If you live somewhere north of the Mason-Dixon line, cold weather is an annual reality. And in places like our home state of Michigan, the beginning of fall often means thinking about getting one’s car (or in our case, our long-term test fleet) ready for snow, i.e., new winter tires. But not everyone switches to dedicated winter rubber in the cold months, instead relying on all-season tires to get through snow, ice, slush, and just plain cold weather. Fortunately for those folks, in the last couple of years a new subset of all-seasons has emerged: the ?all-weather? tire.
What denotes an all-weather tire versus an all-season one is a small pictogram on the sidewall known as the three-peak mountain snowflake (3PMSF), pictured above. This symbol is a seal of approval of sorts that indicates the tire has been tested and it is capable of at least 110 percent of the traction of a reference all-season tire (for the nerds, the standard is ASTM E1136-14). Yeah, it is vague, but it is a laboratory test that actually tells consumers more than an M+S marking (also seen above), which is just a calculation of tread geometry. All dedicated winter tires have the 3PMSF, but an all-weather tire is suitable for winter conditions yet doesn’t necessarily have to be swapped on and off every winter and spring. This is ideal for some markets where winter-tire use is compulsory, like Quebec and many northern European countries. For what it?s worth, the only all-season ...