Menu

What is an all-season tyre?

Serhii Maslov Section: Winter tyres Updated: First published:
What is an all-season tyre?

All-season tyres are considered to be tyres designed for use at temperatures close to zero on either side. You need to understand here that only some manufacturers make such tyres, and they make them with an eye to use in developed countries and in moderate weather conditions. This is, of course, mainly about the quality of the road surface.

All-season tyres, both in their chemical composition and in their tread pattern, are absolutely unsuited to heat and to severe frost, and their behaviour on snow and slush on the road is only slightly better than that of classic summer tyres. What is more, these tyres are, as a rule, intended for city streets that are cleared regularly. So if your city’s road-clearing services do their job well and you have money and time to spare, you can fit such a tyre for a few weeks in late autumn and early spring. That is all: at no other time is such a tyre any good, at least not in most regions of Ukraine.

Do not even count on being able to drive safely all year round on one single tyre, unless, of course, you live somewhere near the equator or inside the Arctic Circle. So an “all-season” tyre’s position on the market really means “between-seasons”, by analogy with women’s demi-season boots.

More on this topic

Asymmetric treadAn asymmetric winter tyre is a good alternative to a classic winter tyre, possibly even with improved figures, although a lot here depends on the specific model and maker. What is rubber hardness on the Shore scale?Hardness and stiffness are different things, and greater hardness and stiffness are not always good or even needed for every condition. High-speed winter tyre, or “European winter”Many makers now produce high-speed winter tyres. As a rule they have a high speed rating and a strongly “sporty” tread pattern. Where do people usually buy part-worn tyres?Buying tyres from someone you know is certainly safer, because you are more likely to find out the truth (or at least part of it) about the tyres’ past. How do you choose tyre width for the season?In reality, all else being equal, tyre width only affects one parameter: the size of the tyre’s contact patch with the road surface. What does that mean? Classic winter tyresA classic winter tread. Everything here is moderate. Medium lateral gaps, wide longitudinal grooves, classic tread block height: 7-8 mm. A tyre like this can be either directional or not.

In this section

Tyre testsOften the main argument for choosing a particular tyre becomes the place it won in some “independent” test - how justified is that?