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yes, but Posted by Snowmobile [Email] (#686) [Profile/Gallery] (more from Snowmobile) on Wed, 2 May 2018 12:14:19 In Reply to: Re: Hehe, shows how important individual preference is, TG, Wed, 2 May 2018 07:33:55 Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup |
especially anymore... many "all season" tires are basically summer tire designs with a bit wider temperature performance. I think this is for marketing reasons, as many high performance "AS" tires have similar performance and tread design to summer-only tires of years past.
Ecopia is designed primarily around low rolling resistance, and long tire life. It's a very straight up non-directional symmetric. I'm not at all surprised it is terrible in snow. I would have been shocked if someone said it was even ok!
The RE970-AS is an "all season" tire also, from the same company, but totally different in terms of road performance (it is great in terms of handling and water displacement, but not LRR). Again though, useless in snow and ice. More or less a summer tire but with tread compound that gets through a bit of the shoulder seasons.
Directional tires like the RE970 and Gmax as-03 (also all season but useless in winter) are actually pretty good at shedding snow/slush like they do with water, but the rest of the tire doesn't grip very well on icy stuff. Not enough siping. You wouldn't want all that siping in summer anyway, which is why it is good to run snows in winter (if you get winter).
Probably the good alternative if you want a true 4 season tire in a climate that gets some snow and ice is something like the Nokian WR series tires that are all season but have the mountain snowflake symbol. Not sure how great these tires perform in summer, but they are targeting year round use.
I feel like I have noticed a decrease in snow performance of Nokian tires over the past decades as they have tried to reduce the LRR of their winter line. The Scandinavians like environmentally friendly products, so LRR makes sense, but it must be a tricky balancing act between that and having lots of deep grooves for snow expulsion. Probably studs don't help LRR much either! I have noticed an improvement going from Hakka R (a year ago) to R2 (this year) on the 9-5 (new tire compound and slightly different shaped tread that is more like their older designs).
->Posting last edited on Wed, 2 May 2018 12:19:08.
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