Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
While I respect your friends right to choose whatever he wants I can assure you that tires that score over 400 on treadwear will never be on a car I own again. They are simply not comparable to a good summer only tire, which will simply not score very high on treadwear. Typically the summer tire will offer better braking, better cornering, etc. Usually even better wet performance, depending on make.
But my car has never been down a gravel road, either!
Yeah, you can't have everything in one tire. This guy won't be driving these tires to the limits. It's usually his wife driving that car anyway.
I think the biggest benefit of a summer tire for most public road driving is the steering feel; less tire squirm than an all-season. All-season tires can provide adequate grip. The Pilot all-seasons (500 treadwear rating) have scored between .93g and 1.00g in dry and .81g to .88g in wet in three Tire Rack tests, so not too far off the top summer tires and comparable to the average ones. Absolute grip isn't a huge concern to me anyway. It's fun to play at the limits no matter what the grip level, and having a tire that gets there at a lower speed and is then more forgiving over patches of sand and gravel has its benefits.
My Pilots are basically summer tires at this point anyway. They were like new at 20k miles until my track day last summer, which tore off the edges of many of the little top ribs. My buddy did three or four of those track days with his S4 on the OE Continental summers and his tires looked less abused than mine, despite many more and much faster lap times. I still have more remaining tread depth though, and still far better resistance to hydroplaning than his did when new. Obviously that's just a function of tread design, but most summer tires don't have the wide, deep channels of the Pilot A/S or G-Max.
So, not a great idea to run all-seasons hard on a track. But they did provide enough grip to beat all the C5 and C6 Vettes that day (Corvette Club day at the small track). Yeah, they were all novices, even the one with the supercharger!
I don't really expect any of my buddies to ever put all-seasons on their sports cars or sports sedans. If one really wants the most grip and best steering feel possible for a clean road, I won't argue that any all-season tire is the best choice. But the G-Max is probably a much grippier tire than that '92 Camry ever expected to see in its life!
While I respect your friends right to choose whatever he wants I can assure you that tires that score over 400 on treadwear will never be on a car I own again. They are simply not comparable to a good summer only tire, which will simply not score very high on treadwear. Typically the summer tire will offer better braking, better cornering, etc. Usually even better wet performance, depending on make.
But my car has never been down a gravel road, either!
Yeah, you can't have everything in one tire. This guy won't be driving these tires to the limits. It's usually his wife driving that car anyway.
I think the biggest benefit of a summer tire for most public road driving is the steering feel; less tire squirm than an all-season. All-season tires can provide adequate grip. The Pilot all-seasons (500 treadwear rating) have scored between .93g and 1.00g in dry and .81g to .88g in wet in three Tire Rack tests, so not too far off the top summer tires and comparable to the average ones. Absolute grip isn't a huge concern to me anyway. It's fun to play at the limits no matter what the grip level, and having a tire that gets there at a lower speed and is then more forgiving over patches of sand and gravel has its benefits.
My Pilots are basically summer tires at this point anyway. They were like new at 20k miles until my track day last summer, which tore off the edges of many of the little top ribs. My buddy did three or four of those track days with his S4 on the OE Continental summers and his tires looked less abused than mine, despite many more and much faster lap times. I still have more remaining tread depth though, and still far better resistance to hydroplaning than his did when new. Obviously that's just a function of tread design, but most summer tires don't have the wide, deep channels of the Pilot A/S or G-Max.
So, not a great idea to run all-seasons hard on a track. But they did provide enough grip to beat all the C5 and C6 Vettes that day (Corvette Club day at the small track). Yeah, they were all novices, even the one with the supercharger!
I don't really expect any of my buddies to ever put all-seasons on their sports cars or sports sedans. If one really wants the most grip and best steering feel possible for a clean road, I won't argue that any all-season tire is the best choice. But the G-Max is probably a much grippier tire than that '92 Camry ever expected to see in its life!
