Summer vs. Winter Tire Wear

Transportation, Travel and Trips
1
Automotive gurus,

I need your experience and opinion on tire wear of summer vs. winter tires.

So here's what I have:

Continental summers, about 11K km with 5.4mm average on all 4 tires. Nokian winters, about 17K km with 7.2mm average on all 4 tires. Both tires if I'm not mistaken were manufactured on the same year. Obviously used in the same car and I believe driven in the same manner, well I suppose, maybe a bit more spirited in summer.

Anyway, I can't understand how my Contis are 2mm lower with less kms on it? Does the hotter tarmac in summer make it worse? Or, is it just Contis are crap vs. Nokians?

2
Maybe you were more "spirited" than you think you were...

3
How do you know the Contis have worn more? Perhaps the winter tires started with a deeper tread depth?

Summer tires do tend to wear faster. Temperature, driving style, moisture/precipitation, all play a role.

4
1. Do you drive faster in summer? I do...

2. Summer tires typically start with less thread than winter tires...

3. There is more to tires than winter and summer... I had extremely different summer tires from hard "eco" tires for low gas milage and long tire durability to ultra soft toyo proxes sport tires... how much grip do you want and are you willing to pay for it?

5
I'm quite sure that the Nokian winters started at 8mm.

The Conti summers, I admit I don't know because it was on the car when bought and first measured only on the change-over. If the Contis started at 6mm, then this explains everything .

I sure understand that tire wear is due to a lot of factors. I just want to know what other experience here.

6
Everything above plus: even two different types of summer tyres would have different wear. C'mon, mileage is one of the properties of tyre you usually check when you are buying it.

7
My Nokian winters have much deeper tread than the summers to start with.

Plus really impressed with the Nokians

8
Me too - WR D3 and now D4. The life I get out of them could be better (I replace them long before they get down to the winter wear indicators) but given the price I'm not complaining

9
Do you guys have experience with Nokian summer tires? With the data I have, Nokian (albeit winters) are doing better than the Contis... so next summer tires will be most likely Nokian pending more info.

This is the reason I started this thread. I want to hear others' experience, to understand 'in general' how summer tires wear compared to winters.

I don't want to bash my Conti summers wrongly nor give undue praise to my Nokian winters.

10
Nokian is a Finish company, so they might know winter better ;-)

Again: there is more to tires than the brand - what sort of Continental do you have? Rain, sport, economy?

11
I generally base my tyre-buying decisions on the TCS tyre reviews. I typically don't look beyond the first few results and the last time I bought summer tyres - about a year ago - Nokian was on the list but not available in the size I required.

12
Yes, I know Nokian is a 'specialist' for winter.

I have these:

Conti CrossContact UHP 235/60 R18 103V

Nokian WR G2 SUV 235/60 R18 107V

13
Perhaps? I bloody well hope so, no?

14
Not necessarily. The OP has SUV tires... and some off-road summer tires have a lot of thread...

15
it is because they are:

- different tires

- of different types (summer/winter)

- and different brands

- driven at different times of the year

- at different speeds

- for different distances

remind me again why you would expect the wear to be the same?

16
I found the wear to be very good, especially as my car likes to wheel spin (lead foot)

I have the WR A4 which are fantastic in rain and very quiet.

17
If your experience is different than mine, maybe you can share... I perfectly understand its a lot of factors.

18
Sure. I think Michelin is doing something wrong, because my rear tires only last half as long as my front tires...

19
The Nokian winters I'm sure started at 8mm. The Conti summers, I'm NOT sure as I was not able to measure when it was 'new'. Is there a way to find out (website, tire label)?

20
Let's not go into that please... I'm just interested in wear-rate of summers vs. winters to keep it simple.