Tire Rankings like you’ve never seen before
Are you tired of reading through tire reviews and they look all the same? We are. And aren’t you tired of tire reviews that rank tires based off mostly subjective criteria such as:
We are. We have developed a new form of benchmarking tires, using quantitative data on the forefront.
What we do differently?
1st: We analise tires by their size
Most tire reviews, take a given tire model from a given tire size (say the Pirelli Scorpion 205/55R16 for example) and compare it against all the other models for the same size. The problem is whatever conclusion they reach, they extrapolate for all the other tire sizes they haven’t tested for.
Why? Two Problems…
Problem 1: From within
One problem is that many tires (say the Pirelli Scorpion 205/55R16, and this is true for many other tires/models) are different from the same tire in other sizes (say the Pirelli Scorpion 265/60R18). In most cases, they even have different UTQG ratings. This means that they may have different treadwear, different Traction and different Temperature readings.
Problem 2: From outside
For each size, there are manufacturers that participate and others that don’t. Some participate with many models in certain sizes, and fewer models in others. There is not always the same number of competitors for a given tire size. For example, we uncovered 116 competing tires for the 205/55R16 tire size. For the 265/75R16 we uncovered only 12.
2nd: We sort our tires by quantitative data, not subjective reviews
In-house developed metric: Price / Treadwear
Introduction: What is the UTQG rating?
Before we get into treadwear, we shall first introduce the UTQG rating in case you are not aware of it. UTQG stands for Uniform Tire Quality Grading. This is a grade that is mandatory that all passenger tires have (light truck and studdable or studded winter tires are exempt) and the manufacturer therefore has obligation to publish the rating for each tire. It is composed of 3 items:
Treadwear:
“The treadwear grade is a comparative rating based on the wear rate of the tire when tested under controlled conditions on a specified government test course. A tire graded 150 would last one and a half (l 1/2) times the distance on the government test course under specified test conditions as one graded 100. The relative performance of tires depends upon the actual conditions of their use, however, and may depart significantly from the norm due to variations in driving habits, service practices and differences in road characteristics and climate.”
Our research at GT Selector has observed that a tire with a treadwear of 800, should be able to complete almost 90,000 miles. This means that a tire with with treadwear of 400 should also be able to complete almost 45,000 miles.
Traction – AA, A, B and C:
“The traction grades from highest to lowest are AA, A, B and C and they represent the tire’s ability to stop on wet pavement as measured under controlled conditions on specified government test surfaces of asphalt and concrete. A tire marked C may have poor traction performance. WARNING: The traction grade assigned to this tire is based on braking(straight ahead) traction tests and does not include cornering (turning) traction.“
This is the key reason that at GT Selector we only recommend tires with Traction grades either AA or A. We avoid B and C rated tires.
Temperature – A, B and C::
“The temperature grades are A (the highest), B and C, representing the tire’s resistance to the generation of heat and its ability to dissipate heat when tested under controlled conditions on a specified indoor laboratory test wheel. Sustained high temperature can cause the material of the tire to degenerate and reduce tire life, and excessive temperature can lead to sudden tire failure. The grade C corresponds to a level of performance which all passenger car tires must meet under the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 109. Grades A and B represent higher levels of performance on the laboratory test wheel than the minimum required by law. WARNING: The temperature grade for this tire is establishedfor a tire that is properly inflated and not overloaded. Excessive speed, under inflation, or excessive loading, either separately or in combination, can cause heat buildup and possible tire failure.“
At GT Selector, we only recommend tires with Temperature grades of either A or B.
Real-life example
The Falken WildPeak H/T02 265/70R17 Tire has a UTQG rating of 700-A-A. What does this mean?
Why do we sort tires based on their Price / Treadwear ratio?
When we analyze a certain tire size, we look at all the tires in that size and then we sort them. Instead of sorting them by price we rank them on their Price-to-Treadwear ratio.
Why? Let’s look at a real-life example for tires sizes 265/70R17:
What are the conclusions we are able to take?
3rd: We rank tires based on their Traction and Temperature ratings
Our priority is always to guarantee the best possible Traction rating. On a secondary plane, we will also look at the Temperature rating.
Example:
In this example, our first pick for best all-season 265/70R17 tire was the Falken Wildpeak H/T02 tire in spite of being ranked behind the Cooper tire. The reason we chose it, was because we consider that tire with A-A offers more passenger security than a tire with A-B.
The Result
The result is that our tire selection are the ones that offer the best Traction and Temperature ratings (which is the way we have that best defends the safety of our readers/passenger) at the most affordable Price (Price/Treadwear ratio actually).