RE970 or Pilot Sport A/S 3?

[caramall2]

Anyone tried both of these by chance? Not real concerned with snow performance (as long as the do fair in a little snow).

[BarManBean]

General consensus seems to be that the RE970s are really cruddy in snow. I liked them for normal weather performance, FWIW. Haven't tried the A/S 3's though.

[grovlet]

Yup - 970s are not good in small amounts of snow - they are better when there is a little bit of snow depth, but truly hate 1/2" or less and really get iffy on packed snow...

 

I went with them as replacements for the 960s which were truly an "All Weather" Tire and did fine in any snow conditions along with decent all around performance in any other conditions...

 

I have never used the A/S 3s, but with my personal experience on the 970s I would point you to them vs. the 970s any day. Now if you can find some leftover 960s for a better price get those.

 

EDIT: To be even more clear though the 970s do perform awesome in all other conditions outside of snow, so you can think about them if snow is a very minimal concern.... But I still think the A/S 3s sound like a better fit for a single tire with almost any snow thoughts considered...

[caramall2]

Thanks grovlet/all. I pulled the trigger a couple days ago on the 970s but after reading over these again and grovlet's input, I think I would have gone with the A/S 3s at this point--maybe I was a bit trigger happy! I guess we'll see ;-) Interesting the Tirerack tests showed the same thing...AS3 did better in the snow.

 

If they do terrible and I save up I may have to get a set of AS 3 as my "snow" tire (smile) or get some semi-dedicated snows (I had some Goodyear ultragrips before that served me pretty well). We usually only have about 3 snow days a year year, but maybe 8-10 ice days. My concern is driving north on a trip or something and hitting snow.