow drifts in the center of the highway meridian to get around a wreck (or pull someone out if it).
Got caught in a couple of downpours with the stock GYs. I found front grip to be more lacking than rear grip. I let the TC/AH on and I still found the front would feel like it would change a half a lane if I hit standing water. The stock GYs are garbage. Slow way down and watch out for rutted roads..
This spring, traveling on a wallowed out asphalt road in south eastern Missouri, I ran into a down poor like I have never seen. I have a base coupe with the stock original equipment Goodyears. Tires look like new. With all the water standing on this old asphalt road and no shoulder I had all that the corvette and I could cope with. It was not fun. Drive slow!
It's a bet I lost. Last March, my wife & I were coming back home from Hot Springs Arkansas to the Dallas area as a freak ice storm was moving in. Thought I could beat it. Uh-uh.
I was the only Corvette on the road. Speed was 35 max. After 9 hours, asked my wife how she was doing. She goes "I just want out of this f*#%$! car!".
The rainy season is coming here, so on Saturday, I took my car in to the tire shop and had the OEM Goodyear supercar tires my GS came with put where they belong - in the trash.
They still had probably 5K miles of tread left - but in my view your chance of trouble with these tires is high with rain or below 50 deg temps.
The Michelin ZP's are just so much better, I can comfortably drive my GS with these tires for 3 or 4 months of the year that I would not be able to if I'd left the Goodyears on.
When I had my original GY F1 Supercar tires on, with about 5/32" thread life remaining, the GY's became quite squirrely in the rain.
Any speed at or above 50 mph and the car started to hydroplane like crazy.
I bought the Firestones, and that issue went away. The Stones didn't start losing traction until the thread depth was below 3/32", and even then 60 mph was still manageable.
09-19-2014, 08:05 PM
