Experts agree: If you drive regularly on ice or snow, you'll be safer on winter tires than on all-season tires. found that "winter tires easily command a 20-percent benefit in snow and ice traction over all-season tires, and some of the best winter tires have nearly twice the grip as some all-season models." Keep in mind that winter tires aren't just for snow; cold temperatures can harden regular tires' rubber, reducing their ability to grip pavement, especially when things get icy. But softer, more porous snow tires absolutely thrive in cold climates. The colder it gets, the more tenaciously they grip. Unlike all-season tires, snow tires for passenger cars have special tread designs and compounds to grip better on snow, ice and cold pavement. Studded winter tires are designed for motorists who have to contend with extreme winter-weather conditions on a prolonged and regular basis. These tires have built-in metal teeth that bite into ice. They're loud, and they can damage pavement.
Still, studded tires outperform studless versions at a crucial task -- braking on slippery ice. These are designed for high-performance cars. They grip better on wet and dry roads than regular snow tires, so they're also great for mild winters -- you'll be ready in case it snows, without giving up performance when it's warmer. They don't cling quite as stickily to ice, though. These are similar to passenger-car snow tires -- and some lines are also available in sizes suitable for coupes and sedans -- but are top performers when installed on bigger, heavier vehicles. Just because you have an all-wheel-drive car doesn't mean you don't need winter tires, as the editors of Popular Mechanics found out. In a test, reviewers drove two identical Chevy Equinoxes -- one with front-wheel drive and one with all-wheel drive (AWD) -- on a packed-snow track with a milled-ice underlay. The AWD Equinox equipped with snow tires braked the quickest from 60 mph; when equipped with all-season tires, the same Equinox went from first to worst in terms of stopping distance.
The front-wheel-drive Equinox also handled better when using snow tires than with all-season wheels. "On snow tires, both cars came to a halt about a car length sooner -- often the difference between a close call and a call to your insurance company," testers wrote. When using winter tires, both models also enjoyed a slight advantage in acceleration, cornering (how tightly a vehicle hugs the road in curves), and climbing a 10-percent grade. Bottom line, according to Popular Mechanics and virtually every other expert we consulted: AWD or not, winter tires trump all-weather tires in ice and snow. Unless otherwise indicated, pricing estimates in this report are per tire, and for the smallest size available at retail. Be aware that larger tires can cost more, sometimes a lot more. Pricing also doesn't include installation -- sometimes free, depending on your retailer -- and you can incur extra costs for balancing, stems, tire disposal, etc. If buying online, some sellers offer free shipping, but others do not;
shipping costs on one tire, let alone four, can sometimes be substantial. conducts the most exacting snow tire tests. , a tire retailer, also conducts impartial reviews and names best choices. We also found a very helpful six-tire test conducted by Car and Driver magazine. Testers in countries where winters are even fiercer than what we see in the U.S. also provide valuable insights, and we looked at feedback from experts such as Canada's Automobile Protection Association and the Norwegian Automobile Federation. We scoured hundreds of owner reviews, as well -- they're an essential piece of the puzzle -- to find out whether a given snow tire will really help you stay safe in the winter. When analyzing these reviews we take into consideration how well the tire grips on icy, snowy, wet and dry pavement, the quality and noise of the ride while using the tires, and how well the tread holds up over time.Just to let you know; this article is from 2011, so it's somewhat out of date. You could also try The Top Ten Dedicated Snow Tires For 2013.Most dedicated snow tires nowadays are good enough that studded tires are not generally needed except in the absolute worst of winter conditions.
If you do a lot of backcountry driving, or get deep snow that comes and stays for months, you might want to look into studded winter tires, but otherwise, studless tires are probably your best bet.These five snow tires are the best studless tires available for the safest and most comfortable winter driving. Dedicated snow tires should be replaced with performance tires for summer driving, so thinking about a second set of rims for winter tires can often save on the long term expense of swapping tires back and forth on one set of rims.A note on handling: If you read enough reviews or talk to enough customers, you will likely hear every winter tire ever made described as feeling “squishy” on dry roads. This is because compared to summer-only tires, all winter tires are in fact, “squishy” on dry roads, due to the flexibility of the rubber compound and the many other tradeoffs that winter tires must make. However, some winter tires are squishier than others and these degrees of squishiness are partly subjective and not always easily determined.
I tend to give only secondary weight to dry-road handling characteristics unless they are rather pronounced, whether for the good, as in the Dunlop Graspics, or the not so good, as with the Blizzak WS-70’s. The Graspic is very good in snow and handles quite well on cold dry pavement, but has some trouble with rain/ice/slush combinations. According to customers, they wear quite well, which is probably an effect of their dry road bias. Buy from Amazon » Bridgestone's WS-70 is certainly a huge improvement over their already-good WS-60, and may in fact have better performance on sheer ice than Michelin's X-Ice, which may or may not have to do with their top-secret rubber compound, which further may or may not contain metal particles. However, their top-secret compound wears quickly, and dry-road handling also suffers from excessive squishiness. Some people disparage Continental for being essentially a second-tier tire maker. I like Continental for being the very best of the second tier, for making decent, durable tires for daily drivers at great prices.
That's why I like seeing their excellent winter tire getting a lot of respect from testers, reviewers and customers. Conti's long relationship as a supplier of OEM tires for BMW makes these an especially good low-cost winter tire choice for BMW owners, as they often seem somewhat “dialed in” to handling the performance qualities of the car in winter conditions. Michelin has made no secret of their desire to catch up to Nokian in the extreme winter tire market, and the Xi2 is their latest attempt to do so. Many testers and reviewers consider the Xi2 to be as good as Nokian's Hakkapeliitta, while coming in at a lower price. During the summer, I found this a good enough rationale to place the Xi2's at #1.However, since then I've finally had a chance to drive the tires in the snow. Ultimately, in my opinion, the Xi2 is not quite as good a pure snow tire as the Nokian, but it is easily as close as anyone has yet come to it. Where the Xi2's really shine, however, is where they play to Michelin's strengths - performance, performance and performance.
Driving Xi2's on clear or plowed winter roads is more fun than on any winter tires out there. Couple that with excellent snow and ice grip at a relatively low price and you have a great all-around winter tire that's all Michelin. The Finnish tire company Nokian has a long history of making the best winter tires and driving technological innovation in the field. In fact, Nokian invented winter tires back in the 30's, and still holds more winter tire patents than all other tire companies combined. Nokian's long technological lead in areas like lateral grip and slushplaning resistance have made them leaders in the winter tire industry, and their commitment to non-petroleum oils and low rolling resistance are stances that the rest of the industry are just beginning to assimilate in a big way.The nearly unpronounceable and unspellable Hakkapeliitta R (Hah-kuh-puh-LEE-tuh) is currently the centerpiece of those traditions. the 75th anniversary of the Hakkapeliitta brand, Nokian has kept its dominance alive, albeit by a very thin margin over Michelin's Xi2's.
Although the Michelins are excellent tires, the Hakka R ekes out a victory almost solely on the basis of superior lateral grip, a Nokian specialty.Full Disclosure: I am a big fan of Nokian tires, and I'm not all that subtle about it. Lest you think I shill for the company, I have been driving on their tires by choice for about ten years now. I've been recommending them to family, friends, customers, random people in parking lots, etc., for about that long as well. All I've ever received from Nokian is the keychain and coffee mug I get every year at the dinner and marketing presentation they put on for area tire people. Hankook Icebear W300I personally am not a fan of Hankook in general, but their winter tire appears to be particularly awful. Hankook's Icebear fails American snow and ice tests, and most European testers won't even try them. The Canadian Automobile Protection Association says they are “not optimized for snow and ice”, which I assume is a polite Canadian term for “Yuck!”