Following on from last years on-road and off-road test of nine all terrain tyres, we've taken seven of them through to a full snow test, and tested them against the one of the best rated US all season tyres, the Michelin Defender LTX and our favourite winter tyre, the Michelin X-Ice Snow (SUV variant).
As the group of all terrain tyres is a mix of snow rated and non snow rated all terrain tyres, it means we'll not only know what the best all terrain tyre is on snow, but we can also answer whether a snow rating is worth purely basing your purchase decision on, AND we'll be able to find out if a very good snow rated all terrain tyre is a safe replacement for a winter tyre in the snow.
1 categories (3 tests)
Snow
During snow handling, three groups of tyres emerged. It would be fair to assume the non-snow rated tyres were in the slowest group, but if you have assumed that, you are wrong. The slowest two tyres of the group were the Goodyear, which is not snow rated, and the Pirelli, which is snow rated!
The Goodyear was actually great to drive, communicated nicely, slid progressively, it was just down a little on grip compared to the best, which made it about 12% slower around the lap. The Pirelli was a less easy tyre to drive, the rear especially would break away laterally fairly quickly and then it would be difficult to recover.
The next group of tyres was the other non-winter rated tyre, the Continental, almost matching the winter rated Toyo and Yokohama, all less than a 1% apart and 5% off the best.
To me the Continental and Yokohama felt fairly similar to drive, with the Yokohama having a VERY small advantage when turning. Traction and braking felt very similar which is is interesting given the lack of three peak on the Conti.
The Toyo was pretty unremarkable to drive, it wasn't quite as progressive as the previous two but the grip was there and it felt fine. Perhaps not the tyre to enjoy snow handling but as a day to day all terrain tyre in the snow, perfectly adequate.
The final pair of tyres was the Firestone and BFGoodrich. These were so close I ran them a second time and had other drivers run them, and everything backs up the result. The BFGoodrich had the slight edge in pace for all of us, however the Firestone was mighty impressive.
They did feel quite different tyres to drive, the BFGoodrich felt like it had been developed with safety in mind. It felt like it had the best traction and straight braking of the group, it was monstrous when braking in a straight line, I'll confirm this in the traction and braking testing next, and it broke into understeer by default. All very safe qualities.
While the Firestone couldn't quite match the BFGoodrich in raw traction, I found it more fun as while it broke into oversteer early and the first part of the slide was pretty quick, you could easily hold the truck at large yaw angles and feel like a hero. This probably helped the laptime, and made me smile. This obviously isn't a useful quality for the road, so the BFGoodrich definitely wins overall in terms of laptime and subjective safety, but the Firestone is very close and a really capable tyre.
What about the all season and winter?
I ran the all season, the Michelin Defender LTX, back to back with the BFGoodrich to see how big a difference there was between the best winter rated all terrain and a very good all season.
There was a difference, but it was less of a difference than between the good and the bad all terrain tyres as the defender finished between the Firestone and the Toyo! Lets not forget the Defender LTX is not snow rated, so in the grand scheme of things I think it did extremely well. No nasty handling characteristics, you just had to be a little slower with all your inputs. It even felt good on the brakes. Will be interesting to see how it does in traction and braking.
Lastly, can a snow rated all terrain tyre be a replacement for a winter tyre? The answer is, and I'm sorry to say, absolutely not. I may have given the winter tyre an unfair advantage by using one of the very best in the segment, the Michelin X-Ice Snow SUV, but the grip was on a different planet. The braking was the most impressive thing, but the amount of extra grip you had in all directions was simply indescribable.
In snow traction it's worth noting there was a 6.5% difference between the winter tyre and the best all terrain tyre, but a 32% difference between the best all terrain tyre, which was again the BFGoodrich, and the worst all terrain tyre. The BFGoodrich might have been a standout for an all terrain tyre in snow, but the second placed Firestone and third placed non-three peak rated all season were still 23% ahead of the worst all terrain, so there's quite a variance.
This variance continued in snow braking. The BFGoodrich was again the best rounding it out as a triple winner in the snow, but this time nearly 15% behind the winter tyre. That was still 20% better than the worst all-terrain tyre confirming that there's a bigger variance in snow performance between a good and a bad all terrain tyre than there is between a good all terrain tyre and one of the worlds best winter tyres.
Again, the michelin all season, the Defender LTX proved to be extremely strong. Very impressive tyre and I don't want you to think this is how all the all season tyres are in the snow, this is a standout product.
Three Peak VS Non-Three Peak
The obvious elephant in the room is how some of the three peak marked tyres were beaten by non-three peak marked tyres. I could make an entyre video on this topic, if you're interested in that level of geekery be sure let me know in the comments.
The short version is that to gain the 3 peak mark your tyre has to be 10% better in traction than a standardized reference all season tyre.
In this test, the three peak marked Pirelli and Yokohama had worse snow traction than the none three peak marked Continental and all season tyres, and the three peak marked Toyo had worse braking than both. Does this mean Pirelli and Yokohama cheated the test? Absolutely not, I am confident that they legitimately passed the test.
I think what we're seeing here is more down to how brands operate. I know Continental will only put the three peak rating on a tyre if they have a large margin over the standard, whereas other brands might be fine with being a bit closer to the line. In the case of the all season tyre, this might simply be a marketing decision, as just because a tyre is three peak capable doesn't mean it has to be marked as so. The CrossClimate 2 is certainly a better tyre in the snow than the Defender LTX, so perhaps that's why the LTX has been omitted. Or perhaps it was just having a really good day in the Michigan snow.
In the end, the BFGoodrich is the best mild all terrain tyre in the snow, by quite a margin, and the Firestone is also a very impressive product. Be sure to cross reference this with the dry, wet and offroad part of this test to find the best tyre for you.
Results
- UTQG: 660 A B
- 3PMSF: yes
- Weight: 20.07 kgs
- Tread: 10 mm
| Test | # | Result | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Snow Braking | 1st | 39.08 M | 100% |
| Snow Traction | 1st | 4.57 s | 100% |
| Snow Handling | 1st | 97.4 s | 100% |
- UTQG: 540 A B
- 3PMSF: yes
- Weight: 18.9 kgs
- Tread: 9.4 mm
| Test | # | Result | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Snow Braking | 2nd | 45.5 M | 85.89% |
| Snow Traction | 2nd | 5.07 s | 90.14% |
| Snow Handling | 2nd | 97.73 s | 99.66% |
- UTQG: 600 A B
- 3PMSF: yes
- Weight: 19.29 kgs
- Tread: 9.5 mm
| Test | # | Result | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Snow Braking | 7th | 51.55 M | 75.81% |
| Snow Traction | 5th | 6.07 s | 75.29% |
| Snow Handling | 3rd | 101.77 s | 95.71% |
- UTQG: 600 A B
- 3PMSF: yes
- Weight: 19.74 kgs
- Tread: 10.9 mm
| Test | # | Result | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Snow Braking | 5th | 50.59 M | 77.25% |
| Snow Traction | 3rd | 5.61 s | 81.46% |
| Snow Handling | 4th | 102.45 s | 95.07% |
- UTQG: 680 A B
- 3PMSF: no
- Weight: 19.95 kgs
- Tread: 9.1 mm
| Test | # | Result | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Snow Braking | 3rd | 47.84 M | 81.69% |
| Snow Traction | 4th | 5.66 s | 80.74% |
| Snow Handling | 5th | 102.56 s | 94.97% |
- UTQG: 640 A B
- 3PMSF: yes
- Weight: 19.47 kgs
- Tread: 10 mm
| Test | # | Result | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Snow Braking | 6th | 51.11 M | 76.46% |
| Snow Traction | 6th | 6.26 s | 73% |
| Snow Handling | 6th | 111.18 s | 87.61% |
- UTQG: 640 A B
- 3PMSF: no
- Weight: 19.58 kgs
- Tread: 9.4 mm
| Test | # | Result | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Snow Braking | 4th | 49.97 M | 78.21% |
| Snow Traction | 7th | 6.93 s | 65.95% |
| Snow Handling | 7th | 111.23 s | 87.57% |