Anyone running TOYO R888s - feck
Discussion
Hello all,
It's been raining down here pretty much on and off for 2 weeks.
The rivers are flooded the fields are flooded. All the drains are up to bursting point and it only takes some light rain to make the roads soaking. It's as if the water is actually seeping back up through the tarmac.
There is standing water on nearly all the roads.
Anyway I was travelling back home on a 60 mile journey along dual carriage ways and A roads and there was rain showers making the roads very wet again with channels of water down the edges and along the middles. As I progressed at speeds of upto 70mph to start with I hit some of the standing water in the middle of the road and couldn't get off it. The car began to slide sideways as if caught in a rut and kept on going until the water ran out and some grippy road was reached. I swear that if the whole road had had standing water, I would of carried on going until either hitting a barrier or another car. There was just no grip at all - the wheels must have been spinning as if on ice! I've never experienced this before and I'm well old!
I slowed down to 60 and the same thing happened again when some excess water was hit - and again when I slowed to 54 it wasn't until I slowed to around 45 to 50 that normal routine was established.
Admittedly the roads were wet, but I've never experienced drifting like this before.
On the outward jouney again on wet roads I was fine doing 70 with no problems, this being in a FORD fiesta with piddly little tyres.
Still, scared me and made me think about my next tyre choice!
MB
It's been raining down here pretty much on and off for 2 weeks.
The rivers are flooded the fields are flooded. All the drains are up to bursting point and it only takes some light rain to make the roads soaking. It's as if the water is actually seeping back up through the tarmac.
There is standing water on nearly all the roads.
Anyway I was travelling back home on a 60 mile journey along dual carriage ways and A roads and there was rain showers making the roads very wet again with channels of water down the edges and along the middles. As I progressed at speeds of upto 70mph to start with I hit some of the standing water in the middle of the road and couldn't get off it. The car began to slide sideways as if caught in a rut and kept on going until the water ran out and some grippy road was reached. I swear that if the whole road had had standing water, I would of carried on going until either hitting a barrier or another car. There was just no grip at all - the wheels must have been spinning as if on ice! I've never experienced this before and I'm well old!
I slowed down to 60 and the same thing happened again when some excess water was hit - and again when I slowed to 54 it wasn't until I slowed to around 45 to 50 that normal routine was established.
Admittedly the roads were wet, but I've never experienced drifting like this before.
On the outward jouney again on wet roads I was fine doing 70 with no problems, this being in a FORD fiesta with piddly little tyres.
Still, scared me and made me think about my next tyre choice!
MB
Edited by marcus1970 on Monday 23 November 17:34
piddly little fiesta tyres will be better in the wet due to less surface area on the road so it can queeze the water out from beneath with ease..
A wide racing tyre has more surface area so it if the road is actually saturated then the tyre will aquaplane alot easyer than a thinner tyre..
If that makes sence!!!
A wide racing tyre has more surface area so it if the road is actually saturated then the tyre will aquaplane alot easyer than a thinner tyre..
If that makes sence!!!
Yes, but that's why you don't want to make it worse by installing tyres that have little in the way of tread... I found the R1Rs which have a 'full wet racing tyre' tread pattern and more tread depth than the triple eights, marginal under similar conditions on a heavier FWD car on mere 205s, personally wouldn't want to have 888s on a car as light as my TVR in our sort of climate except for drving to and from a track on niceish days.
high52kojak said:
Yep there the ones, I use them, they have better grip on wet roads than a 'normal' tyre its just when there is standing water on the road when they will aquaplane more easily than a normal tyre...
... which is when your car will exit stage left into the armco on the motorway and we've lost another irreplaceable car - at best. 
Is that bit of extra grip (partly at the cost of progression, too) worth the risk? In our climate, winter tyres actually don't have any advantages for most of the winter season anymore. Although tyre manufacturers advocate changing your tyres when outside temperatures drop below 7 degrees C, all the recent(ish) tests of high performance road tyres actually indicate that above 0 degrees C, summer tyres actually offer superior braking, traction (bot dry and wet) and aquaplaning resistance versus winter tyres. If you drive on winter tyres for half of the year, you actually are compromising active safety somewhat for all but the three or four days of proper winter conditions.
I drive my TVR all year round, but if the conditions are bad enough to require winter tyres I choose to stay inside (if I need to drive for work, that's what the company car is for - which incidentally sits on 175/65/15 bicycle tyres).
I drive my TVR all year round, but if the conditions are bad enough to require winter tyres I choose to stay inside (if I need to drive for work, that's what the company car is for - which incidentally sits on 175/65/15 bicycle tyres).
high52kojak said:
Yep there the ones, I use them, they have better grip on wet roads than a 'normal' tyre its just when there is standing water on the road when they will aquaplane more easily than a normal tyre.
I was out in the rain yesterday with no issues.
Agreed. I've run them on wet track days and was surprised at just how much grip they actually gave (with a little less weight and more power than a cerb I was out in the rain yesterday with no issues.
). True, they don't handle standing water too well but keep out of the puddles and run in 'tyre tracks' of other vehicles if possible and they're mighty impressive.
What did you expect?! They're road legal slicks! R888's give more grip in the dry by, among other things, removing many of the grooves in the tyre the sole purpose of which is to remove water from in front of the tyre. This lack of water removal means that the tyres will be easily overwhelmed if you feed them too much water by going too fast with a good deal of water on the road. Once you reach the limit of how much water the tyre can remove, the tyre will simply be pushed up on top of the water, and will stay there until your speed slows, or the water is removed, a bit like a boat rising up 'on the plane'.
This is of course the flipside of having all that grip in the dry (and even the wet, though just wet - not soaked!). Of course the wide tyres and light weight of the TVR also means that there is then less force pushing the tyres back down, and more surface area of tyre in contact with the water, meaning that the weight of the car is dispersed over a greater area, so you would need even more weight to try and push the car back down. This is why heavier cars with narrow tyres (like a fiesta) fair so much better on soaked roads (and snow).
To avoid this you must either get another set of wheels and fit some all-weather winter tyres, or drive to suit the tyre (ie, ~50 mph in such conditions). I normally run with Goodyear Eagle F1's on my road wheels, but have recently left my track wheels on the car (me being lazy) and have also experienced some aquaplaning in the recent weather. I found that 50-60mph seemed to work fine on a motorway with what looked like a thick sheet of water across the whole road in the downpours the weekend before last.
TVRs are well known to be very susceptible to aquaplaning even on road tyres, and this seems to cause several accidents every year around this time. On 888's you must be doubly on your guard, else you may well end up as yet another person writing that post on Pistonheads reading something along the lines of 'my car just spun without warning and hit the barriers'.
Sorry don't mean to preach or rant, but every year people write TVRs off by either booting it on a wet motorway onramp or trying to keep up with 'normal' cars on a very wet motorway or A-road. A couple of years ago we had something like 5 cars in about 2 weeks!
This is of course the flipside of having all that grip in the dry (and even the wet, though just wet - not soaked!). Of course the wide tyres and light weight of the TVR also means that there is then less force pushing the tyres back down, and more surface area of tyre in contact with the water, meaning that the weight of the car is dispersed over a greater area, so you would need even more weight to try and push the car back down. This is why heavier cars with narrow tyres (like a fiesta) fair so much better on soaked roads (and snow).
To avoid this you must either get another set of wheels and fit some all-weather winter tyres, or drive to suit the tyre (ie, ~50 mph in such conditions). I normally run with Goodyear Eagle F1's on my road wheels, but have recently left my track wheels on the car (me being lazy) and have also experienced some aquaplaning in the recent weather. I found that 50-60mph seemed to work fine on a motorway with what looked like a thick sheet of water across the whole road in the downpours the weekend before last.
TVRs are well known to be very susceptible to aquaplaning even on road tyres, and this seems to cause several accidents every year around this time. On 888's you must be doubly on your guard, else you may well end up as yet another person writing that post on Pistonheads reading something along the lines of 'my car just spun without warning and hit the barriers'.
Sorry don't mean to preach or rant, but every year people write TVRs off by either booting it on a wet motorway onramp or trying to keep up with 'normal' cars on a very wet motorway or A-road. A couple of years ago we had something like 5 cars in about 2 weeks!
This is the precise reason why I've kept my original oz 16's and So2's for this time of year. I have 888's on RL7's but having the 'tail wag' at <50 is ridiculous.
Recently I did a rather unexpected 180 on a r-a-b approach at 30ish, yes it was very wet and fortunately no other traffic around. So the next morning I switched back to the old spec ;(
might give them another go once the monsoon season is over and they roads are colder....anyone got experience of driving them in slushy snow conditions?
Recently I did a rather unexpected 180 on a r-a-b approach at 30ish, yes it was very wet and fortunately no other traffic around. So the next morning I switched back to the old spec ;(
might give them another go once the monsoon season is over and they roads are colder....anyone got experience of driving them in slushy snow conditions?
I went out in mine yesterday for the first time in about 6 months, it made me realise just how 'slippy' the Cerb is on damp roads, and how careful you have to be. My old Saab 9000 in contrast is amazingly grippy on the same roads (Michelin ZXS's) and never shows any drama. 400hp, rwd, big wide tyres, low weight, cold temperatures and greasy roads = be very, very careful. With R888's you're just asking for trouble, whats the point of having them if Grandad Smith in his Fiesta can drive faster than you?
I've had them for over a year now with no real problems!
I drive my car every day of the week, every week of the year in all weathers and they have never been a problem before.
I think it's just the sheer amount of water that has poured from the sky. We're usually pretty lucky here on the south coast, but as I said in my first post, it's as if the ground/land has reached saturation point and all it takes is a mere shower and the roads are literally soaking again with standing water everywhere.
Trouble is there's more to come!
I'll be keeping my speeds down to Grandad Smith in his Honda speeds, as I'd be gutted to bin it after 5 years of steady driving
MB
I drive my car every day of the week, every week of the year in all weathers and they have never been a problem before.
I think it's just the sheer amount of water that has poured from the sky. We're usually pretty lucky here on the south coast, but as I said in my first post, it's as if the ground/land has reached saturation point and all it takes is a mere shower and the roads are literally soaking again with standing water everywhere.
Trouble is there's more to come!
I'll be keeping my speeds down to Grandad Smith in his Honda speeds, as I'd be gutted to bin it after 5 years of steady driving
MB
Edited by marcus1970 on Tuesday 24th November 17:07
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