How bad are all season tires?
 

I might be swapping out the OEM tires soon, and I'm wondering about summer tires vs. all seasons.

I know people say all seasons are bad, but can we be more specific? Are we talking about adding tenths of a second at the track, or will it significantly impact daily driving enjoyment?

I'm leaning towards summers, though it sure would be nice to be able to drive when it's cold (if the roads are clear).

Summer tires are fantastic for daily driving, but so are all seasons. You won't get the amount of grip from an all season that the summer has, but how often are you really on the limit daily driving? All seasons will also last longer than a summer tire and work better when the temperatures get low. I've heard good things about the Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3. It seems to be a great all season option with the grip of a lower level summer tire. Kind of the best of both worlds.

Second the pilot sport A/S 3's. I have them, and have nearly worn a set out in 30k miles (which is not my favorite thing about them, to say the least). They grip better in the wet than the stock bridgestone turanzas did in the dry. They've also lasted half the mileage.

Your mileage may vary (of course). Summers will wear even faster than the A/S 3's. I wager you won't notice the difference during daily driving, except in colder months when the summers aren't worth a crap.

Bad all seasons will damage your daily driving experience. They're super cheap tho.

Good all seasons are probably a good compromise for daily driving, and occasional autocross. They cost more than bad ones.

Good summers will turn into pieces of plastic when the weather turns cold, even worse if cold and wet. But they'll be a peach on the track. They'll cost more, probably.

What kind of weather and more importantly temperatures do you normally drive in? a summer tire is terrible in sub 50 degrees. some places like california, texas, florida etc can get away with summers year round. Not too many other places in the states can IMO. you would either need two sets of tires summer and winter, or just run an all season. or get an all season and a track tire setup if you plan on doing several track events a year.

Edit: Googling virginia's monthly temps looks like you have about 5 months a year with avgs under 50. and you get moderate rainfall.

Virginia, so it definitely gets below 50 degrees at times (rarely, below 20, which I've heard is the cracking point of a summer tire). I've been driving my backup car when it was below 40. I don't have space to store another set of tires.

Now I'm thinking about getting good all seasons. This isn't the advice I expected to get, so I'm glad I asked.

I reckon that a good set of all season tires would serve you well where you live and the type of driving you do.

When I DDrove my Miata, had two sets of wheels, one with summer tires and one set with all season tires and I switched twice a year.

When my FR-S was new, I installed a set of all season tires, with the intention of swapping them each year. I found that I liked the all seasons so well, I never switched back.


humfrz

You could go for all seasons, but you could also keep your oem tires for winter/ fall, and the have the summers during warmer months. But if you don't want to swap tires, then you can always get a good all-season. I had Continental DWS-06 tires on my previous FRS and loved them.

I had a set Michelin A/S + (they were replaced by the A/S3) and they feel more like a summer tire than an A/S. I'm not saying they are a perfect tire for everyone, but as tires for DD go, they are really really good, especially if it rains a bunch where you are. Having said that, I replaced the A/S+ with MPSS. And ran MPSS for 5 sets of tires. Im going to get MPS4S next though.

If anything, all seasons with "less grip" would provide more enjoyment, with the added security in the winter and reduced complexity of not having to keep 2 sets of wheels.

As others mention, not all tires are the same. A good A/S tire might offer better performance than a bad summer tire.

The advantage of our cars is low weight and reasonable power. It takes a lot to overwhelm the tires on the street, even if you are speeding. A Mustang GT with A/S tires is probably going to spin tires in 4th and feel really sketch at the limit. In the FR-S, in normal 5-7/10ths driving, you won't see a night and day difference, if any.

I'll advise that I have MPSS and they are excellent in the dry and rain. But you can not drive in even a light dusting of snowl; they generally turn to garbage below 50 degrees. Under 30, you will need 3x the braking distance in a panic stop. However, I've had these tire for almost 30K miles and they are just now at 3/16 tread. They have held up remarkably well even with me dumping the clutch and flinging it through corners.

I think what it mostly comes down to is, speaking specifically to our cars, how hard do you drive?

If your car is a daily driver and maybe you only occasionally hit a back road or take an onramp fast, but you also deal with a lot of cold weather, then A/S is probably a good bet if you don't want to deal with swapping tires or getting stuck in a snow storm.

I had all seasons (A/S3) and I had summer tires (MPSS, Firehawk Indy) and I would never go back to all seasons.

All seasons are fine if you're not about the grip life. They will be quieter, softer, cheaper, last longer. I want to add something though. A summer tire can work very well in the rain, and mild summer tires work fine until freezing temps. The response you get from a stiff sidewall summer tire is amazing, you will notice that every time you turn the steering wheel.

If you really cannot do both, get the Michelin A/S3.

Uhh... unless he is one of the few who got Bridgestones from the factory, his OEM tires are SUMMER tires, and should not be used in winter weather.

After owning both the PSS and the A/S 3+. PSS is better if you like to drive to the limit in street condition and there aren't any snow in the area. A/S 3+ have 8/10 of the grip but with improved performance in the rain and snow. If this is your only vehicle then i would go with the a/s3 +. If you need track tires go with semi slicks instead of PSS.

What made the A/S 3+ better in the rain? I had the PSS for a few years, and they were utterly fantastic in the wet.

Whats with the capitalizing of the word summer?

Yes, a summer tire can crack around 20 degrees, however around 50 and below it starts to become harder and drastically loses performance, the top michellin all season will have more grip around 50 degrees vs the top michellin summer tire, and the difference will become greater and greater as it gets colder and colder, although as it gets warmer and warmer the opposite will be true and the summer will obviously be better.

Now you mention you have another vehicle, if you didn't mind garaging your car for roughly 2-3 months when it routinely gets below 40, you could get away with the summers, they would still be adequate for the other 2 months in the 40-50 degree weather just not ideal. but then you would have optimal performance for roughly 6 months a year when its 50+.

To emphasize that they aren't all-seasons, which is what you implied when you suggested he use them in the winter...

I feel you were trying to be demeaning. But whatever.

I think you're being way too sensitive about the way in which I converted what would have been an emphasized word when speaking, into an emphasized word via text. It's much more of a PITA to use the formatting tools when you're replying on a mobile device. Allow me try again:

Uhh... unless he is one of the few who got Bridgestones from the factory, his OEM tires are summer tires, and should not be used in winter weather.

Is that less offensive?

Most adequate.

https://i.imgur.com/c7NJRa2.gif

Get good all-seasons for DD, go on Craigslist and buy a spare set of OEM wheels and put a set of RE-71s or Pilot SSes for track/AutoX. :D (this is basically what I did).

Here's a set of wheels with "almost new" tires on them that could take over for your DD - all in for less than a set of tires alone.

Or there are other options.

A common misconception people have is summer tires are worse in the rain, i used to believe this as well. but actually summer tires often out perform all season in the rain, or any scenario really. The only draw back compared to all season is generally, noise, ride comfort, wear, and they are completely horrible below 40 degrees, and about equal in 50 degree weather, they really shine about 55+ degrees.

Obviously each specific tire (like the two mentioned) can/could be different, but generally speaking this is true.

was already mentioned and recommended. OP says he doesn't have space to store a set of extra tires.

I have a 45 degree or warmer rule for driving my car on summer tires.

Exactly why I was asking. They are summer tires; they aren't dry tires. Wet handling is just as important of a benchmark for summer tires as it is for all-seasons.

D'oh... I read I promise! :D

That's definitely something I considered. But my other car is 16 years old, it won't last forever, and I don't really like driving it. If good all seasons can make my FR-S close to a year round car without hurting summer performance all that much, I think that's my answer.

To be fair, our cars were engineered to fit 4 wheels with tires in stock size, so the " I can't fit another set" is bologna. A real dedicated professional would jump at the chance to drive every day with his track tires in the back!!!!

I second the DWS 06's if you decide to go with all-seasons. I just picked up my second set, with 40k out of the first set. I strongly considered going to a summer performance tire since I picked up a set of winter tires for the stock wheels, however knowing our climate stuck with a phenomenal performing all-season.

When my winter vehicle blew up unexpectedly last year I was able to get around in 4" of snow with them, mostly ok... Never got stuck but came close a couple times.

Though to open another can of worms, after picking up a dedicated winter tire I was completely blown away how much fun and easy the car was to drive with them. Plus since my truck died we had the worst winter we've seen in like 25 years lol...

My experiences:

When I bought my car, it came with a set of Accelera PHI R all season tires. They were basically fine during the summer/fall regular driving, but utterly useless the first time it snowed. I got stuck and had to leave my car in a parking lot and get a ride home from AAA.

Next week, I switched to a set of Blizzak WS80 winter tires. It snowed again pretty quickly after that, and the difference was staggering. When I was on the all seasons, I was sliding all over the place. Every time I tried to pull away from a stop, the rear wheels would just spin and spin. On the Blizzaks, I never had any problems. I watched big AWD SUVs sliding around and I just drove around them. Personally, I probably wont ever run all-seasons on this car ever again.

Switched to Firehawk Indy 500s for the summer and have been loving them so far.

Since ol @Tcoat has limited internet access, I'll sit in and respond for him.

"Obviously, @qcbaker, you don't know how to drive on snow covered roads and are blaming your inability on all season tires - :rolleyes:

I have been driving on snow covered Canadian roads for over 40 years with no problems. Most of my tires were bias ply, retreads with the cords showing.

So, learn how to drive on snowy roads or move to Hawaii and buy a Civic!"

for @Tcoat by humfrz


humfrz
:scared0016:

^^Haha!

How many miles do you have on your car? 6 sets of tires ought to last 175,000 miles at least unless you drive like a 25 year old ;) The least I've gotten out of a set on this car is about 25k on winters that were driven right into the summer on hot pavement otherwise it's been 40k or so for all seasons. I've just put the third set of 3 season tires on and I'm at 115k now.

Almost 80k, but the roads where I live are old rough country roads. I destroy tires. Im @ 8k or so on my current set, want new ones already.

Recommending someone buy one of those two tires side by side is like recommending buying a good second car like a brand new Cayman GT4 or a used NC Miata.


*Buying my fourth set of RE71R's this week which will be my 8th set of tires for this car at 78k miles.
Edit: none of them were all seasons

OH
Oh
Oh
Let me do Hum!

I remember back in the day when I was assigned to go investigate the affect the encroaching glaciers had upon the feeding ground of the woolly mammoth. I gathered up my assistant Axle and secretary Mimi (she had a pair of mukluks that would keep you warm all night if you know what I mean), we grabbed our stone axes and clay fertility symbols and off we went. When we reached the edge of the plains and the forest started to thin we stopped for a few days and chopped down a couple of trees to make a travois for Mimi to pull (it is women's work). After a few miles Mimi started to complain that the strap was hurting her mukluks since the contraption was too hard to pull. I got the idea that if we put another log in front of the travois it could roll over it. That worked better but then Axle and I were kept very busy putting the log back in front. Eventually he had the idea of cutting two small section of logs and attaching them together with a small bar (ya he named that part after himself the conceited bastard) which we could then attach to the travois so we wouldn't have to keep placing the log. This worked very well and we knew we were onto something big. We were going to name the round things after me but hums was already taken for songs without words so we were sort of stuck. We were still debating what to call them when we came to a bit of a downhill slope and the contraption started moving faster than Mimi could manage. We all jumped on (the contraption not Mimi) and as it got faster and faster Mimi started to yell "WHEEEEEEEEEL". The rest of the story is prehistory!

Time for me nap

Summer tires totally suck in the cold.
Winter tires totally suck in the heat.
All season tires only slightly suck in the cold or heat.
They are a compromise but are perfect for a DD in certain areas where the temperatures don't get too high or too low during the year.
I would not use all seasons in a place that is 90 or higher or 45 or lower for half the year.

Add me to the list of guys that are very, very happy with their A/S 3+ tires on their street driven daily driver. They are only 3 season tires for me though since I do still switch to actual winter tires when it is 0 and lower with deep snow. All seasons can't handle that shit.

:lol:

That was good - :D


humfrz

Yep, I got the picture - "ol strat61caster was here".

:D


humfrz

daily driving, not hooning, i doubt that you'll notice a difference.

i run all-seasons all the time now. i've never had summer tires besides the oem eco tires. i did run winter tires for 2 seasons.

i'm very happy with all-seasons. i use the bfgoodrich g-force comp 2 a/s. they're stickier than the oem tires, and if winter tires are 10/10 traction in snowy/icy conditions, these are 7-8/10's. i expect they would perform similarly to pure-summer tires. it simply means that i'm slightly slower, slightly more slippery, but still very much in control. i don't need 10/10's for the way i drive my car.

in my area around chicago, snow/ice on the roads generally last about 8-10 hours after any snow/rain event, during which they salt the crap out of the roads. by the next day, the majority of roads are clear enough that the oem eco tires function fine, but because they're summer tires, the rubber compound isn't correct for the ambient temperature in those conditions. and when the roads get more than 4" of snow, people generally fall into a panic and they create driving bans so i don't need extreme ground clearance or spectacular winter tire traction.

for me, i like maintaining vehicles in a state that i can rely on it if needed under any condition, and all seasons, while a compromise in ultimate performance, offer a larger degree of conditions that i can rely on the vehicle to operate within.