Originally Posted By: slacktide_bitog
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
I have General Altimax Arctic for winter. I only put on about 1-2K miles on them each winter. After the first 3-4 years they stopped providing the same snow traction as they used to, despite still having most of their tread remaining. If it's not a rubber age issue, then what else can be causing this?
Remember that winter tires aren't equally good in snow throughout their whole tread depth. Snow traction diminishes past 5-6/32 (and some winter tires even have a second set of wear bars at that tread depth indicating they're not as good in snow).
And some winter tires only have the special soft winter compound for the top 5/32, with a harder all-season compound underneath.
Like I mentioned, they still had MOST of their tread remaining. We are talking 10-11/32 left out of the original 12/32 at that point where I noticed their snow traction notably diminished. That was at about 3-4 year mark.
Now, at 8 year mark, they are down to 8/32, and their snow traction is very poor, but of course I am not expecting winter tires to last forever. Still, their winter performance drop at 3-4 years surprised me.