Best tires for wet roads

I just bought a 2013 sv to drive around town and it has 6yo cheap tires on it that can spin in the dry. Most of the time this car will be driven less than 20 miles per day around town and can be charged every night.
Seattle is full of hilly worn concrete roads so I would like to replace these with something grippy before winter. The tire threads all seem to like the ecopias but my guess is those will not have the traction I am looking for. A friend put Michelin pilot sport as on their egolf and are happy with the results. Has anyone here put sticky tires on their leaf? Which ones have the best rolling resistance? I can take a range hit but don’t want a giant one. I don’t care about treadlife as the car won’t get enough miles to wear them out.
Priorities
1 wet traction
2 rolling resistance
3 price

Thanks

The Ecopia EP 422 Plus are actually decent in wet weather, although they suck in the snow. I have no first hand experience with Continental TrueContacts, but have heard they provide very good wet traction and are also LRR:

https://bit.ly/3x0Ckiw

I wouldn't recommend Michelin Energy Saver A/S tires, as a friend of mine put them on his Leaf and he says the wet traction is poor.

My 2013 SL came with the Michelin Energy Saver A/S tires. I replaced them with Ecopcia EP 422 Plus at 30K. IMHO, both sets of tires were marginal in rain and sucked in snow, although I think the Ecopia were the better of the two.

I know the ecopias and energy savers will suck in the rain. What I want to know is how much range will I loose going to something that is good in the rain like a pilot sport or continental dws

I thought the ecopias were fine in the rain.

I thought the ecopias were fine in the rain.

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Agreed- they work fine unless you are Sebastien Vettel.....

First, congrats OP on a nicely written post. If only most were like this ...

To your question:
Wet traction is part of the usual tests done on tyres by the reviewers. IIRC discount tire has good online data.
I imagine Consumer Reports (CR) does too, and you should be able to cross reference LRR. A public library is your friend if you do not subscribe.

Last, most of a tyre's traction is used up by the time the tread is 5 mm. Spend the money to keep the tyres in good tread and you have solved a good part of the puzzle.

My experience has been that Ecopias (both OEM and EP422 Plus) inflated to 44 psi are much better in the rain (for wet braking traction) than the OEM Michelin Energy Saver A/S tires that came on both 2015 and 2019, regardless of inflation pressure for the Michelins. Wet braking traction was marginal for the Ecopias if they were only inflated to 36 psi. Premature sidewall cracking is common on Michelin passenger car tires in my hot dry climate, but I had one set of Michelin sport performance tires on my 2011 that did OK in the rain. I also had one set of Continental sport performance tires on my 2015 which were OK in the rain. I have Bridgestone DriveGuard run flat tires on my 2019 now, but will probably replace them with sport performance tires when they wear out. The Michelin and Continental sport performance tires and the DriveGuard run flat tires all dropped range by about 15% compared to the OEM tires (Ecopias on 2011 and Michelins on 2015 and 2019). My experience has been that Ecopias have a bit lower rolling resistance than the OEM Michelins. The wet traction of the DriveGuards is about the same as the Ecopias, but the ride is a bit harsher due to the stiffer sidewalls.

I will be watching this thread to see what others recommend since I will be needing new tires fairly soon.

tirerack.com might be a useful resource. Let's you filter by characteristics and if you drill down to individual tires, there seem to be a good amount of user reviews. The customer surveys include wet performance so you should be able to get a pretty good idea of which eco-rated tires do best in the rain.

Sailor231 said:

I know the ecopias and energy savers will suck in the rain. What I want to know is how much range will I loose going to something that is good in the rain like a pilot sport or continental dws

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The Continental TrueContacts fit all of your criteria, in the order you listed as priorities...

1 wet traction
2 rolling resistance
3 price

As they are LRR tires, you might lose 10% vs Ecopias, seems unlikely it would be worse than that.

6 year old tires should always be replaced. Too old, & they get sidewall cracks.

Nubo said:

tirerack.com might be a useful resource.

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I like the TireRack.com suggestion, but you've got to go to the actual Tire Rack tests to get any real info, not the anecdotal stuff in the customer reviews.

I've noticed that Goodyear has finally improved wet traction in their all-seasons. The Goodyear Assurance ComfortDrive is reported by TireRack to have good wet traction. Almost any older model of Goodyear all-seasons stinks on wet traction. Rolling resistance is generally good on Goodyear all-seasons, should be OK here you'd think anyway.

For a '13 SV, I'd get the cheaper, but quite good, " hankook VENTUS V2 CONCEPT2 ", grade AA traction (UTQG), Extra-Load, V speed rating, awesome.
Only $90 with free shipping from tirerack.com ... Should fill the requirements well.

Tire rack is great for performance on everything except rolling resistance. Consumer reports has some rolling resistance ratings to cross reference,
Looks like the ultra high performance category drops off quite a bit in that metric.
Vredestein quadracs look like a good option for not a ton of money but have to buy online and no data on the new generation yet other than some posit feedback from Europe.

OP, I hope you understand that no tyre is virtuous enough to let a normal driver drive on wet roads the way they might drive on dry roads.
A large part of safe driving is knowing when to slow down and take it easy.

A tyre is only as good as the rubber between the ears.

A tire I recently bought impressed me with the basic credentials (but with no Tire Rack tests to verify anything, sadly, since Tire Rack doesn't sell them) is the "Nokian WR G4" :
Should meet requirements for a great wet tire, low rolling resistance (LRR)

• 
  All-weather type, similar to All-season but with more grip in snow (should do well in wet I think).
• XL extra load rated
• LRR claimed on the sidewall
• V speed rated, strong enough to do 149 mph sustained, every bit helps
• Aramid fibers in the sidewall
• asymmetric tread pattern looks like it channels water away
• small siping breaks up water films well
• Made in the U.S.A (Finnish parent company)
• UTQG is 500 A A, 60k mile estimated life, all good

Tire Rack doesn't have them, got mine from Discount Tire. Interesting tech in that tire.