As some of you know, I was screwed by Southwest over Xmass. Ended up doing 2,800 mile road trip: Colorado Springs-Las Vegas-San Diego-LA-LV-COS.
Did it in wife’s Tiguan which has WS90 with maybe 3,000 miles on them.
Tires saw everything in this trip. We left with 50 degrees weather, entered blizzard around Vail, lasted 3hrs, than snow and slush until mid Utah, snow again, rain, 60f in Las Vegas, ridiculous amount if rain throughout CA, and around 60 again in Vegas.
It was perfect opportunity to kid of measure performance considering varying conditions.
The excellent part:
Wet!
It is actually surprising how well these tires perform in wet considering how well they perform on ice. They never lose grip in wet conditions. Obviously bcs. design and depth, they perform good in deep water, so they don’t hydroplan easily. But, I am talking grip. Handling, braking, they always hold road. I would give them grade up over Continental VikingContact 7 here.
The really good part:
Snow and ice are definitely name of the game. I know WS80 and DM-V2 had lateral issues in ice handling, but that is resolved here. Excellent grip, on par VikingContact7, Nokian R2.
The so so part:
Noise is evident and they are bit “heavy” on wheels.
Bad:
Dry handling. It is not as obvious as on my BMW, but one can still feel that they are loose. On BMW it is obvious, as suspension is more potent from get go and on my particular BMW it is modified for track too, so tire weakness show up fast.
They are definitely not VikinContact 7 in dry, and probably Michelin X-Ice Snow is better than both in dry. I don’t think it is as major issue as I had in wet with Nokian R2, but something to consider.
I think currently, considering price, these are best bang for a buck in premium segment. I would say VikingContact 7 is still favorite to me, but price difference is BIG! I think considering price, WS90 are definitely better buy than VC7. Now, I have not tried X-Ice Snow, so cant say anything definitive about them.