If you live in a part of the world that sees an extreme winter such as the Northern USA, Canada, and the Northern parts of Europe, you'll know that regular central European winter tyres just don't cut it.
Winters which see snow on the roads for many months and lots of ice need extreme winter tyres, and there are two types to choose from. The original is the studded winter tyre, a tyre which has studs (pieces of metal) inserted into the soft winter compound allowing the tyre to really bite into the snow and ice below.
Sadly, as great as studs are, they're damaging to the roads which is why tyre companies invented a category of winter tyre called studless friction winter tyres. While these don't have studs, they do have a vastly improved ability on snow and ice when compared to a "normal" winter tyre, and with advances in compounding technology they are quickly becoming an excellent alternative for all but the most extreme climates.
To find out which of these are best, and to see the difference between studded winter tyres and studless friction winter tyres, the excellent testers at the Finnish magazine Tekniikan Maailma have tested nine studded winter tyres and seven studless winter tyres in the same test, all in 205/55 R16, to show us the differences in the dry, wet, snow and ice performances!
Unfortunately our website doesn't currently allow us to highlight which tyre is studded and which is a friction winter tyre, it's marked in the results at the bottom of the page which is the best we could do, sorry!
The differences between the two categories of tyre are certainly interesting, and even a little surprising in parts.
Starting with ice, in every ice test all the studded tyres out performed all the friction tyres by a reasonable margin, this is not surprising.
In the snow, the two types of tyre were essentially even, with the first seven places of snow handling alternating between studded and friction! If one type of tyre had to win, it would be the studded tyre, but the margin was almost nothing.
In the dry and wet, the CST friction tyre out performed the pack, but but given it's poor performance on snow and ice it's probably because its design is more of a central european winter tyre intended for milder climates. Dry braking had nearly all the tyres separated by just one meter with a small advantage to the studs where as wet braking had larger margins with a small advantage to the friction tyres.
Unsurprisingly, the studless friction tyres were all considerably quieter than the studded tyres, and on average had a lower rolling resistance.
See below for the full data and the overall results at the bottom of the page.
Dry & Wet
Dry Braking
Spread: 4.04 M (13.7%)|Avg: 31.46 M
Dry braking in meters (80 - 0 km/h) (Lower is better)
CST Medallion Winter WCP1
29.40 M
Pirelli Ice Zero 2
29.90 M
Westlake IceMaster Spike Z 50
31.00 M
Michelin X Ice North 4
31.10 M
Nokian Hakkapeliitta 10
31.40 M
Michelin X Ice Snow
31.50 M
Continental IceContact 3
31.50 M
Kumho WinterCraft Ice Wi51
31.50 M
Bridgestone Noranza 001
31.50 M
Hankook Winter I cept iZ2 W616
31.50 M
Nokian Hakkapeliitta R3
31.60 M
Goodyear UltraGrip Arctic 2
31.70 M
Continental VikingContact 7
31.80 M
Goodyear UltraGrip Ice 2
31.80 M
Kumho WinterCraft Ice
32.70 M
Hankook Winter i pike RS2
33.44 M
Wet Braking
Spread: 8.40 M (29.1%)|Avg: 34.43 M
Wet braking in meters (80 - 0 km/h) (Lower is better)
CST Medallion Winter WCP1
28.90 M
Nokian Hakkapeliitta R3
32.30 M
Goodyear UltraGrip Ice 2
33.50 M
Pirelli Ice Zero 2
33.60 M
Continental IceContact 3
33.70 M
Kumho WinterCraft Ice Wi51
33.80 M
Continental VikingContact 7
33.80 M
Westlake IceMaster Spike Z 50
34.00 M
Hankook Winter I cept iZ2 W616
34.40 M
Goodyear UltraGrip Arctic 2
34.90 M
Hankook Winter i pike RS2
35.40 M
Nokian Hakkapeliitta 10
35.90 M
Bridgestone Noranza 001
36.00 M
Michelin X Ice Snow
36.10 M
Michelin X Ice North 4
37.30 M
Kumho WinterCraft Ice
37.30 M
Wet Handling
Spread: 3.00 s (9%)|Avg: 35.43 s
Wet handling time in seconds (Lower is better)
CST Medallion Winter WCP1
33.50 s
Westlake IceMaster Spike Z 50
35.00 s
Hankook Winter i pike RS2
35.20 s
Continental IceContact 3
35.20 s
Goodyear UltraGrip Arctic 2
35.30 s
Nokian Hakkapeliitta 10
35.30 s
Goodyear UltraGrip Ice 2
35.40 s
Hankook Winter I cept iZ2 W616
35.50 s
Nokian Hakkapeliitta R3
35.50 s
Michelin X Ice Snow
35.50 s
Continental VikingContact 7
35.60 s
Pirelli Ice Zero 2
35.70 s
Kumho WinterCraft Ice Wi51
35.70 s
Bridgestone Noranza 001
35.80 s
Michelin X Ice North 4
36.20 s
Kumho WinterCraft Ice
36.50 s
Snow
Snow Braking
Spread: 3.90 M (7.7%)|Avg: 51.74 M
Snow braking in meters (80 - 0 km/h) (Lower is better)
Goodyear UltraGrip Arctic 2
50.60 M
Hankook Winter i pike RS2
50.70 M
Nokian Hakkapeliitta R3
51.00 M
Michelin X Ice North 4
51.00 M
Continental VikingContact 7
51.10 M
Pirelli Ice Zero 2
51.40 M
Continental IceContact 3
51.40 M
Nokian Hakkapeliitta 10
51.50 M
Goodyear UltraGrip Ice 2
51.50 M
Bridgestone Noranza 001
51.90 M
Kumho WinterCraft Ice
52.10 M
Kumho WinterCraft Ice Wi51
52.10 M
Hankook Winter I cept iZ2 W616
52.30 M
Michelin X Ice Snow
52.30 M
Westlake IceMaster Spike Z 50
52.50 M
CST Medallion Winter WCP1
54.50 M
Snow Traction
Spread: 0.60 s (10.5%)|Avg: 5.85 s
Snow acceleration time (5 - 35 km/h) (Lower is better)
Goodyear UltraGrip Ice 2
5.70 s
Goodyear UltraGrip Arctic 2
5.70 s
Pirelli Ice Zero 2
5.70 s
Nokian Hakkapeliitta R3
5.80 s
Continental IceContact 3
5.80 s
Hankook Winter i pike RS2
5.80 s
Bridgestone Noranza 001
5.80 s
Michelin X Ice North 4
5.80 s
Continental VikingContact 7
5.80 s
Westlake IceMaster Spike Z 50
5.90 s
Kumho WinterCraft Ice
5.90 s
Nokian Hakkapeliitta 10
5.90 s
Hankook Winter I cept iZ2 W616
5.90 s
Michelin X Ice Snow
5.90 s
Kumho WinterCraft Ice Wi51
5.90 s
CST Medallion Winter WCP1
6.30 s
Snow Handling
Spread: 3.60 s (6.9%)|Avg: 53.51 s
Snow handling time in seconds (Lower is better)
Michelin X Ice North 4
52.30 s
Continental VikingContact 7
52.70 s
Goodyear UltraGrip Arctic 2
52.70 s
Goodyear UltraGrip Ice 2
53.10 s
Pirelli Ice Zero 2
53.10 s
Nokian Hakkapeliitta R3
53.20 s
Nokian Hakkapeliitta 10
53.30 s
Kumho WinterCraft Ice Wi51
53.40 s
Kumho WinterCraft Ice
53.40 s
Bridgestone Noranza 001
53.40 s
Continental IceContact 3
53.50 s
Hankook Winter I cept iZ2 W616
53.60 s
Michelin X Ice Snow
53.60 s
Hankook Winter i pike RS2
53.70 s
Westlake IceMaster Spike Z 50
55.30 s
CST Medallion Winter WCP1
55.90 s
Ice
Ice Braking
Spread: 20.80 M (57.1%)|Avg: 44.03 M
Ice braking in meters (50 - 0 km/h) (Lower is better)
Nokian Hakkapeliitta 10
36.40 M
Goodyear UltraGrip Arctic 2
37.90 M
Michelin X Ice North 4
38.80 M
Bridgestone Noranza 001
39.00 M
Hankook Winter i pike RS2
40.10 M
Continental IceContact 3
40.90 M
Pirelli Ice Zero 2
41.80 M
Kumho WinterCraft Ice
42.20 M
Westlake IceMaster Spike Z 50
43.30 M
Michelin X Ice Snow
44.40 M
Continental VikingContact 7
46.00 M
Goodyear UltraGrip Ice 2
46.50 M
Kumho WinterCraft Ice Wi51
48.80 M
Nokian Hakkapeliitta R3
49.50 M
Hankook Winter I cept iZ2 W616
51.70 M
CST Medallion Winter WCP1
57.20 M
Ice Traction
Spread: 3.10 s (86.1%)|Avg: 4.68 s
Ice acceleration time (5 - 20 km/h) (Lower is better)
[Studded] The new tyre from Nokian is excellent on ice, feeling predictable and calm with direct steering, good in the snow and good dry braking distances.