Who's all in for all-weather designation?

AKRON — Is it time for the industry to consider adding "all-weather" to the accepted product mix vocabulary?

There's a growing community of players, led by Nokian Tyres, Kal Tire and others, arguing that the time has come to add all-weather tires as a distinct category to the mix of products for customers in areas of the U.S. and/or Canada that experience "milder" winter conditions.

All-weather — or "four seasons" — tires are considered an upgrade on the traditional "all-season" tires, which some have started calling "three-season" tires.

• This article appears in the April 29 print edition of Tire Business.

This trend coincides with the growing use of the three-peak mountain snowflake (3PMS) symbol as a marketing tool to promote a tire's winter performance capabilities.

Launched in 1999 jointly by the Rubber Manufacturers Association (now the U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association, or USTMA) and Rubber Association of Canada (now Tire and Rubber Association of Canada, or TRAC), the 3PMS is a performance-based standard to identify passenger and light truck tires that attain a traction index equal to, or greater than 110 (compared with a reference tire that is rated 100) during the specified American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) traction tests on packed snow.

The standard was developed to help consumers identify tires more easily that provide a higher level of snow traction, the associations have stated.

Tire makers themselves conduct the tests and determine whether to designate their products with the 3PMS. There is no third-party testing or oversight, although Consumer Reports, Tire Rack and others have been comparing and contrasting the traction qualities of 3PMS tires versus all-seasons and "true" winter tires in recent articles.

The ASTM reference tire is a Uniroyal Tiger Paw.

The 3PMS designation differs from the older, 1970s-vintage M+S (mud & snow) designation for winter tires, which is based on physical design characteristics, such as the size, direction, depth, angle, width, etc. of tread elements. An M+S tire should have a tread contact surface void area of at least 25 percent, based on mold dimensions, according to a USTMA Tire Information Service Bulletin.

In Canada, Kal Tire has embraced the all-weather designation, promoting the category on its website with a schematic showing the differences between all-weather, all-season (which it shows as "3-season") and winter tires, both studded and non-studded.

In this schematic, Kal suggests all-weather tires are an appropriate choice for "milder winter conditions, with heavy rain, snowfall that melts quickly and slush" and capable of performing in conditions both above and below the 45 degree (7 degree C) winter/summer tire temperature threshold.

The description for all/3-season tires is "warm, dry and mild wet conditions."

The 3PMS designation, in many circles, has become acceptable for winter driving in areas that require winter tires, such as mountainous regions or in Quebec, where winter tires have been mandatory on passenger vehicles and taxis during winter months since the winter of 2008-09.

Quebec amended the law in 2014 designating that tires needed to have the 3PMS designation.

Quebec recently extended the winter tire mandatory period by 14 days, moving the starting date to Dec. 1 from Dec. 15, beginning in 2019. The end date of the mandatory period remains at March 15. The law does not apply to commercial vehicles or light trucks.

A bill that would have required Maine drivers to use winter or all-season tires between Oct. 2 and April 30 of each year failed to gain traction in the state legislature recently.

In Canada 76 percent of personal vehicle owners said in a recent survey that they own winter tires, with residents of the Atlantic Provinces and Quebec rated higher than the average and residents of the Western provinces lower.

The surveying company, Leger Marketing Inc., did not seek to distinguish between M+S and 3PMS-designated tires, so it is assumed all-weather tires were included as winter tires. The survey, conducted in late 2018, also showed that two-thirds of Canadians claimed to have owned winter tires for six or more years and that 80 percent of those who used winter tires said they believed using them had saved them from being involved in "potentially hazardous" driving conditions.

Both the USTMA and TRAC are facing questions as to how to account for 3PMS-marked tires in their statistical reporting.

The USTMA, for example, noted in its industry statistical report for 2018 that it introduced a new tread code, "all-season tires with 3PMS," in January 2017.

As a result, it reclassified a portion of tires previously categorized as "traction & snow" tread as "all-season tires with 3PMS" tread and included them in the all-season tread group.

This change skewed the trend line for winter versus all-season products and was in part responsible for a 2-percent drop in winter tire shipments in 2018, to 5.2 million units, or just 2.4 percent of all aftermarket passenger tire shipments.

For now the USTMA will continue to monitor the trend to determine whether further action would be necessary, a spokesperson said.

Shipments of winter tires in the U.S. have fallen three straight years, USTMA data show, whereas winter tire shipments (which include some 3PMS tires) in Canada have been growing the past six years at an annualized rate of 4.5 percent and now account for an estimated 45 percent of annual aftermarket passenger tire sales.

Among recently launched products that fit into the all-weather category are the Nokian WR G4 family, Toyo Celsius , and Vredestein Quatrac Pro.  

Nokian launched the all-weather WR G line in 2009 in North America and since has upgraded to the G4 line-up, including a separate SUV product.

Toyo introduced the Celsius in 2015 as a "variable conditions" tire to address the concerns of drivers who need the attributes of winter tires during occasional heavy snowfall but don't want to incur the expense of buying, installing and storing winter tires.

Apollo Tyres Ltd. calls the recently launched Vredestein Quatrac Pro the first all-weather tire designed for the ultra-high performance (UHP) segment. The Quatrac Pro is both the successor to and complent to the Quatrac 5 that's been on the market since 2014.

The all-weather designation is also gaining momentum in the light truck/commercial sector, where recently Michelin North America Inc., Pirelli Tire North America and Toyo rolled out products featuring the 3PMS rating

Michelin is pitching its Agilis CrossClimate light truck tire line for commercial truck and van use as an all-weather tire, capable of operating in severe snow conditions.

Pirelli's Scorpion All Terrain Plus light truck and SUV tire, launched in late 2018 as a replacement-market only product, is promoted primarily for its all-terrain performance, but some of the tire's design characteristics — such as a tread compound designed for improved wet performance and more siping — also qualify it for the 3PMS designation,

Toyo added an all-weather medium truck tire, the M655, that features the 3PMS designation indicative of its ability to perform in snow and ice conditions.