mav238

During our cross country trip from Boston to Seattle, We were driving to Brookings, SD to rest the night, when the dark clouds came, and the heaviest torrential rain I have ever seen came pouring down. I was driving at around 70 mph at the time the sudden downpour started. Cars all over the freeway were pulling to the side and stopping, apparently to wait it out. The downpour was so heavy that, I had to put the wipers at max, to get the visibility I needed. The good thing was, almost every car I could see were pulling to the side, so taking this advantage, I dropped the speed to 60 mph, and just held the steering steady. The RDX held steady @ 60 mph, never felt the Yokohama Avid V4S tires were ever breaking loose or hydroplaning. The RDX simply ploughed through the rain and also the slightly flooded road (couple of inches height of water).
Initially I was actually quite tensed, and simply focused on driving through the torrential downpour, and not realizing until later, that I was actually driving @ 60 mph.
So, from this experience, the SH-AWD combined with the Yoko Avids seem to work well, in both dry and very wet conditions.

chipmunk

I experienced the same thing driving to the ski resort one time, except I have the stock Michelins on. My RDX only has about 14000 on it, so that is probably why I did not have any problems with traction, although I was white knuckling the steering wheel the entire time. One thing that helped me was that I applied Rain-x onto the windshield so the water would just bead off the windshield. After 6 year, my old bottle of Rain-x still works like it should. You may want to look into it if you live in a rainy area.

princelybug

iTrader: (16)

Great to see the truck performed well!

stoxxsp500

good to hear first hand info of how the rdx performs on cross-country, very high mileage driving. keep em coming

MMike1981

i dont think the sh awd had much to do with your rain experience. you could attribute that to the tires but unless somehow you were losing traction or something, dont think shawd was involved at all

bgillette79

+1 RainX!

mav238

I had Rain-X foam glass cleaner applied a few days before. Yes, it worked well when the rain during the trip through upstate NY was moderately heavy. The water simply streamed off the windshield.

But what I experienced near Brookings SD, was like having someone hosing down the windshield with lots of water. The water would not have the time to nicely stream off the windshield. Trust me, the rain was so darn heavy, almost every car I saw pulled off the freeway and stopped, probably fearing hydroplaning or traction through heavily flooded parts of the road. The RDX had sufficient ground clearance that I decided to trek on.

Amazingly, the RDX never lost traction or tending to pull to one side, even at 60 mph. I was so focused on getting through this rain storm, I didn't realize I had dropped the speed only to 60mph (thought I was at 40 mph; after travelling at 75 mph for much of the day, 60 mph seemed really slow).

nj2pa2nc

In May 09 we drove to Seattle from NC- We had to stop in Bozeman, Montana due to a snow storm. While driving from Seattle to San Francisco we had the torrential pouring rain. Slowed down on our speed and had no problems. That trip was just over 9,000 miles. Many times while driving from NC to NJ I get in those rainstorms (I call them car wash storms). I like numerous other drivers either pull into a rest area to wait it out or just slow down.

mav238

when you were in the rainstorm and had to pull over, you were in your TSX right?

If yes, I would have done the same. Having full-time traction at all 4 wheels is really different from just FWD, especially in flooded roads and rainstorms. Provided I don't try to make sudden braking stops or turns, the AWD system should keep the car trekking true.

Mike here indicated that the AWD system is probably not doing too much to help with the traction in the heavy rain. I would agree 50/50, meaning, the tires do play a big role in evacuating the water and allowing the tires to maintain good traction with the road, but having the AWD system working to keep or enhance traction at all 4 tires, will in no doubt help with the wet traction. AWD with lousy rain tires or badly worn tires will not be of any good, good rain tires on FWD = good traction. AWD + good rain tires = great rain handling.

VietNinjaJ30A1

I would attribute at least a part of it to the SH-AWD. Even driving through residential streets with big puddles on the sides of the roads where water collects during sudden downpours I notice that the car "plows" right through. The specific cases I'm talking about are when the wheels on the right side are in the puddle and the wheels on the left are on wet (but not flooded) pavement. Now I don't have the tech package so I can't say for sure, but my Accord would have slowed down as soon as I hit the puddle. The RDX, on the other hand, does not slow much at all and I always thought that was because power was going to the wheels that had a grip on the pavement and not to the ones in the puddle.

Just my thought...could be totally wrong because I don't have the SH-AWD torque read out on mine. I would assume that during a downpour like that on the highway, the AWD system is shifting torque constantly depending on which wheel is starting to lose grip.

nj2pa2nc

Yes-we were in the tsx-it had brand new tires on it-Yokohama Avid 4V-s- it was starting to get dark and with the rain the visability was 0- To be on the safe side we waited it out at a rest area. Lucky thing we did-there was a big accident. We previously owned a car with AWD-I think drivers get over confident with them. Personally I hate the Yoko tires. They are very noisy on the tsx and lose traction easy on wet pavement.

mav238

Interesting observation with the yokos, thus far, they have been great. It does get noisy on some roads, but on newly paved roads, they are very quiet.

I know what you mean about being overconfident with the AWD. If the road was winding and/or inclined downwards, I would definitely have second thoughts about driving through the rain the way I did. But the road to Brookings, SD, was straight, flat and wide, and cleared of cars, so I went for it, staying focused with the steering wheel firmly in my grasp. The RDX simply ploughed through the rain and slightly flooded road.

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

We get rain like this in Houston.
Traveling 60-70mph quickly turns to 30-40mph.
visibility sucks!!!

Glad the RDX held up!!

mav238

I believe your last observation is correct, or at least that is the intended function of AWD. I think from the observations of some posters here, the assumption is that you won't lose traction in wet road conditions if you have good new rain ready tires; and thus AWD becomes "unnecessary". I strongly believe that AWD will provide the enhanced traction in wet (and in some dry) conditions, over FWD or RWD systems.

MMike1981

the default split on steady highway travel is like 90/10 f/r. Unless you are accelerating somewhat hard, the rear may get to a 70/30 on incline accel or really get juiced if you floor it, and you prob were def not flooring it nor really accerlating due to the conditions. To me, you got thru the rain better with newer rubber. Did the power in the rear help? maybe, but that is not what got you thru it without incident, especially because power wont transfer in the RDX till its needed and its more of a dry-handling system, you stated you never hydrod or lost grip hence why i said awd had not much to do with it. Even in snow, the front wheels are way to hyper and by 'plowing' the RDX is much to biased in the front vs the rear. Terrible rain has way more to do with rubber and alot less to do with AWD imo.

phineasboggs

In Florida, we get similar torrential rains (monsoons!) usually daily in our present rainy season (pre-hurricane). The rain and lightning is nothing like the rain I've experienced anywhere else. So, it's really tough and exhausting to drive when you can't see. Further, even if I'm confident that I'm in control, I worry about other less capable drivers or cars, and pull over. Better still, I like to wait until the storm is over.

However, from your report, it sounds as if the RDX removed that stress from you. That's good news.

Keep driving carefully

PS. It has been an odd weather year here. Very cold winter. Now, the monsoons are not prevailing. Many hurricanes predicted and I hope they're wrong.