Snow Tire Review

Best snow tire reviews come from Sweden

We enlisted the help of a Swedish translator to prepare our report on snow tires because the best snow-and-ice tire testing takes place in Scandinavia rather than in the U.S. In Sweden, where snow tires are required by law in winter, five auto magazines -- Teknikens Varld, Motorforaren, Auto Motor & Sport, Aftonbladet and Vi Bilagare -- put winter tires through their paces on some of the northernmost test tracks in the world. We found similarly strict tests in Motor, a Norwegian auto club magazine. These thorough reviews reveal how dozens of studded, non-studded and performance winter tires manage in a variety of tests, including the "moose test" -- which evaluates how well snow tires handle a swerve on an icy road, as if to avoid an unexpected moose that wanders into the driver's path.

ConsumerReports.org also tests winter tires, and due to its focus on the North American market (where many locations ban studded tires), editors concentrate on studless rubber. Thirty-two tires are tested in ConsumerReports.org's latest review, but it's not as detailed as the Scandinavian reviews. A Canadian nonprofit association, the Automobile Protection Association (APA), also performs unbiased tests, and has rated more than 70 studded and nonstudded tires for cars, SUVs and minivans over time.

Traditionally, winter tires spiked with metal studs have offered a more tenacious grip on ice and snow than the studless versions. About 70 percent of Swedes drive on studded tires in winter -- but some Swedish tire experts have been getting better results lately from improved studless tires, which use porous rubber (crisscrossed with thousands of tiny cuts, known as sipes) to stick to the ice. Sweden is considering a ban on studded tires in cities, where they're accused of tearing up the roads and polluting the air with asphalt dust.

However, other Scandinavian experts still get the best ice grip with studded tires -- and most agree that some studded tires are necessary to chew up the ice so that studless tires can stick. In North America, most U.S. states and Canadian provinces permit studded tires during winter months (see our Studded Snow Tires and Useful Links sections for details).

Still, not all studded tires are created equally. European tests regularly uncover cheap, off-brand winter tires -- usually from China, Korea or Taiwan -- that fail miserably, sometimes to the point of being dangerous. Road Tone, Sunny and Nankang are some of the brand names that come up in this context.

One studdable tire available in the U.S. in SUV/light truck sizes, the Cooper Discoverer M+S (*Est. $145), is downgraded by the Canadian APA "because of the numerous safety recalls related to Cooper tires." In a U.S. test, the Cooper Discoverer M+S (minus its studs) places dead last after braking poorly on every road surface -- icy, wet and dry.

Another studdable tire, the Firestone Winterforce (*Est. $60) does just as badly in the same test -- without its studs. But with its studs installed, the Winterforce gets good reviews from consumers. The APA also approves of the Winterforce, calling it a durable, economical tire that grips very well in deep snow. However, when experts at TireRack.com (a retail site) tested the Winterforce head-to-head against three studless tires on an ice rink, they found that the studless tires all accelerated faster and cornered better on the slick surface than the studded Winterforce.

Unless otherwise stated, pricing estimates in this report are for 195/65-15 tires, such as those appropriate for a 2008 Honda Civic. (Read more on tire sizing in our What to Look For section.)