Pirelli P Zero All Season Plus Detailed Review | Tire Driver (2024)

The Pirelli P Zero All Season Plus stands as an ultra-high-performance all-season tire, ideally suited for sedans, sports cars, and coupes. The tire of course offers excellent traction and handling capabilities, but it also promises a smooth and quiet ride all year round. Let’s see if this tire is made for you!

Tire Sizes

All sizes on the Pirelli P Zero All Season Plus come in 17 to 20 inches wheels, with following specs.

• Speed ratings: W and Y.
• Load ratings: SL and XL.
• Tread depth: 10/32″ on all.
• Weight range: 21 to 31 lbs.
• Treadwear warranty: 55k miles.
• UTQG rating: 500 AA A.

External Construction

The P Zero All Season Plus comes with a unique asymmetric tread pattern.

And as the tire’s tread is divided up in to 5 parts or ribs. Let’s start with the middle 3.

These 3 ribs offer 4 circumferential grooves where each has a unique tread pattern.

The central most rib comes equipped with both lateral and vertical (slanted) in-groove notches, and a combination of linear siping.

And similar features are seen on the rib next to it (on right in the image).

While the rib (on the left side), features thicker lateral grooves, and wave like siping structure.

Similarly the shoulder lugs on each side are different too, mainly in terms of their siping designs, where on one side they come with linear designs, while other has a wave-like pattern to it.

Compare Pirelli P Zero All Season Plus with others:

• Michelin Pilot Sport All Season 4
• Continental ExtremeContact DWS06 Plus

Dry Performance

The performance of an all-season tire on dry roads largely hinges on its ability to grip well, combined with its steering and cornering abilities.

Let’s get into each of these aspects below.

Dry Grip

The grip of a tire is greatly influenced by how well its tread can stay in contact with the road.

Now the Pirelli P Zero All Season Plus stands out in this aspect, showcasing shorter braking distances when compared to its rivals.

This is mainly because of its always active central portion, featuring in-groove notches and siping slits that hit the road’s surface at multiple angles, allowing for grip in all directions.

Basically the central area of the tread is what defines most of the grip, as it gets to meet up with the road with greater friction (as the tire rolls straight, that is).

And besides these biting edges, you also get interlocking surrounding lugs/ribs having asymmetric pattern, and this further adds to the overall grip.

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Dry Handling

During cornering maneuvers, a significant portion of the tire’s weight shifts towards its shoulders, and so these shoulder lugs get to make a more substantial connection with the road’s surface.

That’s why two things define the overall handling capability of the tire:

• The overall shoulder’s rubber contact with the asphalt.
• And the flexibility of the lugs, or you can say overall tread.

The first one is of course, very obvious, the more the rubber contact, the better the grip, and as for the second point, with less flexibility in the tread, lugs don’t get to bend a lot (mostly in the opposite direction of the cornering).

And with less bending, the overall steering response is more direct.

Now here, the P Zero All Season Plus almost took the top spot, I mean compared to others in the category. The tire showcased the quickest average lap time, (even though its was still by a tiny bit).

It offered very great control overall, moving smoothly through tight spots, cornering just as I (being the driver) wanted.

And yes, the overall steering was a bit easy, but the tire responded well and consistently to movements, especially when turning from a straight position.

But how this tire manages all that?

Well, this superior performance can be attributed to its intricately designed tread, where the densely packed outer ribs significantly enhance the tire’s grip on the ground during turns.

Furthermore, the closely positioned shoulder lugs, complemented by reinforced internal bead support, contribute to the tire’s stable cornering capabilities.

And this is further enhanced by the tire’s overall (relatively) stiffer rubber composition, which although needs some help in the comfort department, offered pretty great overall over/under-steering balance.

For Your Info: The Pirelli P Zero AS emerges as a top contender in my list ultra-high performance all-season tire category, particularly due to its leading dry handling performance. You can find the list here: https://tiredriver.com/best-ultra-high-performance-all-season-tires/

Wet Traction

Wet traction remains a considerable challenge for our tire here, as seen by the tire’s overall wet grip and handling, following by its resistance to hydroplaning, (the two main wet performance factors).

Let’s check them out one by one.

Wet Grip and Handling

So overall both the wet grip and handling is a step behind for our tire here, I mean compared to other tires in its category.

The overall steering feel was still great here, just like it was on dry roads, but one could easily feel the lacking overall traction.

In terms of handling, the tire showed significant slippage on corners, where once the front-end grip is lost and it begins to skid, it takes quite a while to regain control.

And even though there’s a good enough balance between front and rear, there’s a very fine line there as well, meaning pushing it too hard can easily disrupt this balance.

That’s why compared to others, the tire gets to show up with slower lap times (on average).

And as for the braking, the tire simply took a little longer to reach down to 0mph form 60 (on average, as seen on tests).

But why is this tire lacking in both these areas, even though its gets to have ample siping?

Well to get that, you need to understand siping. So these are slits which work by facilitating the absorption and expulsion of water particles. They basically suck up water particles, by “flexing” (creating suction), so the rubber/tread biters can grip on the relatively dried up surface.

Now the issue with the Pirelli P Zero All Season Plus tire is its firmer rubber compound. This makes it harder for the sipes to absorb and release water effectively, leading to slightly reduced wet traction.

For Your Info: Out of all tires I reviewed in the high performance all season category, the Michelin Pilot Sport All Season 4 offer the best wet braking.

Hydroplaning

Hydroplaning, sometimes referred to as aquaplaning, occurs when a tire fails to displace water quickly enough through its grooves, resulting in a loss of traction as the tire floats on a water layer.

And here the Pirelli P Zero All Season Plus although offered decent straight float speeds, it lacked a little in the curved aqua testing.

And this can be explained observing its tread. I mean, since you get very longitudinally aligned ribs in this tire, with no proper lateral grooves, water isn’t displaced out sideways.

And so in curved hydroplaning test, you get a slightly lacking performance compared to its peers.

Snow Performance

In evaluating winter performance, it is essential to consider the distinct challenges presented by various types of surfaces, where icy roads necessitate numerous biting edges, and deep snow require tread scooping abilities.

And yes sometimes you need a mixture of both.

And considering all, it really makes sense why the Pirelli P Zero All Season Plus is not accredited with the three-peak mountain snowflake rating (and has only the M+S).

Even though the tire features an array of notches and siping (both interlocking and linear), facing multiple directions, they still lack the highly need flexibility.

That’s why the tire took a large step back from its comparable peers, stopping almost 10 feet shorter (compared to Michelin All Season 4).

And where its handling was also below average, where it showed a good amount of tendency to slide laterally on snowy and icy surfaces.

Overall Ride Quality

Now the overall ride quality depends on the tire’s noise generation, bumps absorption capabilities, and the overall stability, and here, the P Zero is actually pretty great.

Let’s check out why in the following sections.

Vibrations Comfort

The impact comfort provided by a tire is mainly determined by its proficiency in mitigating road bumps and shocks. And it highly depends on the overall make up of the tire.

That’s why having a harder tread compound (relatively), the Pirelli lacks here.

It although offers pretty stable steering, the overall ride is jittery.

Moreover the tire’s stiffer internal cap ply isn’t also helping that either.

Road Noise Suppression

When it comes to road noise suppression, the Pirelli P Zero All Season Plus ranks among the top contenders, where it only emits muffled and unidentifiable sounds.

So how come this tire is so quite?

Well, it kills noise at the source. Let me explain.

So noise is just air particles hitting the tread walls, and that air comes in mostly through shoulder voids, where Pirelli places ridges (blocking the lateral grooves).

This doesn’t allow too much noise to get in, in the fist place (so noise generation is cut down at the source).

Meanwhile the tire’s asymmetric tread design in the middle integrates pronounced variations in block angles, which basically forms a “variable pitch sequence”, which further contributes to noise reduction, (as noise frequencies cancel out each other).

Nevertheless, it’s important to mention that as the tire wears down, it tends to produce more noticeable noise, especially at higher highway speeds, (where you hear a slight yet cyclic hum). Though this has a lot to do with the cabin insulation.

Side Note: Among all the UHPAS tires I’ve reviewed, the Vredestein Hypertrac All Season (review) ranks for providing you with one of the best bumps + noise comfort.

Tread Wear

The Pirelli P Zero All Season Plus showcases remarkable efficacy with regard to tread wear.

On average, this tire provides a lifespan exceeding 50k miles with ease, a notable achievement considering its a “high-performing” all-season tire.

And so because of that, it gets to have the treadwear rating of 500 (which is good enough).

Basically the tire employs a rubber composition that exhibits a pronounced resistance to wear.

Simply put, its tread is less pliant and the tire’s overall (construction) weight is also pretty light.

With lighter weight, all its lugs get to have less pressure on them, as they rub against the road, and with a stiffer rubber, the overall wear rate is minimized.

Side Note: In its UHP category, only one tire was able to outperform Pirelli’s tread longevity, the Yokohama ADVAN Sport A/S+ (review).

Conclusion

The Pirelli P Zero All Season Plus stands out for its exceptional dry grip and handling, largely due to its well engineered tread design. So it gets to offer shorter braking distances and rapid response times, especially during cornering.

The Pirelli P Zero All Season Plus has a mixed performance profile. It excels in dry conditions, offering notable grip, handling, and steering response due to its advanced tread design and stiffer rubber composition.

And yes, it also comes with superior road noise suppression abilities and impressive tread wear longevity, outshining many peers in the high-performance all-season category.

But, the tire lacks a little in terms of wet traction and handling, where there’s also a room for improvement in terms of winter performance.