Topic: What would be the proper expectation of the M+S label on all-season tires?

[m1xed0s]

As title suggests...What should be my expectation for the all-season tires for winter in NS (not rural but mostly highway drive)?

Just got a new car which comes with all-season Michelin tires. I have started researching online to purchase the winter tires...Then I realized I never quite understand the "M+S" label considering the Canadian winter...

Also, any suggested online retailers you would recommended for ordering new tiers and rims? I used 4tires.ca before but wonders if any other alternatives to choose.

Thanks!

[DriverJeff]

Here's the thing, plenty of folks run "all season" tires all year round and proudly proclaim they've never had an incident and don't need proper 'winter' tires. Perhaps, but it's been proven time and again that decent winter tires not only perform better on snow and ice in terms of turning and stopping, but also grip the pavement better when it's dry and cold due to squishier compounds that the tires are made from.

In that one instance where a deer jumps out in front, or some momentarily oblivious driver goes through a red light, or you just enter a slippery corner a bit too quickly, wouldn't you want to stop that 10, 15, 30 feet sooner?  That's what proper winter tires can do for you.

In NS, you guys get some pretty significant snowfalls, so that's another reason to consider it.

And for the argument against winter tires because of the cost, figure that over 4-5 year ownership span, you'll likely need to replace a set of tires anyway. With a set of winters (which are generally more affordable than the '3-season' replacement tires) you'll reduce the wear and tear on the tires that came with your car. 

As for retailers, pricing seems to be fairly consistent across the board now. That said, 1010Tires.com has always been a decent Canadian choice, but I'm sure others will offer up other suggested retailers.  If you're happy with the dealership from which you bought your car, check with them, they often offer surprisingly good deals on winter wheel and tire packages because they buy such high volumes of them.

[m1xed0s]

Agree on all your points but again, would still hope there might be a easy to understand about the M+S rating on all-season tires.

[PJungnitsch]

It just means there's a certain amount of open space (ie grooves) in the tire tread, I believe over 25% open area.

So not a racing slick

[Fobroader]

m+S means that they have some all terrain ability, to me, personally it means nothing. Much like all season, its a useless moniker and should be gotten rid of. You want tires good on the highway, get summer tires, you want good tires for the winter, get winters, you want to go offroad, there are some excellent all terrain and mud tires for ya. You cannot make a tire not even half decent at everything without seriously compromising all its performance aspects

[PJungnitsch]

Even the mountain snowflake symbol is effectively useless, it's a standard from 1999 that means 10% quicker acceleration on packed snow. Our OEM all seasons on the RX had that stamp, and those were not winter tires by any means

[Fobroader]

Even the mountain snowflake symbol is effectively useless, it's a standard from 1999 that means 10% quicker acceleration on packed snow. Our OEM all seasons on the RX had that stamp, and those were not winter tires by any means

Yup, the Duratracs I had on our Wrangler had that mountain snowflake BS, they were effectively hockey pucks on ice, sure in deep snow they rocked, but yeah, not winter tires at all.

[HeliDriver]

It just means there's a certain amount of open space (ie grooves) in the tire tread, I believe over 25% open area.

So not a racing slick

Yeah, this. It’s basically meaningless.

Funny thing is, I bet a lot of summer performance tires, especially those with a bias towards wet performance, would also technically qualify for the M+S rating. But of course the manufacturer chooses not to put it on there, because racecar.

Same with the silly 3PMS. The standard is so low that I’m sure plenty of all-seasons would qualify. Whether or not a manufacturer wants to run the test to get the approval for the symbol basically comes down to marketing.

And that’s another difference: as was said, M+S is just the ratio of tread to void. You can just look at the tire (ok, measure) and it will get the stamp or not. Manufacturers actually have to put tires on a vehicle and conduct a test (on packed snow only  ) to “earn” the 3PMS qualification. And I believe they need to run the test for each tire size as well, so it’s not a cheap thing to do.

Bottom line, every winter tire will have 3PMS, but not every tire with 3PMS is a winter tire. (I stole that line from somewhere.  )

[draghon]

Even the mountain snowflake symbol is effectively useless, it's a standard from 1999 that means 10% quicker acceleration on packed snow. Our OEM all seasons on the RX had that stamp, and those were not winter tires by any means

Wow, didn't realize its that old! Tire design has certainly come a long way in 24 years, time for an update to the standard IMHO.

[HeliDriver]

Been a while since I looked it up, but the 3PMS standard says a tire only has to perform 10% better than the “reference” tire. (And only in an acceleration test on packed snow, as was mentioned.)

Took a bit of digging, but I found somewhere that this reference tire is basically a Uniroyal Tiger Paw all-season from the 1980s. So not even a premium all-season, or even a good all-season, just a crappy all-season from 40 years ago! 

And apparently Uniroyal finally quit making this crappy all-season, so there was a bit of a scramble to find a suitably crappy replacement for this “reference” tire so they could continue doing the tests. 

So, yeah, 3PMS is basically meaningless: 10% better acceleration on packed snow than a crappy all-season from 40 years ago. Woo-hoo!

[ArticSteve]

As title suggests...What should be my expectation for the all-season tires for winter in NS (not rural but mostly highway drive)?

Just got a new car which comes with all-season Michelin tires. I have started researching online to purchase the winter tires...Then I realized I never quite understand the "M+S" label considering the Canadian winter...

Also, any suggested online retailers you would recommended for ordering new tiers and rims? I used 4tires.ca before but wonders if any other alternatives to choose.

Thanks!

4tires is Quebec?  I recently used https://www.quattrotires.com/contact (Quebec) for wheels and studded tires.  No screw ups.  Very satisfied.

I think being in NS, Quebec is your best option.  As others have said the snow flake and the M&S symbols are all BS.  Currently you have fake all seasons.  Seasonal tires exemplify what is the Canadian burden.  Sucks to the extreme.  After the extra rim cost, you are just trading tread wear for tread wear.  Where it gets nasty is if you trade brands every 3 years.  Then you end up with a small warehouse of rims and snows  Then there is the matter of TPMs.   

[PJungnitsch]

Really Cross Climates or WRG4 type tires should be standard here, adding a set of true winters in colder areas

[EV Dan]

If only for insurance sake, winter tires had better have the 3 mountain peak symbol, that is if you claim to use winter tires. I've bought tires from blackcircles and things went well. Actually called them a couple of times ahead of purchase and the service was good too.
For my next purchase I'm curious how good the new Canadiantire's Winter Edge 2 tires are. The previous gen. were made by Cooper and were decent and this time they are manufactured by Hankook or some such. Good deals on them at the moment.
Otherwise, Michelin X-ice Snow, Bridgestone WS90, Conti Viking 7 are well rated tires.