I know from personal experience that the stock Pilot Sports on my '03 6MT coupe are worthless in the snow. But what about some of the other summer performance tires, say Continentals or Bridgestones? I'm not thinking deep snow here. More like, I'm sitting here at work, the snow is starting to stick and I'm gonna leave right now so I can make the 20 miles home kinda snow.

I'm in the Baltimore/DC area and this kind of situation comes up maybe once or twice a year (knock on wood). I hate to buy snow tires, or all seasons, for something that happens so rarely. (I have made it two years without bending any metal, but it came close once or twice!)

I guess another way to phrase this - are there any max perfomance summer tires that would give me better snow handling in light snow than the Pilot Sports. Even though I KNOW that none of the tires in this class are designed for snow.

Any and all opinions welcome, but I'd most value hearing from folks who have actually driven the other tires in the snow..

 

Simple answer . . . No.

Any tire that is labelled high performance or summer will become utterly useless in the snow. Get some snow tires

 

Thanks, I do respect your opinion.

However, I'm not likely to mount snow tires to solve a problem that occurs 1-2 days a year (if I lived in Michigan - I have lived in Minnesota - it would be a completely different story). Most likely outcome is that I'll put a performace All Season tire on the car, Pilot Sport A/S or something similar. But before I did, I thought I'd see if anyone had (and could relate) experience driving in light snow on anything other than PSports.

Thanks again.

 

I've driven in snow on other (older) Z-rated "summer" tires on several occasions in both the Northeast and in Chicago (Yokohama AVS, Goodyear GS-C's, etc.), and I would never do it again. I am a firm believer in snow tires. While it can be somewhat fun to kick the tail out around turns and do some rally-slides, climbing up hills and getting going on anything but the most plowed of roads with RWD and lots of power is a PITA and can be downright scary. And while deep snow may not be an issue for you in Baltimore/DC, two other things are big reasons for not sticking with summer tires:

1) Ice: Even though it may not be cold enough to get a lot of snow, you still get precipitation in your area which, given the fact that temps drop below freezing, will result in ice on the roads. Summer tires are completely useless on ice.

2) Freezing temps: Summer tire rubber is made to work best in temps above 40 degrees F. Below that temp, the rubber gets hard, reducing its grip tremendously. Add in rain, as above, and you might as well be driving on an ice rink.

Bottom line, if you're not willing to buy an extra set, and don't want to risk bending sheetmetal, go with the Pilot Sport A/S. It's a decent enough compromise.

 

Didn't read close enough . . . I thought you lived in Boston. In MD you may be able to get away with A/S tires. Sherwooa makes two good points above.

 

i live in jersey and got stuck at work during a snow storm a few times. if its an inch, and if you take it really slow, you should be ok. more than that, take the bus. a couple times last year i had to leave work early because the snow started getting really bad, actually one time, on my way home, i saw a g35 sedan underneath an 18 wheeler (no joke). i cant imagine anyone survived that. and one time i had to leave my car at work and get a ride home. bottom line, if you can avoid it, then good, if not, drive really slow.

 

Yeah, I'll second the all season tires. When I talked to Tire Rack, they told me that the manufacturer's definition of "summer", is sustained daytime temperatures greater than 60 degrees F, and sustained nighttime temperatures > 50 degrees F, or something like that.

I've driven my G when it was about 45 degrees out, and I was fishtailing like crazy, whenever I accelerated onto the main road. Sure you can take it easy, but sometimes that's just not possible, when merging in with traffic. Add in any amount of precipitation, and you are practically driving on ice cubes, as I've had that happen before as well...

We don't get enough snow here to justify snow tires, so I bought a set of Pilot Sport All Seasons, and they have been wonderful so far. I haven't fishtailed at all pulling onto the main road, and I've driven on them in sub freezing temperatures, as well as cold rain soaked roads.

I've also used Contintental ContiExtremeContact and Yokohama AVS db tires on my other car. Both of which are classified as UltraHighPerformance All Seasons.. They were pretty good, as I was able to climb the hill by my house in ~ 8" of snow.

 

They keep confusing people with SUMMER and ALL Season, instead of getting to the point by stipulating the friction vs. temperature curve of the tread compound.

They don't want to publish the falling off the cliff graph as the temp drops below 50F.

It is not the SNOW but the temperature at which snow occurs. Wet rain/drizzle at 35-40F is just as bad!

Unfortunately soft tire compounds continue to vulcanize with exposure to oxygen and heat.........so brand new gets progressively worse as they pass through 8,000 miles.

Summer tires are really one season tires!!!!! on in April/May and done [forever] by Thanksgiving [October in some places]........they may still have tread depth but the tire has changed significantly after 8-10,000 miles.

Ultra Summer tires have the highest friction at 160-200F [road tread interface temperature]