Winter tire vs. all season vs. mud tire from Wikipedia

Dedicated winter tires will bear the "Mountain/Snowflake Pictograph" if designated as a winter/snow tire by the American Society for Testing & Materials. Winter tires will typically also carry the designation MS, M&S, or the words MUD AND SNOW (but see All-season tires, below).


Studded, highly siped, winter tire
Some winter tires may be designed to accept the installation of metal studs for additional traction on icy roads. The studs also roughen the ice, thus providing better friction between the ice and the soft rubber in winter tires. Use of studs is regulated in most countries, and even prohibited in some locales due to the increased road wear caused by studs. Typically, studs are never used on heavier vehicles. Studded tires are used in the upper tier classes of ice racing[24] and rallying.
Other winter tires rely on factors other than studding for traction on ice, e.g. highly porous or hydrophilic rubber that adheres to the wet film on the ice surface.
Some jurisdictions may require snow tires or tire chains on vehicles driven in certain areas during extreme weather conditions.
Mud tires are specialty tires with large, chunky tread patterns designed to bite into muddy surfaces. The large, open design also allows mud to clear quickly from between the lugs. Mud terrain tires also tend to be wider than other tires, to spread the weight of the vehicle over a greater area to prevent the vehicle from sinking too deeply into the mud. However in reasonable amounts of mud and snow, tires should be thinner. Due to them having a thinner wheel base, the tire will have more pressure on the road surface, thus allowing the tires to penetrate the snow layer and grip harder snow or road surface beneath. This does not compensate when the snow is too deep for such penetration.
[edit]All season
The All Season tire classification is a compromise between one developed for use on dry and wet roads during summer and one developed for use under winter conditions. The type of rubber and the tread pattern best suited for use under summer conditions cannot, for technical reasons, give good performance on snow and ice. The all-season tire is a compromise, and is neither an excellent summer tire nor an excellent winter tire. They have, however, become almost ubiquitous as original and replacement equipment on automobiles marketed in the United States, due to their convenience and their adequate performance in most situations. All-Season tires are also marked for mud and snow the same as winter tires but rarely with a snowflake. Owing to the compromise with performance during summer, winter performance is usually poorer than a winter tire.

If if the tire doesn't have the "Mountain/Snowflake Pictograph", it isn't a winter tire. Drive at your own, your families and innocent other's increased risk of having a wreck.

As a not, a snow tire and ice tire are not the same thing. Many ice radials have poor snow performance, many good snow tires have poor ice performance. Some high performance soft compound all seasons out perform winters on ice.

I drive with studding snow radials which have good snow and ice performance but are terrible braking on wet/dry pavement, which the roads are most of the time in the winter.

My truck has all seasons because you can't find many E rated snows. The tread would come off those like erasers if you used a good soft compound.

Its a compromise.

Yes, I've taken some pretty good slides on wet (not frozen) roads with studded tires when I hit the brakes.

The vehicle itself can also make a huge difference. When my steep, unsalted mountain road is at its worse - full size trucks/SUVs slip, slide, and often land in the woods- regardless of tire-type. Happens more often with people coming down who can't stop.

I've had many such days when even my 4WD truck with studded snows on all four would be a death-trap coming down the road. Yet . . . I can drive my old 4WD Subaru wagon with summer times and barely slip at all. I suspect it has much to do with it's small 13" tires and great weight distribution - along with soft springs.

I've had many vehicles that were terrible no matter what tires you stuck on them. I keep tire chains on all four wheels on my Chevy K5 Blazer plow-truck. It's the only safe way to drive it when the road is real bad.

By the way, on a car that is generally good to start with - I've found the soft-rubber, so-called "studless" snow tires to be the best compromise for going, and stopping, in ice, snow and wet roads. Dunlop Graspics are the best I've ever driven on.

i agree wit5h you vehicle comment jd... i've often wondered why when you watch ice racing or rallying on TV the always use very slinny tire and tehy have 300 plus hp to control, yet our road cars with maybe 200hp have great fat wide tires, and the worst of the lot are 4x4 trucks, but it is nearly immpossible to get skinny tires from any dealer, and if you could they don't want to fit them, because "they're not specified for that car"...

Simple common sense tells us that the narrower and smaller the tire the greater the weight per unit area applied to the road hence more grip.

In the 70"s i went on a tour of the St Paul Mn
ford plant, when it was in full production,(they
only make Ranger pickups there now--maybe it"s closed)anyway, they were doing a production run
of Crown Victoria Police cars for the Cansdian
police ,RCMP,(Mounties) the were putting 600-16
8 ply tires on them. When I asked why, a plant
engineer said, "for better traction..more weight
per square inch".