Tires - "All Weather" tires - general info

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DriveGreen

Member
Joined
Apr 17, 2014
Messages
24
Location
Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
Google "all weather tires". They a new breed of tires, not to be confused with the popular "all season" tires.
The idea is that they perform well in winter and summer, without the rubber melting away. They make storing and swapping tires (with or without rims) twice a year unnecessary.

I have put Nokian WGR3 "all weather tires" in my 2008 Prius on October. So far I drove them in slush, over snow, on ice, cold wet pavement, anything this 2014/2015 winter can dish out. I love them so far. They ride a bit harder than the Ecopias I removed from the Prius. Supposedly this behavior is due to the HS rating of the special rubber compound. They are low rolling resistant and rates to 100,000km. Obviously I have no summer experience with them so far.

They are supposedly available in a wide range of sizes from Nokian. They may be good choice for iMiEV owers who drive their car in the winter. At least worth looking into them.
 
DriveGreen, hope that you don't object to my moving this thread into the "Wheels-Tires" Subforum.

I tried following your suggestion and never did find any "All Weather" tires in the i-MiEV sizes. Perhaps I missed something?

Since my primary figure of merit for tires (everything else being secondary) is Low Rolling Resistance, do you have any quantitative data comparing the Nokian tires with the OEM Dunlop Enasave?

Incidentally, a number of our forum participants have noted that the Dunlop Enasaves are pretty good in the snow.
 
All season (or 3 season) tires are famous for doing nothing very well - Everything is a compromise. I can only imagine that a true 4 season tire would be even worse. If it had a tread pattern that performed even moderately well on snow/ice, it surely wouldn't be very quiet on dry roads, nor would the traction be anything you could compare to a regular tire

If I lived where it snowed, I'd buy me an extra set of wheels for true 'winter tires'

Don
 
Don: could not agree with you more. If you live where ice and snow is a common occurrence, then winter tires are the best way to go.

Years ago when Consumers Reports first did testing on winter tires I found what they said to be so true: "...the best rated all-season tire on ice or snow will be inferior to the worst dedicated winter tire."

Winter tires have evolved to the point where they include both low rolling resistance and low noise. Nokian has recently come out with a new LRR winter tire, the R2. Size restrictions on the Miev limit the number of choices but winter tires are available.
 
Sorry for being away for so long. I just wrote the original note to create awareness. I have not even checked if they are available in the sizes the "i" needs.

I agree with you guys that all season tires are not really meant for the winter months. However, I was talking about "all season" or "all weather" tires. Check out
https://www.kaltire.com/all-weather-tires/

They are not for everyone but for us guys driving a runabout, with as low as 50km range during the winter, they might work OK.

After driving my Prius through this year's crappy winter on a set of Nokian WGR3, I consider these tires absolutely fine. On ice, over slush or snow they behaved just fine. Maybe not at par with a Michelin X Ice, but for my use, in city and on plowed highway they gave good feedback, allowed good control of the car. I am very pleased with them.

Now how long will they last in the summer heat, I don't know yet.
 
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