Having tires that can be kept on your car year-round, that work well in both the winter and summer

is generally a whole lot easier and cheaper than switching between winter and summer tires.

The requirements for tires designed for summer performance and tires designed to function in snow

are extremely different even down to the rubber compounds, which makes it very difficult to make a

tire that excels in all regimes. This means that designing all-season tires has always involved some

very important tradeoffs.

Only a few “all-season” tires are really designed to perform in snow and ice, and these tires generally

must give up some warm-weather performance to do so. Most all-season tires are really three-season

tires, giving up true snow performance for great wet and dry grip. These are called “performance”

all-seasons. Compiling a list of the best all-season tires is therefore kind of a difficult process,

because “all-season” is a very wide category without a lot of definition. So to do justice to the

entirety of the all-season category requires two lists; one for winter-biased and one for performance

all-season tires.

If you live in an area that gets a goodly amount of winter, and you plan to run the same tire all year,

you want to be looking at a tire that is truly designed to deal with snow and ice. Because winter-biased

tires will have to use a tread compound designed to stay flexible in cold temperatures while not giving

up too much wear in warm temps, what you get is generally a tire that performs acceptably in a wide

range of conditions but does not tend to excel in any of them – the old “Jack of all trades/Master

of none” conundrum.

General's tires have a long reputation for good quality at good prices, as well as a reputation for

paying attention to snow and ice performance in their all-season tires. The Altimax RT is one of the

best of their all-season offerings, boasting a high-density tread compound that splits the difference

between cold-weather stickiness and warm-weather wear riding atop a low-density compound that

is designed to damp out vibration and give a smooth ride.

Goodyear's Assurance TripleTred works to manage the inherent tradeoffs of all-season tires by

dividing the tire into “zones” and using different tread patterns and even different rubber compounds

in each zone. The outer edges are tuned for dry performance and stability, while the inside tread has

sweeping grooves to evacuate water and the center is heavily siped for snow and ice performance.

Michelin's brand-new Defender is getting a lot of attention for many reasons. Certainly their

breathtaking 90,000 mile treadwear warranty immediately catches the eye, but the Defender is also

getting surprisingly good reviews for snow and ice performance. Michelin has packed a great deal of

technology into this tire, including a high-silica tread compound and 3D self-locking sipes. Ordinary

sipes increase grip in water and snow, but allow the tread blocks to flex, which increases wear on

the tires. 3D sipes have an internal topology which allows the tread blocks to flex only as much as

they need to before the sipes lock together, cutting down significantly on treadwear. This gives the

Defender its great grip and magnificently low treadwear.

When it comes to winter-biased all-season tires, there is one clear champion, one that is simply head

and shoulders above the rest. That is the Nokian WR G2, a tire so good at what it does that it really

belongs in a category all by itself. In fact, Nokian gives the WRG2 its own designation of “all-weather”

rather than all-season. Nokian is also a strong leader in areas like slushplaning (hydroplaning caused

by wet slush), something very few other tire companies have traditionally paid much attention to.

The WRG2 has snow and ice performance that is only a small step down from the very best snow tires,

while retaining extremely good performance on dry and wet roads.