All-Season Tires Versus High Performance Tires
Tire quality plays a huge part in vehicle performance, and there are different types of tires for different vehicle needs. If you have a family sedan and you live in a four-season region, you’ll need all-season tires. If you simply want to improve the speed of your car, you’ll want to get high-performance tires which are designed for that.
Whether you’re training to be an automotive technician or you just want to improve your ride, this basic tire comparison will help you figure out which tires may be right for your vehicle.
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All-Season Tires
All-season tires tend to be middle-of-the-road performers, providing good traction in any weather condition or on any type of road. With all-season tires, you give up some road grip for more traction during times when the temperature dips below freezing.
These tires don’t have extra heightened traction on normal roads, so you won’t feel the sudden jerk when you go 0-60 MPH like you do with a sports car equipped with high-performance racing tires. Compared to a tire designed for the track, all-season tires offer a longer tread life, typically lasting three to four years with routine tire maintenance (rotations, balances, and correct cold pressure levels maintained).
High-Performance Tires
If you have a need for speed, high-performance tires are the way to go. In comparison to all-season tires, high-performance tires are a type of summer tire that adds a maximum amount of grip and thrill to your ride. The main goal of the high-performance tire design is to maximize the surface area that contacts the pavement. The trade-off for this is where and how these tires should be used.
As a summer tire type, high-performance tires work great on a sunny, temperate day, but don’t have the special composition of an all-season or winter tire that allows the rubber to continue to grip when roads are frozen or slick. Check out this overview of types of high-performance tires available:
- High-performance summer tires: improved grip and balanced handling at high speeds, with some wet road performance, these tires are still suitable for everyday driving. This is the tire type that is often equipped by manufacturers on new sports sedans.
- Ultra-high-performance summer tires: low profile tires constructed for optimal cornering and control in dry and wet road conditions.
- Max performance summer tires: Made to deliver exotic sports car performance, not suitable for wet pavement.
- Extreme performance summer tires: Track-intended tires that utilize a blocking pattern in their treads, exclusive compounds, and reinforced inner builds to handle the very highest speed output on a bone-dry track.
Today’s Tire Market Just Keeps Rolling Ahead
The latest technologies offer many different levels of hybrid tires, enabling you to get the traction and response you’re after in a tire that supports your driving style and road conditions. The capabilities of all-season tires are even starting to stretch well into performance levels once known only to winter and summer tires.
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