Hybrids - The New Winter Tire

[Andy Mink]

On my last truck, a 2006 Dodge 3500 Megacab, I went through numerous tires. 60, 50, or even 40K warranties were a joke. Of the tires mentioned in this thread, I did have the BFG KO2s for a little less than 30,000 miles. Honestly, I thought they kinda sucked in the snow/ice area. They were fine on the highway and on dirt roads, but I never felt like I was truly attached to the road in the snow. Several other tires were the same.

On a recommendation by the guys at Discount Tire (same place @Philpug goes) I installed Pathfinder AT tires. I believe it's their store brand and uses a mould from Kumho, if I recall correctly. That was winter of 16/17. We had great snow that season and I made many trips from Reno to Northstar, in many different conditions. What blew me away was, except in the iciest conditions and in the parking lots (lots of ice, no room to make a boo boo) I could run in 2wd. The tires were that good. I would definitely recommend them for those driving bigger suvs or trucks.

Pathfinder A/T

When the tires on my new truck (Nexen Rodian AT Pro RA8) wear out or prove not up to the task of snow driving I'll likely replace them with Pathfinders. I've never heard of Nexen so we shall see. The other issue I'll be contending with is the new truck is a dually so more $$$ and fewer #/square inch. Should be enlightening!

Nexen Rodian AT Pro RA8

 

[Monique]

Ok, thanks. I've never driven winter/snow tires. I got Nokian WRGs for my Impreza this past spring after some scary incidents on icy roads. My daughter has that car now. I have the 2002 Honda CRV. It's AWD, and I've always just had all-season tires on it. I've never had problems with it in the snow. But the tires need to be replaced before winter. I wanted to get the WRGs for this car too, but they're so expensive. I don't know how much past next May (when my daughter's last tuition payment is due-yay) I'll keep the CRV. So I thought I might get the XIces, which have good reviews for snow and ice (everything except wet braking I think), and are much cheaper, and then reevaluate in the spring. I would probably just leave them on all year, if I keep the car past May.

I can't say I've ever noticed an issue with wet braking on X Ices, but I could just be used to their performance characteristics, good and bad.

When they hit the end of their reliable winter life span, I run them through the summer until the road noise gets to be too much.

 

[Andy Mink]

Since it's a tire thread ...

Last night, I had my wheels swapped, so I'm on X-Ice rather than the stock Outback tires. The difference is profound. Driving home on wet (not icy) roads with the X-Ices, even at slow speeds, I immediately realized I was braking too abruptly because the tire grip is so much better. The stock tires are bullshit.

We had X-Ices on our Mini Cooper S. Driven by a young 20-something male all around Reno and the surrounding area in the winter. The car never had any additional dents that were his fault so I'm guessing the tires worked fine. I drove the car a few times in the crud around town after snow storms and as long as it wasn't so deep that the front end plowed it did great. The tires stayed on until June and still looked solid. No weird wear from driving in the warmer, drier weather.

 

[luliski]

Thanks, @Andy Mink.

 

[Monster]

Central NH where we get every kind of road surface condition imaginable. . . We run the X-Ice on my wife's Impreza hatchback, and Blizzaks on my Forester. Both have been excellent - the Michelins a little better on ice and the Bridgestones a little better in deep snow. Neither seem to have any issues with warm/wet braking. I run the Blizzaks year 'round. Yeah, stock tires are useless - why do they do that?

 

[KingGrump]

Yeah, stock tires are useless - why do they do that?

They need something to protect the rims during shipping.

 

[scott43]

They need something to protect the rims during shipping.

Depends on the vehicle. But generally yes

 

[Alexzn]

After years of running all-season tires on our go-up-to-Tahoe car, we finally succumbed to temptation and got proper X-Ices last winter (after barely missing a snow pole trying to steer the all-season Pirellis on Alder Creek covered the flash- frozen rain). The difference seems to be significant. Winter down the hill in the warm Bay Area went with no issues. We do swap the wheels on the car for the summer months.

 

[luliski]

I don’t have storage space for wheels, but I’ll also probably trade the car in sometime next summer. So I’m hoping the X Ices will be ok for summer.

 

[Bill Talbot]

Central NH where we get every kind of road surface condition imaginable. . . We run the X-Ice on my wife's Impreza hatchback, and Blizzaks on my Forester. Both have been excellent - the Michelins a little better on ice and the Bridgestones a little better in deep snow. Neither seem to have any issues with warm/wet braking. I run the Blizzaks year 'round. Yeah, stock tires are useless - why do they do that?

This is my take as well.

 

[tball]

So how are they for"wet braking?" I'm thinking about getting these, but Consumer Reports gives them, and almost every snow/winter tire they tested, a very poor rating for wet braking. I'm concerned because usually if it's snowing in Tahoe, it's raining where I live. So roughly half of my drive would be in snow, half in rain.

I have Xice winter tires on two vehicles and haven't noticed the "Poor" wet braking Consumer Reports reported for all but one snow tire they tested. I'm not saying it's not there, it's just not noticeable in my driving. It's certainly not as noticeable as the "Excellent" winter ratings over my all-season tires with "Good" winter ratings.

I also think it may depend on what the definition of "wet" is.

In CO we typically don't drive in a heavy rain with our snow tires, except maybe mid-April through the end of the season. The wet roads we see are usually melted snow and the water on the road is not as deep as when it's raining.

I pulled a couple of pictures from CR showing their wet test track. This is more water than we see on the CO road in the winter:

I wonder how much better the winter tires would fare if there was less water on the road?

No doubt if you are driving in both rain and snow in the winter it might change your tire preference and make a tire like the new Michelin CrossClimate+ very attractive. Remarkably it has "Very Good" ratings for every category in the CR test.

The CrossClimate+ is a great example of how the technology keeps pushing the performance window in all areas. I bet with the X-ice 4, whenever it comes out, they will have figured out how to improve the wet performance of a winter tire up a notch.

 

[cantunamunch]

Lol, we had wet conditions like ^that just two nights ago, today it's a leaf blanket from the outskirts-of-Michael windstorm.

 

[luliski]

I live in the Sacramento Valley, and when there's a storm, the roads are pretty wet and sometimes flooded. It doesn't look like the Cross Climates are available for my CRV, or I would go with those.

 

[tball]

I live in the Sacramento Valley, and when there's a storm, the roads are pretty wet and sometimes flooded. It doesn't look like the Cross Climates are available for my CRV, or I would go with those.

Did you notice the Continental PureContact LS in the CR ratings? It's right behind the Cross Climate+ and also has "Very Good" snow and ice ratings. It's also a new tire with the latest all-weather technology but comes in a lot more sizes (as the Cross Climate+ likely will in the future).

Tirerack reviewed it recently:
https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/testDisplay.jsp?ttid=237

It's great to see these companies continuing to compete to put out tires that get better and better over a broad range of performance criteria each generation.

 

[luliski]

Did you notice the Continental PureContact LS in the CR ratings? It's right behind the Cross Climate+ and also has "Very Good" snow and ice ratings. It's also a new tire with the latest all-weather technology but comes in a lot more sizes (as the Cross Climate+ likely will in the future).

Tirerack reviewed it recently:
https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/testDisplay.jsp?ttid=237

It's great to see these companies continuing to compete to put out tires that get better and better over a broad range of performance criteria each generation.

I'm not sure I saw that. I looked at Discount Tires' list of tires available for my car and then looked at the ratings on CR. I'll look again to see if that one came up, but I don't think it did.

The other tire that was highly rated and available for my car was an all-season (General Altimax something or other). Maybe I'll get those. It's not like I'm always in the snow, and those got good ratings for snow and ice.

 

[nay]

First chance to get the Copper STT Pro out in frozen slush with icy spots, temps around 20F.

The tires have awesome bite. I dropped the hammer in just AWD (‘95 Land Cruiser, no electronic traction control) from a stop on an icy corner out onto an open road and had them spinning up to 4K RPM while it held the turn arc perfectly.

With high lateral traction established, stopping, starting, and around corners, continued braking tests. Found a good consistent ice patch with a little powder on top - typical of a cold light snow day in CO:


Slamming the brakes (ABS=off here with center diff locked) there is no tail wag and the tread pulls up the surface powder and everything grabs and stops as seen here:

At first take, this is the best icy hardpack performance I have ever tested. With normal braking there was zero slip and the lateral traction bite is phenomenal.

Oh - this is the STT Pro. Much more testing required, especially when we get a true ice storm here. But it’s going to eat slush like it isn’t there and deep snow is a no brainer, so things are looking really promising.

 

[tball]

@nay, great looking tires! Do they have a mountain snowflake symbol? To my eye that tread pattern looks like it needs a lot more sipes for great ice performance.

 

[nay]

@nay, great looking tires! Do they have a mountain snowflake symbol? To my eye that tread pattern looks like it needs a lot more sipes for great ice performance.

They aren’t mountain snowflake rated, but they absolutely could be. I don’t think Cooper wants to market the tire that way since they have tires aimed specifically at that market where the STT Pro is their premium aggressive offroad tire.

As far as siping goes, the vid and pic I posted show how a wider spaced design can pick up small amounts of surface skiff off of ice and pack it until it all bites.

Here’s me trying to slide to show how slick it was where we took the vid I posted above and almost eating it - at the end you see the snow that was pulled off the ice and packed into the tread pattern where it all bites and comes to a quick stop. Note that ABS is off here and stopping distances were better without it.


This isn’t an all conditions test and today was slick but nothing crazy, so I’ll have to see if and when we get a full on ice event.

 

[tball]

They aren’t mountain snowflake rated, but they absolutely could be. I don’t think Cooper wants to market the tire that way since they have tires aimed specifically at that market where the STT Pro is their premium aggressive offroad tire.

Thanks, @nay. Why didn't you go with the KO2? Is it no longer the top off-road tire with winter chops?

I get the mountain snowflake just means 10% better winter performance than a reference tire and a lot more tires likely qualify.

I'll need some summer tires for my truck when I take off my Hakka's in June. The hybrid tire discussion has me thinking an off-road tire with good winter performance will allow me to shorten my winter tire season to more closely match bump skiing season. That'd be a couple more months of summer tire use, especially nice in the fall while it's still fun to get off-road but we can have winter storms like yesterday.

I only do light off-road, but it just takes one unexpected trail where it's not so light to ruin your tires and your day. That has me thinking something more serious off-road like the KO2 would be nice, with some decent winter capabilities.

 

[nay]

Thanks, @nay. Why didn't you go with the KO2? Is it no longer the top off-road tire with winter chops?

I get the mountain snowflake just means 10% better winter performance than a reference tire and a lot more tires likely qualify.

I'll need some summer tires for my truck when I take off my Hakka's in June. The hybrid tire discussion has me thinking an off-road tire with good winter performance will allow me to shorten my winter tire season to more closely match bump skiing season. That'd be a couple more months of summer tire use, especially nice in the fall while it's still fun to get off-road but we can have winter storms like yesterday.

I only do light off-road, but it just takes one unexpected trail where it's not so light to ruin your tires and your day. That has me thinking something more serious off-road like the KO2 would be nice, with some decent winter capabilities.

Falken AT3W is a higher value proposition based on its better price point and greater tread depth in the bigger sizes (20/32 vs. 15/32 on the ko2). I have 43K on that tire on the Sequoia and they are still at half tread around 11/32 with no wear anomalies despite long intervals between rotations. The ko2 is a somewhat better deep snow tire, but the Falken is better hauling up I-70 in slush and soapy stuff at 70 mph.

I went STT Pro because I wanted a bigger and more aggressive 37 (the ko2 runs a bit small) - the Cruiser isn’t seeing the highway l miles that it was when I got the ko2, so a softer compound makes more sense again, especially given that rig gets wheeled sorta hard.

It’s a common misconception that the AT class is better in winter than a much softer compound rock tire. There are a lot more exceptions so you have to be careful, but the STT Pro is a relatively new tire and has Cooper’s most advanced compound technology.

I expect it will be better than the ko2 across all winter conditions except maybe glare ice, but then nothing non-studded is really ‘good’ on glare ice.

I’ll report back, although I doubt this tire is of interest to this crowd - it’s more an example of the pace of progress in compound technology in terms of what can serve as a 1TQ.