Pirelli Scorpion WeatherActive
Italian manufacturer Pirelli also offers an interesting range of winter tires for light-duty trucks, including the Scorpion WeatherActive , a winter-approved all-season tire for high-end vehicles. Otherwise, you can always rely on ATRs and All Terrain Plus tires, the latter being ideal for smaller SUVs.
Continental and General Tire Grabber
While Continental's winter tires can be recommended for most pickups and SUVs on the market, of particular note is the availability of Van Contact Winter tires, specifically created for delivery vans like the Ford Transit, Ram ProMaster and Mercedes-Benz Sprinter. There's even a certified Van Contact A/S Ultra version in the catalog.
Elsewhere, at General Tire , part of Continental, truck owners can take a look at the Grabber Arctic LT version, an affordable mid-range product.
Other brands
Of course, there are several other well-known brands producing winter tires, but not all of them are necessarily recognized, even if they are of good quality. If you take a look at previous versions of our guide, you'll see several that have been renewed.
These include Toyo Observe GSi-6 in LT or Open Country versions, including WLT or A/T III (homologated), Yokohama Geolandar including the popular A/T G015 version or the very recent A/T XD G017 (both homologated) for more robust and efficient pickup trucks in snowier northern regions.
Other brands include Hankook with its D ynapro I*cept , I*Pike RW11 and, above all, RW10 Winter I*cept X studless, a tire designed for icy roads. Add to this list Lauffen (a mid-range brand from South Korean manufacturer Hankook) with its I FIT Ice , Toyo with its homologated Celsius II , Yokohama AG53 for SUVs and even the Kumho Road Venture AT52 , which has been renewed for our market.
In a more economical niche, GT Radial seems to satisfy many buyers with its Adventurer AT-AW (manufactured in various parts of the world, including South Carolina). We can add other makes and models such as the Falken Rubitrek AT4 Wildpeak (homologated), Nitto Grappler and Nexen Roadian HTX2 to the list.
We haven't tried them all, but according to dealers, feedback from many consumers has been positive on those products. Aswell, the Motomaster Edge we reported on last year is now available for vans under the name HD for trucks.
As for more affordable tires, we can mention the availability of Hercules' Avalanche (made by Cooper), Sailun's Rovelo, WestLake Z-401 and Maxxis Victra SUV, the latter two of Chinese origin. We don't have enough data to judge them.
Finally, if you're wondering why there's no mention of imported tires (especially from Asia) in this review, it's because we haven't had enough opportunity to test them.
Although most of the opinions are the author's, some information comes from the manufacturers. Thanks to the folks at Pneus Premier Choix de Laval (including Jonathan and Étienne) for their information.