The winter with hankooks
I provide an amateur, inexperienced, but hopefully insightful review of hankook's w616 winter tyres
I made a promise in my last post that I would provide some insight into my 'first' winter tyres experience, so since the holidays are over and I am once again separated from my car by 1500 miles of sea and land (which is incidentally the distance I covered with my car during the holidays) I am back at it again. In about 4 weeks I covered roughly 3000 km in temperatures ranging from 5 degrees (celcius) to -19.
Firstly, abit about the tyre. The Hankook W616 (aka Winter i*cept iZ2) is a premium category winter tyre. The reason for the 'premium category' I think is due to the tyres' soft compound, the W616 has one of the softest rubber compounds in Hankook's winter tyre range, if not the softest. This means that it should have superior grip to other winter tyres, though since this is the only winter tyre I have tried on my car I can't comment on how it compares to other tyres. The retail price of the 225/45/R17 tyre in Lithuania is 107 euro/tyre, I got mine for 102 each, but that was purely because I knew a guy.
The tread of the W616s
The rubber is very soft to the touch (as it should be), so soft that deforming the tread with your fingers is very easy. Comparing grip levels of winter and summer tyres is pointless, but I think the one comparison that perhaps can be made is in the temperature range of 5-10 degrees, this is around the temperature drivers are advised to switch to winter tyres. I would go as far as to say that perhaps summer tyres would provide better grip levels unless there was standing water on the road due to the lack of chemical grip of the winter tyre, but as temperatures drop to below 3 degrees or so winter tyres are essential for safety reasons. I'm not one to care much for this kind of thing in the general case, but since the failure of both of my ABS sensors during the holidays, I was driving without ABS or DSC (traction control) which is ok if you're careful, but also meant that it was really easy to see how the car reacted to minute temperature differences and how easy it was to lock up the brakes. As such if you live in areas where temps get below 3 degrees or so I would strongly recommend winter tyres. As one might expect, in temperatures below 3 degrees however winter tyres provide superior grip, doesn't matter if it's 3 degrees, -10 or -20 the tyres stay soft and provide good grip on snow. On ice you can cope if you choose correct gearing, but ice is ice and it will be tricky unless you have studded winter tyres. I forgot to measure wear of the tyre, but if I remember to measure it when I get back to Lithuania during Easter I will put up a quick post about it. The tyres were tested on track during a time attack style event and provided predictable grip even in varying conditions (the track had snow on some sections, ice on others, standing water and wet surfaces).
In short, if it is winter and you want to take your car to the track or drift in the parking lot of your local McDonald's (or a forest road) then these tyres will suit your needs nicely.
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