2017 Winter Tire Tests

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Originally Posted By: UG_Passat
...the US doesn't have a site for winter testing...


Here is one in Michigan:

http://www.smithersrapra.com/testing-services/by-sector/automotive/winter-proving-grounds

Quote:
The Smithers Winter Test Center is located in Raco, MI (about 25 miles southwest of Sault-Ste. Marie) and features over 750 acres of snow, ice (approximately 40 acres) and bare pavement surfaces. It is staffed by more than 40 employees proficient in creating and maintaining a variety of snow, ice, and dry area surfaces. The facility is ideal for testing a variety of vehicle types ranging from small automobiles to Class 8 trucks, vehicle components (both OE and aftermarket), snow handling equipment, construction equipment, recreational and seasonal sport vehicles and military equipment.
 
You should forward that to TireRack, CR and other magazines so that they can become credible sources

Originally Posted By: SubLGT
Originally Posted By: UG_Passat
...the US doesn't have a site for winter testing...


Here is one in Michigan:

http://www.smithersrapra.com/testing-services/by-sector/automotive/winter-proving-grounds

Quote:
The Smithers Winter Test Center is located in Raco, MI (about 25 miles southwest of Sault-Ste. Marie) and features over 750 acres of snow, ice (approximately 40 acres) and bare pavement surfaces. It is staffed by more than 40 employees proficient in creating and maintaining a variety of snow, ice, and dry area surfaces. The facility is ideal for testing a variety of vehicle types ranging from small automobiles to Class 8 trucks, vehicle components (both OE and aftermarket), snow handling equipment, construction equipment, recreational and seasonal sport vehicles and military equipment.
 
Interesting test, I got excited hoping they would have some of the new for this season snow tires like the Winterforce 2 and Altimax Arctic 12, but it looks like those are US market models.

Hopefully there will be some test done in the next few weeks before I am really looking to buy snow tires.
 
Originally Posted By: EdwardC
Interesting test, I got excited hoping they would have some of the new for this season snow tires like the Winterforce 2 and Altimax Arctic 12, but it looks like those are US market models.

Hopefully there will be some test done in the next few weeks before I am really looking to buy snow tires.


The article focuses around Central European winter tires aka for US, "high performance winter tires", which the Winterforce 2 and Altimax Arctic 12 aka Gislaved Nordfrost 100, are not.
 
Originally Posted By: Miller88
Originally Posted By: MCompact
My 1999 Wrangler is running BFG All-Terrain KOs; in all but the deepest snow I rarely engage four wheel drive...


Mud tires and an automatic locker, here . It's downright dangerous.


I'm waiting to see how bad my DynaPro ATM's are in snow. After I got them, I read how all terrains tend to be worse in snow than all seasons. Oh well. Truck has iPike's for winter as it's honestly the worst vehicle in snow I've ever had.

I've been stuck a few times with FWD and snow tires. It does happen. I don't recommend a low slung car in winter, nor trying to climb certain driveways.
 
I'm waiting as long as possible to put my R2s on, picked them up in the early spring when a local shop put them on sale. Temperature unexpectedly (at least for me) shot up over twenty degrees the day after I had them mounted and I got to experience their incredible dry braking performance at ~60F when some idiot ran a red light and forced me to lock them up.
They didn't wander at highway speeds like some snows I've had, but it felt like braking on marbles at that temp. I was worried that the tread might have been damaged, but they looked fine when I swapped back to all seasons shortly after that...???
 
Originally Posted By: supton
Originally Posted By: Miller88
Originally Posted By: MCompact
My 1999 Wrangler is running BFG All-Terrain KOs; in all but the deepest snow I rarely engage four wheel drive...


Mud tires and an automatic locker, here . It's downright dangerous.


I'm waiting to see how bad my DynaPro ATM's are in snow. After I got them, I read how all terrains tend to be worse in snow than all seasons. Oh well. Truck has iPike's for winter as it's honestly the worst vehicle in snow I've ever had.

I've been stuck a few times with FWD and snow tires. It does happen. I don't recommend a low slung car in winter, nor trying to climb certain driveways.



I'm of the other opinion - all terrains , in my experience, are definitely better than all seasons. Deeper tread, more open and generally NOT solid blocks of tread like a mud tire.
 
Hmm, then maybe I'm confusing the reviews I read--it has been a couple of months.
 
Some AT even get the "snow flake and three mountain peaks" symbol.
But their winter performance may depend on kind of snow.
I suspect the wetter it is the better they perform.

They do not have winter compund so ice traction and probably dry snow performance are on par or below AS.

Just my opinion.

Krzys
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: krzyss
Some AT even get the "snow flake and three mountain peaks" symbol.
But their winter performance may depend on kind of snow.
I suspect the wetter it is the better they perform.

They do not have winter compund so ice traction and probably dry snow performance are on par or below AS.

Just my opinion.

Krzys

Yep, the 3 mountain snow flake is only a "snow test" and not a very difficult one to pass either. We have a set of multimile xtx sport AT/W tires on the CRV and their ice traction is not good, snow traction is probably comparable to most ice tires though(Xice, ig52c, etc.) They are khrap tires for other reasons but they worked fine in snow and good off-road.
Consumer reports test A/S and winter tires the same, and on ice, the best A/S tires beat most of the AT/W tires they tested. I hate 5 rib, round shouldered A/S tires in snow and slush though, and would rather run a square shouldered AT/W tire or a cheap studable snow tire over what ever the best A/S ice tire is, as snow and slush is many times more common than skating rink conditions on my roads.
 
10 european market All Season tires were compared to the Conti TS860 winter tire. (For now, I only have Russian language links)

https://shina.guide/press/11978/#more-11978

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fshina.guide%2Fpress%2F11978%2F%23more-11978&edit-text=

Quote:
The German magazine Auto Zeitung in No. 21/2017 published its test of all-season tires of size 205/55 R16. ...All tires on the test Audi A3 passed 18 disciplines in different operating conditions: on snow, as well as wet and dry asphalt. ….the age-old question: is the all-season car tire an alternative to classic winter tires?

The test results showed that the level of grip of tires Goodyear Vector 4Seasons Gen-2 , Uniroyal AllSeasonExpert and especially Nokian Weatherproof on snow is such that not every winter tire is capable. However, in this test Auto Zeitung all-season tires to go level with the indicators of winter tires Auto Conti they still could not.

The BFGoodrich g-Grip All Season 2 tires on the snow were quite tolerable, but the Vredestein Quatrac 5 , Falken Euroall Season AS200 , Toyo Celsius , Michelin CrossClimate , Hankook Kinergy 4S and Pirelli Cinturato All Season confirmed the fact that even the snowflake symbol against the backdrop of the mountain with three peaks (3PMSF) on the sides of all-weather does not always guarantee their effective work on snow-covered roads.

All-season tires, apart from good adhesion in the snow, must behave confidently even on a wet and dry road, as befits a specialized summer tire. But on the wet surface at low temperatures the best results were shown by the Continental winter products.
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: MCompact
My 1999 Wrangler is running BFG All-Terrain KOs; in all but the deepest snow I rarely engage four wheel drive...

Wranglers are the first in the ditch. Moving forward is not big feat, stopping and cornering is.
If you gave me choice of Wrangler with BFG A/T tires to go to ski in the Rockies during blizzard, or Ford Focus with snow tires, Focus all day!
 
Originally Posted By: edyvw
Originally Posted By: MCompact
My 1999 Wrangler is running BFG All-Terrain KOs; in all but the deepest snow I rarely engage four wheel drive...

Wranglers are the first in the ditch. Moving forward is not big feat, stopping and cornering is.
If you gave me choice of Wrangler with BFG A/T tires to go to ski in the Rockies during blizzard, or Ford Focus with snow tires, Focus all day!


If it's relatively flat, it's not a big deal. Climbing a steep hill, snow tires and FWD can get you so far up, as the weight that is shifted down to the rear tires, power is wasted on the front wheels.
 
Originally Posted By: UG_Passat
Originally Posted By: edyvw
Originally Posted By: MCompact
My 1999 Wrangler is running BFG All-Terrain KOs; in all but the deepest snow I rarely engage four wheel drive...

Wranglers are the first in the ditch. Moving forward is not big feat, stopping and cornering is.
If you gave me choice of Wrangler with BFG A/T tires to go to ski in the Rockies during blizzard, or Ford Focus with snow tires, Focus all day!


If it's relatively flat, it's not a big deal. Climbing a steep hill, snow tires and FWD can get you so far up, as the weight that is shifted down to the rear tires, power is wasted on the front wheels.

Yes, because here in Colorado we have no idea what is steep hill.
Again, to reiterate: AWD with all seasons (or 4WD) or FWD with winter? ALWAY FWD with winter tires.
 
Originally Posted By: edyvw
Originally Posted By: UG_Passat
Originally Posted By: edyvw
Originally Posted By: MCompact
My 1999 Wrangler is running BFG All-Terrain KOs; in all but the deepest snow I rarely engage four wheel drive...

Wranglers are the first in the ditch. Moving forward is not big feat, stopping and cornering is.
If you gave me choice of Wrangler with BFG A/T tires to go to ski in the Rockies during blizzard, or Ford Focus with snow tires, Focus all day!


If it's relatively flat, it's not a big deal. Climbing a steep hill, snow tires and FWD can get you so far up, as the weight that is shifted down to the rear tires, power is wasted on the front wheels.

Yes, because here in Colorado we have no idea what is steep hill.
Again, to reiterate: AWD with all seasons (or 4WD) or FWD with winter? ALWAY FWD with winter tires.


I've seen Subarus with all-seasons climb the steep hills that my FWD with winters (including at that time, Nokian Hakka RSI tires) could not. That's when I had to chain up to make it up the steep hill that gets me to my house. Getting back down to the main road, even with top of the line winter studless tires at that time, it was scary going down the steep hill (even the township plows crash), which tire chains gave the control needed to not poop my pants.
 
Originally Posted By: edyvw
Originally Posted By: UG_Passat
Originally Posted By: edyvw
Originally Posted By: MCompact
My 1999 Wrangler is running BFG All-Terrain KOs; in all but the deepest snow I rarely engage four wheel drive...

Wranglers are the first in the ditch. Moving forward is not big feat, stopping and cornering is.
If you gave me choice of Wrangler with BFG A/T tires to go to ski in the Rockies during blizzard, or Ford Focus with snow tires, Focus all day!


If it's relatively flat, it's not a big deal. Climbing a steep hill, snow tires and FWD can get you so far up, as the weight that is shifted down to the rear tires, power is wasted on the front wheels.

Yes, because here in Colorado we have no idea what is steep hill.
Again, to reiterate: AWD with all seasons (or 4WD) or FWD with winter? ALWAY FWD with winter tires.


4wd or AWD with average all-seasons can out perform fwd with snows in many lower speed conditions on side roads or driveways, but for most highway driving I'll take fwd with snows over awd with 3 season tires.
 
If your car HAS to be able climb steep slippery hills and/or drive through deep snow -- i.e., if just avoiding those conditions is literally, absolutely IMPOSSIBLE without massive changes to your life -- then yeah, you need AWD.

If you're one of the VAST majority of people for whom that is not the case, AWD is unnecessary and possibly counterproductive.

Either way, you need season-appropriate tires.
 
Originally Posted By: d00df00d
If your car HAS to be able climb steep slippery hills and/or drive through deep snow -- i.e., if just avoiding those conditions is literally, absolutely IMPOSSIBLE without massive changes to your life -- then yeah, you need AWD.

If you're one of the VAST majority of people for whom that is not the case, AWD is unnecessary and possibly counterproductive.

Either way, you need season-appropriate tires.


That's why I had to give up driving a manual transmission for a AWD cute-ute. And with winter tires. Which my mechanic recommended Nitto NT-SN2.

Driving around in New England ski areas, you can tell who's on all-season tires... the jackhole that is holding up traffic for the rest of us on winter tires.
 
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