It’s common knowledge that the car’s handling has its peculiarities in different seasons. In summertime roads are mainly dry while in winter they are like a skating-rink sometimes. At the same time the tires must ensure safe driving on various types of surfaces under any weather conditions, that’s why summer and winter tires have their own peculiarities of construction. Summer tires provide for good wet and dry traction, and prevent from hydroplaning while winter tires ensure skidding resistance and reliable handling on slippery and snowy roads while reducing braking distance on ice-covered roads. Therefore, it is advisable to have two tire sets: summer and winter ones. The question is whether there are such versatile tires that can deliver safety and comfort all the year round?
The solution is all-season tires, which offer a compromise between summer and winter tires. They have gained popularity in the recent years as firstly, when you buy all-season tire set, you save your money. Secondly, a lot of newly made cars are sold fitted with all-season tire as manufacturers never know the season their car might be bought in. And thirdly, passenger off-road vehicles come with all-season tires by default as they are designed for use on highways as well as on seemingly impassable soil roads without any seasonal prevalence. At last, though the car should be fitted with tires according for the season, there is demand for all-season tires. And where there’s demand, there’s offer.
Many people are skeptical about all-season tires; nevertheless, such tires can be a good alternative for seasonal tires as they combine operational features of both summer and winter tire. Like summer tires, all-season ones feature rounded sidewalls and wide circumferential grooves to prevent from hydroplaning and enhance your car’s course-keeping ability. At the same time, they get a typical “wintertime” tread picture with wide grooves and a number of microsipes. Furthermore, all-season tires are made from special rubber compound that allows using them in low temperatures. All these helps them provide for reliable traction all year round on wet, dry, icy and snowy roads. However, all-season tires combine not only the advantages of summer and winter tires, but also their disadvantages. Moreover, the improvement of some qualities often results in other features degradation.
All-season tire is inferior to summer tire in several respects: it is noisier in work and its sort rubber (and it should be soft for sufficient resilience in cold temperatures) opens the way to quick tread wear. Statistics tells that all-season tire wears 10-15 per cent quicker that summer tire. In comparison with winter tire all-season tire delivers worse traction on slippery roads. It also loses in terms of brake away on ice surface as here it performs almost like summer tire in the same conditions. It is non-studded as a rule, which makes your safety suffer.
That’s why you should know what particularly you need: if it is performance and steering response in the wet, you’d better decide in favor of summer tires. If you require good wintertime traction and high level of safety on slippery roads, pay attention to winter tires.
It is a high price to pay for comfortable and safe all-season operation, that’s why all-season tire costs higher than summer or winter tire set alone. Moreover, only few tire companies possess the necessary technologies.
Be attentive when shopping for all-season tires. Cheap tire with the M+S (Mud & Snow) marking would probably deliver problematic handling and low level of safety in winter time. The M+S marking means that the tire can be used in mud and snow conditions, yet the words “can” and “recommended” carry different meanings. The real all-season tire has an “All Season” or “Any Weather” marking on its sidewall. Some manufacturers put it even simpler – AS or AW markings respectively. It is advised to buy all-season tires from well-known and respected brands: Dunlop, Michelin, Pirelli, Nokian, Yokohama and some others. These companies specialize in all-season tires; their products feature good traction and sufficient resilience for both winter- and summertime conditions.
All-season tire is popular among commercial drivers who earn their bread and butter behind the steering wheel or careful in-town family car drivers. It is reasonable to buy all-season tires if climatic conditions in your area are changeable and unpredictable or if it is uncomfortable and uneconomic for you to change to winter/summer tire every season.
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