Learn me four season/all weather tires

I'm talking four season winter approved like these Kumhos, not all seasons, not snow tires.

Kumho calls them a high performance all weather tire

Most of the winter I'm driving on dry roads. For the days when it does snow I want to have the traction and safety of snows, but the other days I would like to have a little better handling and I can live without the road noise of an aggressive snow.

Any experiences or recommendations?

In reply to Peabody :

Vredestein Quatrac Pros. Best tire I've ever had for a daily driver. Just a very good, cheap versatile tire for rain, slush, and snow conditions. Some snow tires are great in snow, horrible in rain/slush, etc. so I think it's great for NJ winters. I've made it through forecasted snowstorms of 2 feet up here for years.

I'm in for learning more about real 4 season tires, but my application may be different than yours.

I am thinking of these for my 2007 Grand Cherokee, but waiting to see if until the fall to see if more reviews show up 

Pinza AT

I really like the Hankook 4S2, they also happen to have a $60 (mail in, ugh) rebate on a set of 4 until the end of April. 

I will say that the kumhos are absolutely amazing in the rain below 50 degrees on track. 

I'd probably lean more towards a performance winter tire vs an "all weather" tire as the performance winter doesn't need to make the same sacrifices to avoid melting in the summer. 

I actually got a good deal on a lightly used set of those Kumho Solus tires with nearly the same OD as my summer tires for the 86, but I probably won't drive on them until the end of this year, unless I put them on the back for drifting

In reply to rslifkin :

With silica based tread compounds, there's really not much with regards to tradeoffs at operating temperatures. And almost all of the all weather options will have a silica based compound, as ironically, do most of the high performance snow tires. The biggest thing with the high performance snow tires, is size availability is primarily focused in sizes for luxury SUVs with some trickle down to other options, but until you hit 18" and up, they won't be widely available. 

In reply to Peabody :

I had just recently learned of these tires that have the "snow and mountain" symbol but are considered all year round tires.  

General Atimmax 365, 60k warranty rating

Toyo Celsius, 60k warranty rating

The tread is not as "radical" as what you listed.  I think the Toyo tread looks effective.

In the video in the Toyo link above, they refer to these not as all seasons but "variable condition tires."  Interesting. 

Not exactly the question you asked, but so far I've been very happy with performance all seasons (conti dws06+). They're not snow tires for sure, but they're good enough that for my application the primary limiting factor seems to still be ground clearance more than anything else. They definitely don't have as much "no slip" traction, but once they start slipping and need to dig their way through soft surfaces, they seem to work about as well as real snow tires. And they don't run through half their tread depth in a single winter and drive like normal tires and can tolerate a fair amount of abuse on dry pavement. Honestly I'd call them like 80% of a snow tire combined with 90% of a mid level summer tire.

We've just (almost) come through our first winter on Michelin CrossClimate 2's. They've got the 3PMSF thing on them. This is for a 2020 Odyssey (so in some ways the complete opposite of a Spark, if that's your application) but I was quite happy in Ontario snow and rain. The previous Fall was good too. No clear idea about wear/longevity yet.

Spark? Yes, planning for next winter already, but I will use them on everything eventually if they do what I want.

Those Michelin's look very similar.  I'm not really concerned about longevity. Switching back and forth, we seem to wear them out as they get to about the age where we'd want to change them anyway. How was the road noise, and the handling? More like an all season, or still like a snow tire? You're running them year 'round?

In reply to John Welsh :

Those Toyo's look good. One of our cars has Altimax winters. And while they really are good in the snow, they are otherwise everything I've said I don't want. They're really noisy, handle  terribly - and look a lot like those.

I have used  the General Altimax tires on 2 cars and they work very well in rain and snow.    I have not noticed any abnormal or issues on dry pavement.

A while ago I had a set of Nokian "four season" tires on a BMW E34. I think it was the predecessor to the WR G4. They performed admirably overall but were louder than a set of all seasons and the tread wore down rather quickly.

The appeal is understandable but they didn't convince me to switch from dedicated summers and snows given that they were kind of expensive and didn't last all that long. Tire tech improves pretty quickly though, so maybe the newer ones are better?

The Vredestein Quatracs are pretty much magic. Very low rolling resistance, fine in light snow and ice, good ride, clean feedback to the steering wheel. 

I can attest to the Michelin CrossClimate 2's on our 2019 Odyssey. I used them for two winters where the snow and ice handling was impressive. I tested them in a blizzard and they handled 6 inches of snow with confidence. I can't compare them to snow tires as I've never owned any.

Dry performance is great, tire noise is much less than the OEM tires. These Odysseys like to cup tires on the rear axle but with 37 PSI and normal tire rotation the CrossClimate 2's have not cupped after 36000 miles. 
 

I fully recommend them! I'm considering putting a set on my NC Miata.

In reply to Peabody:

The Michelins replaced the OE no-season Bridgestones, so, yeah, they were a very noticeable improvement for noise and "stickiness." The van felt more planted and more capable immediately, in both dry and wet conditions. Yes, we plan to run these tires all year.

I have a set of Vredestein Quatrac Pros for SWMB's Accord that I got last summer. 235/40/19 It's a good summer tires and quiet. I thought they might be ok for a winter since they were new, but I was very underwhelmed with the winter performance. They are too big for winter tires on that car.

I ended up buying a set of  used Nokia Hakkappelita 215/55/17 and will go back to the 3 ( not 4 me) season Vredestein's in a few more weeks 

I've had Quatrac 5 on my CR-Z for a couple of years now. Unfortunately, they're not as quiet and nimble as my old summer only tires. Fortunately, they're not bald and trying to kill me six months out of the year since I moved from Louisiana to Chicago. 

I liked them so much, I bought a set of Kumhos with the 3PMSF for our 4Runner, but those have been a disappointment. They're nearly as likely to get you stuck in three inches of snow as the three seasons they replaced. 

In reply to Mike (Forum Supporter) :

Thanks for that. Kumho (at the top) was the one I was considering.

Thanks to everybody for the info, keep it coming

I should have a set of those top tires mounted on a set of stock Toyobaru wheels in the next couple weeks, if you're close by maybe we could go for a test drive...probably not a bad idea to be sure they won't rub the fender liners before winter comes around again DM me.

In reply to Peabody :

So, that last post was kinda late at night. I went and looked them up in my order history at Tire Rack.

Not so good on the 4Runner: 265/65R-17 Kumho Crugen HT51 SL 

Pretty dang good in the snow on the CR-Z: 195/55R-16 Vredestein Quatrac 5 SL (But May to October, the Potenza RE760 Sports I had before were better at pretty much everything.)

Late to the topic, But we had to say something.. it took us 1 month to test 5 different brands of tires and we didn't care if they were all season, all weather etc.. The main issue was that every tire we tested on our 2020 connect failed do to weak side wall design. Tire manufacturers tell me that they added the weaker side wall to help with fuel economy.. again that's what the manufacturers tell me. After 1 month of testing tires, it came down to the Nokian G4's and a random runflat tire. we're glad we tested the Nokian brand first as it proved to be very beneficial to our Van.

The Nokian g4's are listed as being all weather tires with several zones made into the tread pattern for all types of weather. One drawback is that the wet weather portion of the tire is on the inside tread area of the tire. I would rather have this in the middle or out edge of the tire. I say this because the van's camber is set so that hardly any of the wet weather treads makes contact with the pavement.

Since then, Nokian has discontinued the G4's and is now making the all new G5's. I was able to buy 4 tires off simpletire for half what it would cost to buy 3 years ago. I've stock up on the G4's till I can't bu anymore then convert to the G5's. I've yet to test the G5's but hope they to offer the same wear and durability we've come to expect from these tires.

I will add, these tires are somewhat noisy but we don't mind as we like the sound of the open road.

I have nothing nice to say about Kumho tires other than that they will last longer than you may be able to tolerate them.

I can say the same thing for the Nitto tires on 17inch wheels.. these were extremely flopped mounted on the van.