sportscarfanatic

Which one is better Pirelli or Dunlop?

Dunlop Winter Sport is a performance winter tire, and Pirelli Scorpion is an off road tire. I looked at a brochure from Porsche, and for Pirelli Scorpion is rated for heavy snow, where as Dunlop Winter Sport is not.

Does anybody have any experience with the Pirelli Scorpions? Since I live in Canada, we get a lot of snow in the winter, so I would rather go with the Pirelli unless someone says that they are terrible for daily driving when there is no snow.

Thanks!

EuroCarNut

I have the Pirelli Scorpions on all the time now (until I get another set of wheels to mount my Bridgestones back on).

While the Scorpions are awesome off-road and great in wet weather (we won't get much snow in Dallas, so I don't think I'll be able to help on that one), do realize that you will sacrifice top speed capabilities. The Scorpions are rated for no more than about 115 mph. While I guess no one should really be driving at that speed anyways, there are times on long trips when I wouldn't mind making quick bursts into the triple digits. With the Scorpions on, I'm much less likely to do that since I don't want to get that close to the tire's limits.

As for dailey driving, I've put about 7,000 miles on the Scorpions and I like them just fine.

GM Austin

Sounds like both of you are refering to the Scorpion A/T, however , just to clarify, there is also a Pirelli Scorpion Zero, an all weather, V rated tire that is also Porsche approved for the Cayenne.

EuroCarNut

Yes, I was referring to the A/T.

NMoore

The most common Scorpion is actually the S/T, very good for everyday, "H" speed rating, and handles mud and moderate snow better than comps like the Michelin LTX or Conti 4x4 Contact, for example.

Do not try to take Scorpion Zeros into snow, that is a dry-street tire that is fine for rain.

M758

Off-road tires are not always as good as winter tires.

An off-road tire is desigend for all season use and has specific features good for dirt.

A winter "snow" tire has features of tread and constuction that a good for snow and have the advantage of rubber compounds designed for the cold.

I have 98 Jeep Cherokee. I run BFG all terrain T/A on it year round. Here in Phx we don't get snow or ice, but have mountains close enough that do.

On a skip trip we once got 14" of snow. I found the BFG's great in the deep snow espcially getting out of the ski resort parking lot after the 14" of snow feel during the day. When I got on to plowed ice covered roads the tires really slipped alot and were ok at best. The reason was that there were not designed for the cold and the rubber got hard. Sure they had the M&S rating, but that only applies to void percentage of the tread pattern. The compound while suitable for sand, rocks and tough off-road use was not ideal for cold ice. In deep snow they were fine.

Bottomline is that if you are looking for ice/snow tire then a detedicated winter tire is probably better due to the compound. A good off-road tire can be as good or possiblly better in deep snow, but is not close in ice.


BTW.. I Consider deep snow to be anything over 5" depth over the hard base layer.

NMoore

Real winter tires also have considerably more siping that A/T tires, as well as the softer compound.

Carrera GT

The Scorpian Zeros were pretty terrible under all conditions.
Search this forum for my posts on Nitto Terra-Grappler for severe winter/snow and Nitto NT404 for mild winter/snow and great cold weather running (silica tread compound is the key to low temperature grip and siping is key to wet grip)

rockitman

I just ordered scorpion ice and snow's, HR rated 130 mph. Here is the link to check them out:

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....omCompare1=yes

Cay-ute

I live in Colorado and drove with the A/Ts through alot of snow and ice towards the end of last winter. The A/Ts handle both with ease, I had a hard time making the Cayenne lose it's grip. I saw that Rockitman bought the Scorpion Ice & Snow, haven't seen those before but I might try those once the A/Ts wear out. I do not have any experience with the Dunlp Winter Sports so I could not comment. The A/Ts did a fine job for me last winter.

Good Luck

Carrera GT

I like the tread pattern. The brickwork siping should help keep the tread blocks stable and the wide voids should be good in standing water. The rounded shoulders might be a bit vague on the road and allow more side-slip on loose surfaces. Good for snow on asphalt, probably not good on packed snow. A pity they don't offer wider fitments in the 18's. I wonder what "reinforced" means.

George from MD

They do offer fitments in 18's so I'm puzzled by your statement??????

Has anyone tried the Blizzaks or Dunlops??

George from MD

My mistake you said WIDER fitments.....

NMoore

CarerraGT:
Siping is for comfort, lower noise--large contiguous tread blocks are always loud--and grip in snow (mechanical adhesion). Siping also causes heat buildup due to squirm, but helps the tread retain flexibiliity in cold temps.

Silica compounds are for rain (chemical adhesion). Tread pattern and depth are the main determinants of wet performance. The best wet weather tires tend to be the highest performance dry street tires, which have virtually no siping.

Easy to forget, but all but a very, very few street tires are "rain" tires.

Carrera GT

NMoore, you've found ways to misinterpret what I've written. I can't tell if you're now talking about all tyres or specifically SUV tyres.

I don't know what you mean by "mechanical adhesion" -- perhaps you mean mechanical traction, but that's more to do with devices for traction control. When I looked up mechanical adhesion, it's a term used by chemists to refer to chemical bonding of various substances, apparently at a molecular level. And "chemical adhesion" seems to refer to the ability of a coating to bond with a surface. Perhaps these are also terms with specific meanings in the tyre industry.

I can't really comment on your generalisation about noise from "contiguous tread blocks" -- from what I've read, the treat pattern and the tread compound (to a lesser extent) cause the road noise and the squealing.

I don't agree that "The best wet weather tires tend to be the highest performance dry street tires" but I can say that what I would call a "high void ratio" tyre works best for loose surfaces and off-road conditions.

All that dismissed, i'd like to clarify what I wrote in the earlier post:
"The brickwork siping should help keep the tread blocks stable" -- this is to say that siping does cause the tread blocks to walk around, heat up (as you mentioned) and generally cause the tyre to be vague. A "brickwork" pattern might help minimise this looseness. Just a thought.
"wide voids should be good in standing water" -- in my experience, large, circumferential voids help grip in standing water.
"The rounded shoulders might be a bit vague on the road and allow more side-slip on loose surfaces" -- again, in my experience, a rounded shoulder permits the tyre to roll over under cornering, causing gradual loss of traction (understeer, probably) leading to a vague feeling in steering and a solid, hard, square shoulder, conversely is good for lateral stability on loose surfaces because it tends to dig in and carve rather than roll forward and sideways at the same time. Just my experience.
"Good for snow on asphalt, probably not good on packed snow." Having tried Nitto, Michelin, Toyo , Yoko and Pirelli on various SUVs under difficult off-road conditions, I've found that sqaure-edged shoulder blocks and generally square-edged tread designs help cut and carve on hard-pack. Smoother, quieter, softer block designs can work well on snow or dirt that's not hard packed.

If you're from the tyre industry and care to expand upon the technical stuff, I'd like to know what they're selling when they say "reinforced" for this tyre. In off-road tyres, "reinforced" means the load-bearing is greater and perhaps the tread and shoulder and sidewall each have better resistance to puncture from high-load like rock-crawling.