Know Your Tires: All-Season vs Summer

Whoever coined the term “all-season tire”

in the late 1970s probably wasn’t trying to mislead tire buyers. Instead, they were trying to play catch-up with Goodyear’s hugely successful Tiempo, a tire that was wonderful “for all seasons, for all year,”

according to its TV jingle

.

Still, near-universal confusion sprung from the name all-season. Most people have the mistaken belief that all-season tires are better in spring showers and fall rains than regular tires. (Regular tires have become known as summer or, more accurately, three-season tires.) I’ve found many tire-company employees, automaker engineers, and car writers who don’t know the correct answer, either.

Here’s the truth: “All-season” doesn’t mean the tire has great performance in all seasons. It means that the tire is a compromise—the designer traded wet grip to gain some mobility in snow, give drivers tires that could provide adequate year-round performance, and save them the trouble of changing their tires before and after the winter.

But “some mobility in snow” is not the same thing as “good grip in snow.” The snow traction of all-season tires varies from great to almost none. And an all-season tire has less damp-road grip than an otherwise equal summer tire from the same manufacturer. So winter is the only season when an all-season tire offers more traction than a summer tire. If you live where it never snows, the three-season regular tire always holds the traction advantage.

Rain and Snow

Another bit that adds to the confusion: A tire’s ability to disperse deep water is independent of its all- or three-season designation. Stay with me: On damp or lightly wet roads, it’s your tread rubber, often called the compound, that’s the main factor in determining traction. Stickier and softer compound is better for both dry and damp pavement.

But in deep water and at high speeds, a tire’s ability to stay in contact with the pavement (tire engineers call it hydroplaning resistance) depends more on the tread pattern: the lateral and longitudinal grooves. Tread patterns that are excellent at dispersing water can be found on both all-season and summer tires. Not-so-good tread patterns are found on both too. Lastly, wear matters a lot. If underinflated or half-worn, a tire with a wonderful compound and a great tread pattern may not match a mediocre tire that’s brand-new and inflated to the vehicle manufacturer’s specifications.

Summer (or regular or three-season) tires have inadequate snow traction for the same reason they provide great damp-road traction: their soft, grippy tread compound. That compound starts to harden at subfreezing temperatures. An all-season tire trades the summer tire’s damp-road grip for the ability to remain flexible at well-below-zero temperatures.

What to Buy

If you’re seeking replacement tires that will increase traction on wet and damp roads, switch from your original-equipment all-season tires to summer tires. The opposite is true, too. If your performance car, all-wheel drive or not, is terrible in the snow, the fault can almost certainly traced to its summer tires.

When looking for summer tires to replace not-so-grippy all-season tires, see if the maker of your original tires offers a summer tire with the same model name, but without the A/S (all-season) suffix. That’s your best bet. If your car came with summer tires and you fear getting caught in a snow shower, you’re in luck if the maker of your original equipment tires produces an all-season version of that model. (Read more about buying replacement tires here.)

If those choices aren’t available, check for new options at online tire stores. There is no tire industry standard or government specification for all-season, summer, or three-season tires. Tire companies make their own assessments, and those assessments are far from uniform among manufacturers. So read the reviews online. Ignore the outliers and look for a general agreement.

While it may or may not be true that clothes make the person, the right tires can make a mediocre car excel, and the wrong tires can turn a beauty into a beast.

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