They compared all‑season tires with summer and winter ones. Results are surprising

There is no doubt that all-season tires are becoming increasingly popular due to our temperate climate and mild winters. Many drivers try such tires and usually never purchase summer or winter ones again. Usually, those who are not convinced, but also aware drivers who use tires in difficult conditions, choose this. For example, they live in the mountains or have a car with good performance.

As they do every year, Tire Reviews has tested all-season tires for the upcoming winter season, also checking how such tires perform compared to summer and winter tires. They disclosed (which unfortunately rarely happens in these types of comparisons) which seasonal tires they used. Which means we have a very good comparison.

For comparison, tires from Hankook in the size 195/65 R15 were used - typical for cars of the B and C segments. So we have a comparison of three types of tires from one brand:

• All-season tires: Hankook Kinergy 4S2,
• Summer tires: Hankook Kinergy Eco 2,
• Winter tires: Hankook Winter I cept RS3. 

All-season tires, by design, should not outperform summer tires on dry surfaces, but the Kinergy 4S2 tire recorded a better lap time than the summer Kinergy Eco 2. This may be due to the fact that the chosen model of summer tire is largely designed with low rolling resistance in mind.

The tires of probably the same brand by the name of Ventus Prime 3 would likely have performed faster. Nevertheless, this test shows how closely the performance of all-season tires has come to that of summer tires, which used to always have a big gap. Of course, there's no surprise that the winter tire achieved the worst time.

It's not surprising that the "winter tire" had the worst braking on a dry road, and the summer tire performed the best. Where did the all-season tire end up? It turns out that it was 8.53 feet behind the summer tire, but 15.35 feet ahead of the winter tire. So, once again, the all-season tires have performances closer to the summer ones.

Roughly somewhere between seasonal tires were the all-seasons on wet pavement during a braking test. The braking distance of the all-season tires was longer than the summer ones by 3.12 feet and shorter than the winter ones by 5.02 feet.

However, an all-season tire took longer to go around the test track than a winter tire, which is an interesting result. The all-season tires outperformed the summer tires though, indicating a weakness in the summer tires. Interestingly, winter tires outperformed both all-season and summer tires in the aquaplaning test. This is a loss of traction at a certain speed. Surprisingly, the Hankook winter tires allow for the fastest speed.

It is generally accepted that the most weaknesses in all-season tires can be seen in the snow. Do they perform poorly compared to winter ones? The test showed that not necessarily. During the braking test on the snow, they stopped about 7 feet further than winter tires. Considering that they were around 5 feet better on wet road and over 13 feet on a dry one, this can be considered a good compromise.

The all-season tires clearly lagged behind the winter ones on the track test. The time was significantly worse here. However, the acceleration on snow at speeds ranging from about 3 to 25 mph was only about 0.65 s worse. You could say that the difference is negligible.

All-season tires also turned out to be better in terms of rolling resistance than winter tires and noisier than summer ones. As for price, the evaluation is subjective, as we are considering the Polish market. In one of the bigger online stores, the cheapest tire we can buy is an all-season tire - even though the difference is symbolic - and the most expensive is a winter tire. However, if we chose a different summer model (Hankook Ventus Prime 3), we would pay the least for it ($70). But one must remember, despite the lower price, all-season tires would theoretically have to be replaced more often, because we use them throughout the year.