Hankook I-Pike RW11 - Worst Snow Tire Ever?

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As someone who is a big fan of snow tires, I've never been so disappointed by a set. I've had many sets ... Blizzak, Michelin X Ice, Nokian, GT Radial (surprisingly impressive) and Winterfarce. I thought the Winterfarce were about the worst you could get, but they never really left me feeling unsafe and never left me in a parking lot.

I bought my Subaru in late October and had a hard time finding anything in the size I wanted (P215/70-16). Ideally I would have got another set of GT Radial IcePro or some Hakkapellitta , but this is all I could really find.

Complete disappointment. There's ZERO traction on anything hard packed. I may have been spoiled by recent Nokian and the GT Radials, but they do NOT handle slush at all. Traffic was running 45-55 in some recent snow and I could only handle about 30 before the VDC was kicking in and I felt like I was going to spin out. Today, I was activating ABS and VDC in PLOWED PARKING LOTS - front drivers on bald all seasons were out accelerating and brake my Subaru on snow tires.

Absolutely worthless snow tire. Waste of $380. I'm hoping I can offload these on CL for $150 or $200 in the spring or next fall. This time I'll order early enough to get myself a competent set of Nokians or GT Radials.

At this point, I have 2 options:
- Switch back to the factory all seasons.
- Drive my Jeep with NON SIPED mud tires.

These tires are literally bad enough that my Jeep with an auto diff locker and wide mud tires is better on the snow than a Subaru equipped with these tires.

I'm going to drop the pressure to 27 from 32 and see if that helps at all.
 
Wow, sorry to hear that but thanks for reporting. Are they the studded or the studdable ones? I'm surprised since the picture of them looks like they would be at least decent. Hard to go wrong with Nokians, even the all weather WR G3 should be good. www.tiresbyweb.com has a decent selection. Astro_14 on here bought some WR G3s for his Tundra from them.

 
They aren't studded. I expected them to not be the best on hard packed surfaces, but these have no traction at all. My last set of snow tires - unstudded, studdable GT Radials - performed awesome on hard packed surfaces.

These also don't handle slush at all, which is not affected by studs or lack of.

The tread pattern looks great. They are definitely a softer compound. But they definitely don't work in the snow or ice at all.
 
Miller88,
Can you return the iPike to where you bought them and upgrade without losing any money on them?
Tell the shop that the tires are substandard.
 
In my experience studdable winter tyres should be studded to have grip as that is the way IMHO how they have been designed to work although studs do not do much in snow.

Pure friction tyres without studs are considerably more softer and have different approach in design resulting that their grip is pretty much the same as with studded tyres since studs are not what they used to be. Frictions tyres do not like driving on ice.

In this winter's big tyre test runner-up was Hankook Winter i Pike RS+ W419D (who comes up with these names?) and was a big improvement over the older type.

This is what this Hankook looks like:

Hankook_iPike_RS_W419D_440x500px.png
 
studdable tires without the studs are usually useless; they're designed to work with the studs (and the tires themselves have to be hard enough to keep the studs in place for several years)

If you're not going to use studs, just get a studless tire. The Dunlop Winter Maxx is a great choice if you don't want to spends the money on the Nokian Hakka R2
smile.gif


For example, Nokian is smart enough not to offer the Hakka line without the studs--they all come pre-studded. If you don't want studs, there's the Hakka R2.
 
I bought them from discount tire direct, so not returnable.

The plan was a good set of studless or studded, studdable tires. Unfortunately, with as late as I got the car, these were all I could find.

I read Overkill's review and expected the downsides he pointed out. But I didn't expect them to be this bad!
 
Originally Posted By: Miller88
I bought them from discount tire direct, so not returnable.

The plan was a good set of studless or studded, studdable tires. Unfortunately, with as late as I got the car, these were all I could find.

I read Overkill's review and expected the downsides he pointed out. But I didn't expect them to be this bad!


DTD sucks for selection of winter tires in your size. Try SimpleTire
smile.gif
 
I had a set of Hankook's about 5 years back, and same experience. It was an I Pike model similar to yours but older model. Absolute garbage. At the time I didnt have much experience with winter tires but even my almost tread less back Nokian's have better grip than the brand new Hankook's had. I have had mediocre and good tires over time.. and I vowed that I would never buy Hankook ever again. I am a big fan of Nokian for winter tires (minus their cost & difficulty to acquire). Very impressed with a set of Coopers I bought.. but yeah, I am going to always pay good money for great tires.
 
Originally Posted By: Finn
In my experience studdable winter tyres should be studded to have grip as that is the way IMHO how they have been designed to work although studs do not do much in snow.

Pure friction tyres without studs are considerably more softer and have different approach in design resulting that their grip is pretty much the same as with studded tyres since studs are not what they used to be. Frictions tyres do not like driving on ice.

In this winter's big tyre test runner-up was Hankook Winter i Pike RS+ W419D (who comes up with these names?) and was a big improvement over the older type.

This is what this Hankook looks like:

Hankook_iPike_RS_W419D_440x500px.png



Who was the winner of the test?
 
Weird. I have a set on my Tundra and thought them fine. Then again I was not happy at all at how it handled with LTX's so anything would be better. Only issue I've noticed is sometimes one feels out of balance; but it sits a lot so it could be flat spotting for all I know.

Maybe my snow is different?
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Hmm, now that you say it, I do think TC has been kicking on more than it used to. Then again, I used to always disable it, as the VSC is way too aggressive in this truck. As they're going on 3 years with no special storage, I'm probably coming towards the end. Still, I've been happy.
 
Originally Posted By: slacktide_bitog
studdable tires without the studs are usually useless; they're designed to work with the studs (and the tires themselves have to be hard enough to keep the studs in place for several years)

If you're not going to use studs, just get a studless tire. The Dunlop Winter Maxx is a great choice if you don't want to spends the money on the Nokian Hakka R2
smile.gif


For example, Nokian is smart enough not to offer the Hakka line without the studs--they all come pre-studded. If you don't want studs, there's the Hakka R2.


Explain all the satisfied General Altimax Arctic customers that use them unstudded.

Nokian sells their hakka number series unstudded also.

https://www.tiresbyweb.com/m-108-nokian-tires.aspx
 
I am just here to also agree that the GT Radial Champiro IcePro have been excellent on our '14 Civic. Wife loves them and they seem to wear like iron. On the third winter with them and they have lots of tread.

I ended up returning my Winterforce 2 tires due to a bad balancing issue and have been running Blizzak WS80s this year on the Accord. They have been nothing short of excellent.
 
Originally Posted By: UG_Passat
Explain all the satisfied General Altimax Arctic customers that use them unstudded.

Nokian sells their hakka number series unstudded also.

https://www.tiresbyweb.com/m-108-nokian-tires.aspx


That's surprising! Seems crazy to buy those without the studs, as Nokian actually uses 2 different types of studs in the one tire! The whole purpose of the Hakka number series is the hi-tech studs only found in those tires. The only other time I've even heard of non-studded Hakka studdables was on DT/DTD, where I thought they had an exclusive deal with Discount
crazy2.gif


But still, if my choice was between a non-studded Hakka 9 and the studless Hakka R2, I'd take the R2.

The General Altimax Arctic is actually a rebranded Gislaved. They're probably OK without the studs, but if they switched to a studless option like the Dunlop Winter Maxx or even Conti's own Wintercontact SI, they wouldn't go back
smile.gif


It does seem that most negative reviews of winter tires seem to come from Hankook! Both this OP's bad experience with the i-pikes, as well as someone else on here with them, and a few bad takes on their Icebear/icept evo performance winter tire lines, I guess it doesn't get cold enough in South Korea for that company to gain experience designing winter tires
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Originally Posted By: redhat
I am just here to also agree that the GT Radial Champiro IcePro have been excellent on our '14 Civic. Wife loves them and they seem to wear like iron. On the third winter with them and they have lots of tread.

I ended up returning my Winterforce 2 tires due to a bad balancing issue and have been running Blizzak WS80s this year on the Accord. They have been nothing short of excellent.


Are you running your GT's with or without the studs?
 
Originally Posted By: Rolla07
Who was the winner of the test?


Tekniikan Maailma, winter tyre test 2017

Studded tyres

1. Continental IceContact 2 (8,8)
2. Hankook Winter l*Pike RS+ (8,7)
3. Nokian Hakkapeliitta 9 (8,4)
4. Goodyear Ultragrip Ice Arctic (8,3) and Pirelli Ice Zero (8,3)
6. Vredestein Wintrac Ice (8,2) and Yokohama Ice Guard iG65 (8,2)

Friction tyres

1. Continental ContiVikingContact 6 (8,1)
2. Sava Eskimo Ice (7,6)
3. Good Year Ultra Grip Ice 2 (7,5) and Nokian Hakkapeliitta R2 (7,5)
5. Hankook Winter l*Cept IZ2 (7,4) and Michelin X-Ice X3 (7,4)

I myself have Goodyear Ultra Grip Ice 2 friction tyres on my Saab and Jag. I like them - as long as there is just ice on the road.
 
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