When winter comes to an end, it’s time to remove all that specialty rubber and put on some warm-weather appropriate tires.
Performance tires (also called summer tires) are made of no-compromise rubber that is perfect for warm weather. This is in contrast to all-season tires, which are designed to cover a lot of conditions and end up not being perfect for any of them.
According to a few studies, performance tires are grippier in dry conditions and wet conditions when compared to all-season tires. This is due to a number of reasons including compound and tread patterns. They’re certainly impressive, but the downside to performance tires is that they’re completely unusable in snowy and winter conditions. You definitely have to be proactive about switching tires at the right time of the year and have the storage space to have two dedicated sets of tires. But the advantages beyond having superior performance in the summer is that your tires last twice as long.
There are a few sub-categories to performance tires:
- Grand Touring Summer Tires – Best suited for use on luxury cars or sports sedans. They blend the usual performance tire elements of good dry and wet handling with lower noise levels and improved comfort.
- High-Performance Summer Tires – Like the previously mentioned Grand Touring tires but aren’t as focused on the noise and comfort. They’re usually saved for sports car and sedans.
- Ultra High-Performance Summer Tires – Prioritizes the handling and responsive nature, offering a sharper feel on the road alongside added grip in dry and wet conditions.
- Max and Extreme Performance Summer Tires – two no-compromise tiers of tires that are stiffer and more responsive than the other categories of performance tires. They will also put less of an emphasis on wet traction.
Here are a few good bets in each of those categories.
Updated 2/28/2020 with minor revisions.