Date:         Fri, 1 Sep 2006 13:44:43 -0400
Reply-To:     The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         The Bus Depot <vanagon@BUSDEPOT.COM>
Subject:      Re: New Tire for 15 Rims From Continental
In-Reply-To:  <F008E7DF-C705-4A50-B7D3-E95E5EA2A30F@mac.com>
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> Those look like summer only tires. The Vredestein Comtracs 
> have a similar tread pattern and definitely are summer tires 
> (for you in AZ, that's probably not a big deal...)
> 
> Except for the 205/65R15 size, the load index on these seems 
> lower than the Comtracs.


I had a long discusion with a Vredestein engineer a couple of years back
regarding "summer" versus "all season" tires. I believe I posted the exerpts
here, so it's probably in the archives. He pointed out that the "all season"
or M&S designation is not a standard that was determined by the U.S.
government, but by the tire industry itself, which is also responsible for
policing it. Therefore, as you might expect from a "self policed" industry
standard, it is very lax. The Vredestein engineer told me that many major
tire companies market the identical tire as "summer" in some markets and
"all season" in others, depending on what they can get away with in that
country.  He said that the tread design on the Comtrac is quite similar to
what some other manufacturers call "all season" in the U.S., but that
Vredestein is a strong proponent of using dedicated snows on all four
corners, and therefore would not consider that tire to be all-season. (They
market a Comtrac Winter snow instead for winter use.) Therefore it wouldn't
shock me if the Conti's have a similar tread design to the Comtracs but are
claimed to be "all season."  It just comes down to how conservative they are
in using that designation. I have seen this myself with many tires over the
years; there can be vast differences between various "all season" tires in
terms of winter performance (and none are as good as a good dedicated snow
tire, of course).

- Ron Salmon
  The Bus Depot, Inc.
  www.busdepot.com
  (215)  234-VWVW

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