Passenger Car Winter Premium Touring Tyres

A very good winter tire, very durable, incredible bite in the snow. <br />
A car wearing these can traverse some serious snow inclines.

Had the tires for about 6000km, although, I bought them as I bought the new car (Forester XT), so I couldn't compare it with the platform I already knew. Anyway, I've done about 3000km is some bad weather, snow, mountain passes, ice, and I couldn't believe how good the tires were! Yes, there is a new 4x4 beneath me, but even on slopes in deep snow when I tried to accelerate harder (playing to find the grip) the car just goes, didn't stop. On roundabouts cars in front of me were sliding (icy rain that night) but XT stayed planted (low speed of course). With nicer/hotter weather the rain came, and i was expecting a few (uphill) slips here and there (there are quite a few patches that are really steep and slippery concrete here) and the car was planted (I even stopped and continued at the middle of the slope to see how it would've coped, and it was like I was on level ground, not even TC kicked in, nothing). When I got the feel for the car I tried to push it couple of times just to try to see what's it like on the limit, and it's so hard to get any of the systems to activate (ABS, TC, a bit of slip). One time, since I come from 20 years of driving hot hatches, I did enter more aggressive into a long right hand turn during rain, and the back end stepped out but nicely, it wasn't snappy, totally controllable (I know it's not too much of a useful info for this type of car/application, but still). Either way, it can't all be down to the car, tires made the connection with the surface, and the smile on my face (surprise) was the same when I tried Super Sports fro the first time on my JCW more then 10 years ago. Anyway, now I'm thinking of buying Cinturatos for the summer!

For a first time driver in southern Ontario, these tires gave me confidence to drive in deep snow days. Especially for the price these tires hold their own. For city driving, these tires provide a healthy level of grip in snow and slush and didn't ever do anything unexpected. On highways covered in Ontario snow, the WinterCraft WP72 is similarly straightforward but at higher speeds the grip level becomes a little more vague on a lane change. Nothing jarring or dangerous, and the tires do communicate the limit fairly well. I found that in icy conditions these tires give out more so than in other settings. Depending on how much load you have going into icy corners, you may find this tire doesn't give you the best indication to slow down before losing grip. The one major drawback of this tire is the noise at highway speeds. Nothing unbearable but these winters drone more than a comfy all season would. If you're looking for a dead quiet tire this isn't it but for an affordable price these are great winters.

well, they last only for 2 winters, around 15000 km. what a shame. In a smart forfour, probably with misaligned wheels (totally slicks outside, ok inside) but it was a bad surprise. But they do grip wonderfull on wet, that's for sure

Just bought the Hakkas after needing to replace the Michelin X-ice snow 4 that I been using since 2021. Did my first 100 miles and there is my first impression:<br />
1. Grip on dry and wet asphalt is much worse than with Michelin, but still much better than Sailun or other cheap winter tires.<br />
2. Nokian Hakka 10 has noticeable spike noise while driving and breaking , Michelin x-ice snow 4 you can hear spikes only when breaking. <br />
3. In corners and b road twist you can feel that car is riding on metal more, and that means the tyre has less grip and car feel almost wobbly. Definitely the Michelin did the better job for road handling, according and breaking on dry and wet road. <br />
Haven’t had a chance to drive on ice and snow yet ( spring hit early) but will update the review after winter is back again.

Positive:<br />
The tires work well on wet and dry roads, they offer enough traction to not spin the wheels even under strong acceleration. <br />
In the corners they offer good grip, you can clearly feel the car starting to understeer when getting to the grip limit in corners, there is no sudden loss of traction or snap-oversteer.<br />
The tires seems to wear slowly and evenly.<br />
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Neutral:<br />
Snow traction, mainly on a few cm of fresh snow and snow slush, seems good, but is also limited by the car being rear-wheel-drive without a locking differential. <br />
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Negative:<br />
With the tires being the Runflat "Driveguard" variant, the ride can be harsh and the noiselevels are subjectively high. There is a loud humming sound between roughly 80 and 90 kmh (50-55 mph) which can be quite annoying. The noise is most noticable at city speeds, on the highway at over 100 kmh (60mph) the noise starts to reduce and is not intrusive anymore.

Excellent winter tyres, outstanding grip in all winter conditions in the Alps. The overall handling is very predictable. The tyres offer a safe driving exprience and are relatively quiet. I can definitely recommend them.

I live in Sweden where winter tyres is really important. I've tried Nokian Hakkapeliitta R5 in the past and thought they were great. But these new Pirelli Ice friction is something else! The snow grip is incredibly precise and the feedback you get from them makes the slides predicable even at higher speeds. The ice grip also is quite good, starts and braking are predictable which is nice (but nothing compared to a studded tyre). The comfort aspect of it all is quite good in my initial impression. The noise level is quite low and the ride is also great! Changing conditions is not a problem for these tyres in my experience, going down a twisty backroad with sections of ice, snow and dry ground in 70+kph being no problem at all! The wet is somewhat of a weakness of this tyre with aquaplaining being a problem quite frequently (very common issue with these nordic winter tyres though). Although it handles the wet better than the rival Nokian R5.

These are my first winter tires (it's my first car) so I can't really compare them to other tires on this car. Tires are quite loud and on dry roads in higher speed corners they feel elastic, almost like the car is gliding latteraly. Fuel consumption is higher than on my summer tires (about half a liter more per 100km). After 3800km, wear is pretty good, still around 7mm of tire tread left. One specific thing I must praise them for is the snow grip. We had a lot of snow this year and grip was impeccable! They really make you feel secure and rarely loose traction. For the price they are great. Definitely would recommend them.

I have been driving Hankook Winter i*cept RS 3 as a winter tyre for 4 years now in combination with crazy weather (from snow and ice in -15 to the heat of + 15 degrees). This is a perfect tyre that I push hard sometimes and test in various conditions. Even as Goodyear UGP3 had better results in tests and seems to be an even better tyre for my car, I don't really see any need for it. Hankook really does everything great and even more than that.

I bought my 2021 1.8 hybrid Toyota Corolla Touring Sports in summer 2025 and the previous owner gave me old winter tyres - two Sunfull SF-982 (almost new) from China and two Bridgestone Blizzak LM005 (5 mm tread left). I live in Latvia and while previous winters were mild, January this year started with heavy snowfalls and cold up to -20 degrees celsius. When driving on the roads during snowfall, when the road is covered by a small layer of snow, I noticed that my car was slipping on almost every turn, even a slight one, so the mentioned tyres were not good at all. I decided that I need to buy new winter tyres and started looking at Nordic Friction tyres. I read tests and reviews on Tyrereviews and other websites and my choice narrowed to Goodyear Ultragrip Ice 3 and Pirelli Ice Friction. I saw several reports, both here and on other forums, that Goodyear wears very fast, with 2mm wearing for 5000-6000 km driven, so I was very sceptical about that and decided to go with Pirelli Ice Friction.<br />
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Dry and Wet Grip<br />
I didn't have any issues at all when driving on dry and wet roads. I am a calm driver, so maybe I'm not the best person to comment on that. On dry and wet surface I did not ever have traction control going on, even in the moments of active acceleration.<br />
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Road feedback and handling<br />
Steering is precise and crisp. No issues at all.<br />
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Ice and Snow grip<br />
I had a trip to Warsaw, Poland and back to Latvia. On the way back I had an ice pellets (icy rain) and then in Lithuania closer to Latvia - heavy snowfall with the roads being covered in snow. I was driving like 70-80 km/h and didn't have any dangerous moments when the car was hard to handle. While it is a FWD car, I felt like I am driving an AWD car - no issues at all.<br />
We had 15-20 cm of snow everywhere and I did not have any problems passing that kind of roads.<br />
In regards to the ice - if it is a clear ice, then of course car starts slipping. These are not studded tyres, so I think it is natural. However, once the car starts slipping, it is pretty easy to gain control back. I had some moments this winter when the cars in the front suddenly started to brake and the road was covered in so called black ice - of course those situations were a bit stressful, but the car did a good job stopping on time.<br />
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Wear<br />
I have driven 5500 km since I installed Pirelli Ice Friction and there is no wear at all. I made measurements after installing the tyres and the tread depth was about 7.8-8mm (depends on where on the tyre to measure). I have measured the tread depth both on the front and the rear - nothing has really changed, so I am impressed. I thought that driving on Polish autobahn with speeds around 130-140 km/h would naturally eat some of the tread, but no - impressive.<br />
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Comfort<br />
Before buying these tyres I saw some reviews on different forums that the tyres are loud. I checked Pirelli website and actually my size 225/45 R17 does not have Pirelli's noice reduction technology, so I was a bit sceptical, but decided to sort of ignore those reviews. I was right to do so - the tyres are super quiet and comfortable. I do not feel the bumps on the road as much as with Sunfull/Bridgestone that were installed before, and Pirelli's are much more comfortable and quieter than Sunfull/Bridgestone and original summer Falken ZIEX ZE914 that were installed from the factory and had their last season in summer 2025.<br />
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To sum up, my experience with Pirelli Ice Friction was great and I recommend these tyres to everyone who thinks of buying Nordic Friction studless tyres. They were also cheaper than alternatives from other Premium manufacturers - I paid 592 euros for a set of 4.

I've used these tires for about 3 winters and around 9500 miles and a 250hp FWD car.<br />
Let's start with the first winter, they were great, good snow grip, good wet and dry grip. Felt I've made a good choice to handle my limited winter driving for the next couple of years. The second winter they had lost some of their snow grip but nothing too serious and I half expected it so everything was fine. Now we come to this winter which would be their last. No snow grip what so ever. I had trouble taking off in a couple inches of snow and would get constant wheel spin. When they had to do both acceleration and cornering at they same time they were borderline dangerous. Wet and dry grip is still okay.<br />
Considering how little they have been driven on and have been stored correctly in the summer I half expected them to last one more winter. They still have a lot of tread left but the compound has become really hard.<br />
For the price I paid for them I could have spend a little bit more and tried Michelin Alpin 6/7 since they get better reviews for longevity.