Summer biased all seasons

[ckyliu]

Does anyone have experience of summer biased all season tyres? Particularly on cars driven quickly vs dedicated summer rubber.

I’m considering Michelin Pilot Sport All Season 4 (£119 at MyTyres) instead of my regular Goodyear F1 Asy5 summer (£82 at Black Circles). Goodyear Eagle Exhilarate would be my preference but can’t seem to get them in a size to suit me 2.0 ND.

Reason is my current summer Falken FK510 tyres have really dropped off in the last couple of months. Much more so than anything I had before from Michelin or Goodyear, despite there being probably 3mm tread left they’re just not happy in the cool and damp now (I’m sure they were when they were new last February though, I wonder if they put a thin layer of softer compound and now it’s down to harder and cheaper stuff?)

Anyway I’m digressing as per, how does a summer biased all-season compare to a summer tyre, in summer?

[ckleanth]

It may help a bit looking at a thread I created not long ago…

Tyres - Tyres - Tyres

+1 from me for Rainsports, mine are upped from 205s to 215s. Paul Roddison recommended these, and set my four wheel tracking at the same time. Mine had Potenzas on before, the grip was applling in the wet and they seemed very noisy too; in fairness they were also very old. The car is (imo) now superb in the wet, and I don’t see a problem with Rainsports under any conditions really. The size increase also made the speedo more accurate (when compared to Garmin satnav) and gives a bit of wheel ri…

the answer to the “what tyre” question I think its subjective to you and what you feel is the “right tyre”, there is my personal thoughts (kind of long summary) that I wont repeat here.

[NickD]

@ckyliu

despite there being probably 3mm tread left they’re just not happy in the cool and damp now (I’m sure they were when they were new last February though, I wonder if they put a thin layer of softer compound and now it’s down to harder and cheaper stuff?)

Tyres wet performance starts to drop off from 4mm. The main thing however, is that the lower thread height means that the rubber that is left moves less, makes less internal heat and therefore has less compliance than taller tread and won’t grip around the features in the road as well either.

[ckyliu]

In terms of summer tyres I’ve got a fair bit of experience and I’ve decided I’ll go with the Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 5. The Rainsport 5 is a very good tyre and I used them quite a bit in the past but I find them a bit squidgy and they wear very quickly.

I’m really seeking opinions on summer-biased all-seasons (so more of a winterised summer tyre, than the traditional summerised winter tyre) compared to a summer tyre, in the summer. I have no experience of this and I wondered what the tradeoff was like. I know there’ll be a range of answers as it’s all rather subjective.