- Pirelli has released a new all-season tire designed for high-performance cars, the P Zero AS Plus 3.
- More than 94 percent of tire customers buy all-season tires, Pirelli says, so this one is intended for vehicles such as the Ford Mustang, Genesis G80, BMW 3-series, and Mercedes-Benz C-class.
- The tires are on sale now starting under $200.
Pirelli has launched a new tire in its all-season lineup exclusively for the North American market and geared toward high-performance cars. New to the Pirelli Plus line, it joins the six other tires already in the lineup as the highest-performing of the bunch.
After all, more and more sporty and even full-fledged sports cars are coming with all-season tires from the factory, such as the Chevrolet Corvette and Camaro, the Ford Mustang, the Subaru BRZ, and the Toyota GR86. While an all-season tire will never match a summer tire either in the dry or the wet, even sports-car owners are deciding that today's near-1.0-g all-season tires offer sufficient dry-weather grip and longer life with the additional capability of dealing with cold temperatures or even a dusting of snow.
shop the pirelli p zero as plus 3 at Tire Rack
The P Zero AS Plus 3 tire blends the performance of Pirelli's P Zero range together with the rest of the Pirelli Plus lineup. It also features a new tread pattern, compound, and construction and comes with a 50,000-mile limited tread-wear warranty, which Pirelli touts as beating that of any summer-tire warranty. Pirelli is also using a new 3-D sipe horizontal interlocking system with increased tread-pattern stiffness to improve snow performance, and there are polymers in the compound that Pirelli says makes for more even and efficient wear. Pirelli claims that the tire will perform 99 percent as well as new in wet or snowy conditions when the tread is half worn, in part because the sipes open as the tread wears.
In the process of developing this new tire, Pirelli engineers emphasized improving mileage through changes to the tread pattern and compounds used in the process. Pirelli claims that this new tire "is designed to deliver smooth wear, improved snow traction, excellent performance on wet, and a comfortable ride with reduced cabin noise."
The P Zero AS Plus 3 is available in 31 sizes from 17 to 22 inches, making it available to a wide range of vehicles, but their key fitments for this tire include the Ford Mustang, the Genesis G80, the BMW 3-series, and the Mercedes-Benz C-class.
find the size that fits your car at tire rack
Taking Them Out for a Spin
While in Las Vegas, Pirelli put this tire on various cars for us to drive in different conditions. We spun around a small road course with some SUVs and drove out to the Valley of Fire on the Scorpion AS Plus 3 tires to experience wet, dry, and normal on-road conditions. On the track, Pirelli featured the P Zero AS Plus 3 on Toyota Supras and put some P7 AS Plus 3 HP tires, which have a more balanced attribute most suitable for passenger cars, on some sedans that we took around the road course.
As we went around the various tracks in different cars, these all-season tires felt better than expected, and you could really feel them gripping the road. When asked about why Pirelli chose to put which tires on which cars, they responded by saying that there are a few factors in how they make that choice. First, the vehicles chosen are popular and recognized vehicles that appeal to the broader audience, and second, to demonstrate the various applications of the all-season tread patterns. A Pirelli representative also told us that the priority was on highlighting capability in "traction, handling, braking, and most importantly, comfort in various weather conditions."
While the North American market has long bought all-season tires in huge numbers—Pirelli says 94 percent of all tires sold today are all-seasons—more and more variants that skew toward high-performance are bringing sports-car drivers into the all-season fold. Buyers are choosing one tire that can be used all year round and can perform well in weather that's hot, cold, and in between. The P Zero AS Plus 3 sets itself apart with a 50,000-mile warranty and brings solid performance in both wet and dry conditions.
As for us here at Car and Driver, we will still continue to swap back and forth between summer and winter tires to get the best performance we can out of each vehicle we drive, but it's good to see that the all-season tire continues to elevate its game.
Becca Hackett
Managing Road Test Editor
Becca was introduced to Car and Driver magazine at the age of four. She began working for 10Best Cars when she was 16, and then on and off for 10 years. A degree in social work and a brief time in that line of work led Becca back to Car and Driver and eventually on to the fleet side of things, where she produced large-scale automotive launches and events. Becca left the auto industry in 2013 when she went on to become a yoga therapist with a certification from Loyola Marymount University and a then was a Reiki practitioner for six years. A move back from Los Angeles to Michigan brought Becca back to Car and Driver and to her love of cars.
