Wet breaking & handling is my top priority because it rains over 150 days a year and there are way more accidents in the wet (73% of all accidents). Dry braking and comfort are my other top priorities. I am currently running Pirelli P7 AS IIs which perform very well based on TireRack’s testing & my experience. Unfortunately, the problem I see with most tires including both new Pirellis is that much of the sipping is very shallow & will disappear by the time the tread is half worn. When the sipes disappear so does the short stopping distances for the vast majority of tires! Do to this, I’ll probably replace my P7 AS II when the tread is down to about 3/16″.
What Happens to Performance When Tires Are Worn?
“It took longer for a car to stop when tire tread depth was reduced to 4⁄32″. Tires with reduced tread depth took an average of almost 30 feet more to stop on wet pavement compared with new tires with full tread.”
Of course some of that is due to the shallower primary grooves in worn tires and tread compounds. But notice how much better the two Michelin tires with siping that is full depth performed compared to most other tires. Only a few tires have the technology where siping grooves remains the same. These include Mich’s Premier AS, CrossClimates (“evergrip technology”), Goodyear Assurance WeatherReady, (has 3 peak rating) & Assurance ComfortDrive which have “evolving traction grooves”.
So I’m agonizing over what replacement tires I’ll put on my 2022 Touring when it arrives. The Goodyears are pretty enticing. But then so is the Yoko Avid Ascend GT, Vredstein HiTrac (almost impossible to find in the NW unless ordered from TR), and of course the new Pirelli’s which are top notch, at least for the 1st half of tread life.
