More winter tires may flaunt ice-grip symbol

AKRON — Last October, Nokian Tyres P.L.C. introduced tires in North America that sport the new "ice grip" symbol — they may be the first in a new category of winter tires for the market.

For the past few years, tire makers have dedicated themselves to engineering winter tires that meet or exceed the minimum performance standards for the industry's Three-Peak Mountain Snowflake (3PMS) designation, indicating they passed the ASTM F1805 test for acceleration in medium-packed snow.

Now it seems there's a new achievement to earn — ice traction and braking.

In addition to meeting the 3PMS designation, passenger tires designed for use in icy conditions can be tested to see if they attain an Ice Grip Index equal to or greater than 1.18, or 18% better, than a 16-inch reference test tire, under the ISO 19447:2021 test parameters, "Passenger Car Tyres — Method for measuring ice grip performance — Loaded new tyres," published in September 2021.

• This article appears in the March 13 print edition of Tire Business.

If the tire achieves or exceeds the threshold in the ice-grip testing, a pictograph of a mountain with three icicles can appear on the sidewall next to the 3PMS pictograph and the M+S (mud and snow) stamp.

The Ice Grip pictograph was established by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Regulation No. 117.

"An 'Ice Grip Symbol' pictograph identifies an ice tire on their sidewalls, indicating they have passed rigorous testing on icy surfaces, according to standards established by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)," according to the U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association (USTMA).

The ice-grip designation, which began in Europe, is predominantly achieved by premium or winter-only products. It's difficult to achieve with an all-weather tire or even an all-terrain tire, according to Steve Bourassa, director of products and pricing for North America, Nokian Tyres P.L.C.

"I wouldn't be surprised if more and more companies are using that test and applying that test, especially for products that are sold both in North America and in Europe. I would expect that those products very likely will see that ice-grip marking on the sidewall as well and as part of their marketing," Bourassa said.

Barry Yutronkie, director of operations for the Tire and Rubber Association of Canada (TRAC), said he hasn't observed many tires in the Canadian market sporting the ice-grip symbol — yet.

"It's something to keep an eye out for in the coming years. Especially in light of so many products available in the market, consumers are a bit confused, sometimes, as to what they should be looking for," he said.

"It will give you another level of performance, but as with anything, there are trade-offs. If it's on a tire, the compound may be a bit softer, so you may give up on other areas of performance. So I think it all depends on what the capabilities of that tire are.

"There may be a need for it in certain regions where it's more prone to ice. I think it would give you a little bit better level of performance, especially where you have frequent ice storms or a lot of black ice, for example," Yutronkie said.

Nokian Tyres introduced last fall in North America what it believes are the first tires with the ice-grip symbol — the Hakkapeliitta 10 and R5 passenger, SUV and EV tires.

Consumers considering tires labeled for snow traction (3PMS) may think they are a good winter tire, when actually they are a good wet-traction product, not necessarily a good winter tire, according to Bourassa. The work around is the ice-grip certification.

However, he said, when it comes to testing, it's harder to get a consistent surface on ice than on snow. Standards created for medium-packed snow for 3PMS testing are more easily repeatable than a perfect icy condition, Bourassa said.

Some companies test on hockey rinks.

"From our experience, it's really inconsistent and is more representative of their wet-braking capabilities than their actual ice-braking capabilities, just because of the surface and the ambient temperatures and all those types of things," he said.

"If you want to do testing on ice, it's really best to find cold weather, real ice and then once you have that, anytime a little bit of sun shows up, it messes up your ice track. It's harder to get that consistent track.

"We have this giant ice tunnel in our test facility in Ivalo (Finland) and that's where our ice braking gets done. At least in that case, we have cold temperatures, and the ice surface is covered so we can keep the sun off of it and keep the ice consistency much higher than it would be otherwise."

Smithers Group, an Akron-based provider of testing and compliance services, announced in January it was adding ISO 19447 testing to its scope of accreditations, conducting the test at its test center in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

"There is building demand for ISO 19447 testing right now, and very few companies who offer it. That's largely due to the fact that ISO 19447 requires a prepared surface and a fairly extreme winter environment," Eric Pierce, principal engineer at Smithers Winter Test Center, said during the announcement.

Smithers said ISO 19447 testing is conducted on a flat, polished ice surface, prepared at least an hour before testing begins, and the ambient temperature must be between -15°C and 4°C.

Nine test runs are completed three times, on different days or surfaces, after fresh surface preparation. The highest and lowest scores of each nine-run sequence are deleted, and the remaining data is used for calculating ice grip.