Yahoo Autos Winter Tires Are Still Worth It
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I can't stand winter. I don't like being cold, shoveling snow is the worst, and I inevitably fall while walking the dog at least once. The best winters are the ones where it doesn't snow, and I tend to attribute that to some random purchase I'd made.
A few years ago, I got a hand-me-down snowblower when my parents moved. It barely snowed that year, so it was the best snowblower ever. This year, Michelin sent over a set of Pilot Alpin PA4s to try on my Civic Type R. No snow accumulated until the last day of February. Judging by that alone, these tires were wildly effective.
The Alpin PA4 is Michelin's winter tire for higher performance cars. It comes in larger sizes and has factory fitments for cars like the Chevy Corvette Stingray as well as AMG and M products. It's not the most aggressive winter tire out there, so it's not what you want if you live in Buffalo or one of those California ski towns that gets feet of snow at a time. It's meant to have good on-road manners while compensating for sub-ideal conditions.
Michelin does not have a stock fitment for the new Type R, so the tires mounted on my car were slightly taller, a 265/35-19 versus the 265/30-19 Michelin Pilot Sport 4S that comes with the Type R. Normally I downsize winter tires and go with a different wheel, leaving the OE wheels and tires for the summer. I didn't this time, mainly because I'm thinking of a new set of 18 inch wheels like Rays TE37s or ZE40s or Advan GT Beyonds to get some more sidewall, and I didn't want to waste the stock wheels.
The Alpin has a softer compound with more sipes and channels than the PS4S, meant to direct rain and snow and keep the car planted. That also means a compromise in dry or warm weather performance compared to a sportier tire . It also means more road noise, though the taller profile should help ride quality.
For much of this winter, it was nearly 50 degrees and dry where I live. My perfect winter, but now the car was on the wrong tires. The stock Pilot Sport 4S could've handled that just fine, so I kind of felt like I had wasted time getting tires I didn't really need mounted and wasn't getting the most out of my new car in its first 1500 miles. I usually keep my winter tires on until April, but I started thinking about taking them off in mid-February.
Then it snowed.
Snow removal has gotten so good in New Jersey that the memories I have of snow covered roads canceling school are distant. I used to run a very aggressive Blizzak on my lowered NA Miata when I was in high school. It was like driving on jelly in the dry, but it was magic in the snow. These days, there's some slush, but most roads are damp and treated with an insane amount of salt.
It's the sort of situation where a winter tire with no dry weather ability would be overkill, while the PS4S would be a wreck if I did anything but tiptoe around. This is when the Alpin started to make a lot of sense.
The Type R has 315 hp going through the front wheels, so no matter what tire it was running, there'd be little grip under power on a wet, slushy road. The Alpin will scramble for purchase under hard acceleration, but it has far more grip and confidence than a more high-performance tire would in that situation.
What it also loses in dry weather handling, braking, and acceleration performance is made up immediately in subpar conditions. I didn't feel like I had to drive all that much differently than I do in the dry on these tires, whereas a set of summer tires would've been a horrible experience. We had one other brief snowstorm this year after I bought the Type R and before I put the Alpins on, and it made me just turn around and go home in case there was a freak amount of accumulation.
The thing with climate change is that winters are getting weird. Sure, they're generally warmer and it snows less, but in some places it's snowing way more. We've even had winters, like 2020 through 2021, where it seemed to snow every other day and not having a set of winter tires was a liability. The Type R is my only car, I need to be able to use it any day for any reason. It needs to be ready no matter the weather to take my family places or to go to the grocery store. While I probably would be fine in the winter without a specific tire, one like the Alpin PA4 makes it less of a compromise and still lets me drive the car whenever I need to.
I'm not giving up on swapping to a special set of winter tires. Even if winter seems to be shorter and warmer than ever, I just can't afford to be caught out on tires that won't get me home.
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