How bad are all season tires?

[why?]

sell your second car and use the money to buy summer tires and winter tires. Problem solved.


This car really is a year round car with winter tires.


Good all seasons will perform as good as the stock tires in a bunch of situations not driving the crap out of them. Plus they are much cheaper in the long run. As long as you don't see any amount of snow. They suck horrifically in the snow. Winter tires are a must if you see any amount of snow accumulation, then this car becomes amazingly fun to drive in snow.

[BigTuna]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

OH
Oh
Oh
Let me do Hum!
Time for me nap

This just made my morning.

[Johnny Horsepower]

Originally Posted by why?

sell your second car and use the money to buy summer tires and winter tires. Problem solved.

This car really is a year round car with winter tires.

For people who do that, do they swap tires just twice a year? Or could it be multiple times a week during season changes?

We have wide temperature fluctuations here--just the other day the high was 50, but the next day's high was 80. Yeah, summer tires are OK in both cases, but shift the temps and you want winters one day, summers the next, and maybe winters the next, and maybe summers the next.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Johnny Horsepower

For people who do that, do they swap tires just twice a year? Or could it be multiple times a week during season changes?

We have wide temperature fluctuations here--just the other day the high was 50, but the next day's high was 80. Yeah, summer tires are OK in both cases, but shift the temps and you want winters one day, summers the next, and maybe winters the next, and maybe summers the next.

For your location a good set of A/S tires would do you year round with no need to swap all the time.

[NoHaveMSG]

Originally Posted by Johnny Horsepower

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.

Just to touch on this point. It only really applies to 200TW tires from what I have seen. I know some, like the RS4 come with a warning about running them below 40. I run 340TW summer tires year round, Conti Extreme Contacts. No issue, you notice a loss of grip when it starts to get down in the low 40's, but it is not terrible and if you are driving like a normal polite human it's not a big deal. I regularly get freezing weather out here over the winter.

[Johnny Horsepower]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

For your location a good set of A/S tires would do you year round with no need to swap all the time.

Agreed in my case, I was just curious about how the summer/winter swappers do it. Seems like you need to count on steady temperature changes, or use three sets of tires. Or change them frequently, or just not care that much.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Johnny Horsepower

Agreed in my case, I was just curious about how the summer/winter swappers do it. Seems like you need to count on steady temperature changes, or maybe you need three sets of tires.

I wait until the temperatures reach a moderately level point and then switch. Since I use the A/S tires this gives me a run from about early December to late April where I run the winters. The A/S are fine within that range but can get a bit dicey when we get a one or two day run at 0 or below.
If I was running summer tires instead of all seasons I would have to change to the winters in mid October and leave them until Mid may or risk having to drive on hockey pucks every now and then. Since I am adverse to crashing I would rather have the squishy winters in warmer weather than the rock solid summers in the cold. I would never consider switching back and forth based on weather since here things can change in an hour so you would always be running the risk of having the wrong tires for the conditions anyway. Winter tires can be run in warmer weather but it is hard on them if it stays warm for a prolonged period.

[Stang70Fastback]

Originally Posted by NoHaveMSG

Just to touch on this point. It only really applies to 200TW tires from what I have seen. I know some, like the RS4 come with a warning about running them below 40.

The Pilot Sport 4S I'm currently using is a 300TW rated tire, but comes with a very stern warning about possible damage to the tire if driven in freezing temperatures. And it isn't just hypothetical. A lot of Corvette owners had issues with cracking rubber compound because they were taking delivery of new cars with these tires in cold regions, and the rubber was breaking apart at those temperatures.

My BRZ stays in the garage if I know the temperature is going to drop near freezing here in Chicago (until I swap to my winter set). I spent too much on these tires to risk damaging them, lol.

[Johnny Horsepower]

To give some more info here:

I had heard that the OEM tires combine the price and temperature restrictions of a summer tire with the warm weather performance of a winter tire. While I have no basis for comparison yet, I was planning to get something different at the next opportunity. Then I found they have dry rot. OK, a little more urgency. Then I punctured a tire a couple of days ago. OK, let's look into some tires.

On Sunday, my tire pressure warning light came on. Went to get air, one tire was at 10, brought it up to 35. The next morning, the light came back on. I already knew what the problem was.

I have some neighbors who are candidates for the Worst Person Alive award. In addition to general rowdiness, letting a 2 year old girl run around after midnight, and throwing trash off their balcony, their final act before moving out was to shatter a large mirror in the parking lot. I've been trying to drive around it, but it's been spreading the last few days.

When I bought my car, the dealer gave me a thumb drive with several documents, one of which said that while the warranty doesn't cover tires, if I buy tires from them during the warranty period, I get them for 20% off, if I surrender the old tires and pay in cash. So I called them to ask exactly what they mean by "cash." After being transferred from service to parts to "a service advisor" (very different from just "service"), I found that they have no idea where I'm getting this from.

I have it in writing, but it's just a piece of paper. It's not going to beat them up and make them give me the deal. But I wondered, if I showed up and gave them the document, would they honor the deal, or do they rely on people not being willing to take them to court?

It turned out to be a moot point, as they're offering a buy 3, get 1 free special anyway. But I decided I'd rather patronize my independent mechanic.

And I just heard back from my mechanic--the problem was actually a nail. And then I realized I had never actually examined the tire, I was just sure it was the broken glass. But instead of just patching it, I'm going to get new tires now. I'll order the Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3+, and my mechanic will mount, balance, and align for $125.

[Feistyfrog]

^^^it's actually pretty rare that glass or miroir will punture tires these days. The weight of the car will just crush the debris.

I own a distribution company for glass products and there's plenty of debris falling from my client's trucks , so the parking is always covered with small pieces.

Two days after I got my new tires, I went there and got a flat the same day. I thought mayby it was because of some glass shards, but no, another roofing nail...

[strat61caster]

Originally Posted by gravitylover

Wow you guys are hard on tires. Maybe my perception is skewed because most of my miles are highway which is easier on them but I was disappointed I didn't get much over 30k on the Conti's considering the crap stockers got me well over 40k (miserable miles).

Yes I'm buying my 8th set of tires at around 80k miles, but half of them were not for street use, realistically I'm averaging between 20k-30k miles per set of street tires.

Sticking with 300-ish TW summer tires and not driving the car hard or having a messed up alignment, yeah 30k-40k is pretty reasonable. Pilot Super Sports have a 30k mile treadwear warranty for instance.

[Stang70Fastback]

Originally Posted by strat61caster

Yes I'm buying my 8th set of tires at around 80k miles, but half of them were not for street use, realistically I'm averaging between 20k-30k miles per set of street tires.

Sticking with 300-ish TW summer tires and not driving the car hard or having a messed up alignment, yeah 30k-40k is pretty reasonable. Pilot Super Sports have a 30k mile treadwear warranty for instance.

I got about 25,000 miles out of my Pilot Super Sports. Granted a lot of that was road trips, or daily commuting, but the point is if you just drive "normally," they shouldn't vanish overnight! In fact, they still had a good amount of tread left, but I went too long between alignments, and something fucked up my toe. Took my wheels off a few months later and discovered cords on the inner edges, lol. That was an early swap to winter tires last October! Lesson learned: $65 alignment is cheaper than $1000 in tires.

[humfrz]

Originally Posted by Stang70Fastback

I got about 25,000 miles out of my Pilot Super Sports. Granted a lot of that was road trips, or daily commuting, but the point is if you just drive "normally," they shouldn't vanish overnight! In fact, they still had a good amount of tread left, but I went too long between alignments, and something fucked up my toe. Took my wheels off a few months later and discovered cords on the inner edges, lol. That was an early swap to winter tires last October! Lesson learned: $65 alignment is cheaper than $1000 in tires.

humfrz

[why?]

Originally Posted by Johnny Horsepower

For people who do that, do they swap tires just twice a year? Or could it be multiple times a week during season changes?

We have wide temperature fluctuations here--just the other day the high was 50, but the next day's high was 80. Yeah, summer tires are OK in both cases, but shift the temps and you want winters one day, summers the next, and maybe winters the next, and maybe summers the next.

50 is fine for summer tires, and a day or two of warmer weather will not hurt winter tires. I wait for the first forecast of freezing weather to change them, but really if you keep them on a 2nd set of wheels changing them out is easy.


All seasons are good enough but will never be as good as the top line summer tires. And they are horrific in any accumulation of snow.