Report: 3PMS tires vary in winter weather

AKRON—More and more so-called "all-weather" tires, as well as all-terrain tires, are available in North America sporting the tire industry's Three-Peak Mountain Snowflake (3PMS) symbol for verified snow traction.

The question arises, however: Can consumers trust the designation, considering it is regulated by the tire companies themselves?

In the U.S., the 3PMS designation is based on tire manufacturers' conducting their own ASTM F-1805 testing, or contracting third-party testing, for acceleration in medium-packed snow.

While there is no government oversight or independent third-party verification in the U.S., there is in Canada.

Despite the lack of oversight, the U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association claims tires with 3PMS account for a small percentage of the U.S. replacement tire market (3.9 percent), compared with nearly 50 percent of the Canadian market.

"Most, if not all, of the products that are sold in the U.S. are the same products that are sold in Canada," Tracey Norberg, USTMA senior vice president and general counsel, told Tire Business, a Rubber News sister publication.

"Canada does have a pretty significant oversight program. I think that is probably the primary vehicle where the compliance ought to be," she said.

"(The 3PMS tire) is a very small piece of our market here in the U.S. The vast majority of consumers buy one set of all-season tires and that's it. That meets their needs.

"Even if NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) is giving oversight," she added, "if it's brought to their attention that a tire is not meeting any NHTSA standards, they can pursue an enforcement action, and it can lead to anything, up to recalls. That is available as well if there is concern about a product in the marketplace, NHTSA has recall authority.

"Just because (NHTSA) is not testing doesn't mean a company doesn't take self-certification very seriously," she said. "No tire company wants to risk having a recall. It's a good deterrent because that does affect their business in significant ways."

The Canadian government requires tires marked with the 3PMS symbol must comply with minimum safety standards for winter driving. Transport Canada establishes regulations, under the Motor Vehicle Safety Act, which specify the tires identified with the 3PMS symbol must pass the ASTM F-1805 test.

Transport Canada conducts compliance audits every year of select tires from the market to ensure they comply with the 3PMS criteria. The government agency also can test tires for which they have received complaints from consumers or other parties, according to Barry Yutronkie, director of operations, Tire and Rubber Association of Canada (TRAC).

TRAC has not received any complaints of tires not meeting the 3PMS threshold, Yutronkie said.

"If there are some complaints, there is a mechanism for that to occur as well, and hopefully rectify the issue.

"In the event Transport Canada does find tires not being compliant, they also have the power to recall those products in the market as well. …

"There are consequences for non-compliance. It's not just a slap on the wrist. There are pretty severe things that can occur if they are not compliant to the regulation," he said.

For example, in 2021 Transport Canada approved the recall of nearly 10,000 Continental VanContact 4Season tires because they did not meet the minimum snow traction requirement.

Those tires sported the 3PMS symbol but did not provide the expected traction in severe snow weather conditions, according to Continental Tire Canada Inc., in announcing the recall. Continental said it did not receive any reports of accidents or injuries resulting from this condition.

Several tire makers have been introducing so-called "all-weather" tires that not only offer the features of an all-season tire, but also carry the 3PMS stamp for snow traction. They are considered an upgrade in snow traction performance, compared with the all-season tire, but not as strong a performance on ice and deep snow as a dedicated winter tire.

The 3PMS symbol has been around since 1999, when the U.S. and Canadian trade groups—known then as the Rubber Manufacturers Association and Rubber Association of Canada—developed the insignia and promoted the ASTM F-1805 test method.

The symbol stamped on the tire sidewall indicates the passenger or light truck tire achieved a traction index equal to, or greater than, 110 (compared with a reference tire rated 100) during the specified American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) traction tests on medium-packed snow.

The test measures a tire's acceleration traction on snow, but not braking or ice traction.

Some in the industry have expressed concern that some tires on store racks may not meet the threshold since usually only one size of a specific tire line, which can encompass multiple sizes and diameters, is tested.

In the U.S., a tire manufacturer can select a popular size in its lineup as a representative sample for the 3PMS testing.

"What that self-certification allows is for some engineering expectations because if this falls into this level, we can reasonably expect that this size would also fall into a very high level, and we don't need to necessarily test every single SKU that we offer the market to ensure compliance," said Steve Bourassa, director of products and pricing for North America, Nokian Tyres Inc., which sells all-weather and winter tires that are tested in Europe and North America.

He said this is a more economical method than in Europe, where government entities certify every tire SKU—which is "incredibly time consuming and expensive for tire manufacturers," he said.

Every tire manufacturer operates a little differently, with different standards and rules they make for themselves, he noted, adding that every company probably would test a certain number of sizes across a product line to ensure compliance.

While the certification threshold is 110, companies might aim for a fudge factor of 112 or higher so that all sizes in a line always come into compliance, Bourassa said, "an internal allowance for a safety margin on how far we want our products to exceed that minimum threshold to ensure compliance, if ever it gets checked."

"At end of the day, manufacturers want to give consumers what they're looking for," Bourassa said. "And if they're buying products because they want winter grip, I don't think there's many of us that want to disappoint that consumer by selling them a product that has three-peak-mountain-snowflake but does really, really poorly in snowy conditions, for example. …

"Is it a perfect standard? Is it a perfect marking? Nope," he said. "It only does testing in medium-packed snow. It doesn't take in full winter conditions into account.

"When talking about standardized tests, you have to be pretty narrow in what you're looking at. We've had the three-peak-mountain-snowflake designation for a long time now."

Brandon Stotsenburg, vice president, automotive at American Kenda Rubber Industrial Co. Ltd., noted: "The USTMA standard that was established in 1999, I think, can be reconsidered by the industry to maybe consider other criteria that would be enabled within the industry for actual performance, including possible ice performance and consistency across acceleration, braking within winter conditions and winter temperature conditions.

"Additionally, that there would be some consistent certification that would confirm that the tires that are designated within that standard can make that and that there is some level of on-going third-party testing with spot testing to make sure that the products actually meet those standards."

He also agreed that it would be prohibitively expensive to require manufacturers to test every size in a tire line, but he said the industry should come up with compromises.

His concern is that various sizes and diameters within a certain tire line may perform differently in testing.

A tire pattern with multiple sizes may only have one size tested, and if a tire maker doesn't have reliable modeling, it may not know that the other sizes don't meet the standard.

"I am concerned from a consumer perspective. I want to make sure that the consumer gets a product that has a standard that they can feel comfortable with," Stotsenburg said, noting that Kenda contracts third-party testing for its all-weather tires.

Nokian Tyres does both in-house and third-party testing, Bourassa said. Testing against a competitor's tires is usually for benchmarking purposes, not for comparing 3PMS performance.

"We're not in the business of making sure our competitors are matching that standardized test. We want to make sure we are and then we want to see how we compare against some of those competitors," he said.

Bourassa explained that the 3PMS symbol doesn't indicate the level of snow performance of various tires.

"Those standardized tests establish a minimum threshold—that if you pass this threshold, you can add that three-peak-mountain-snowflake to it. And typically, premium winter tires are way, way, way above that threshold."

Dedicated winter tires may achieve the 3PMS threshold, but within that winter tire category, high-performance winter tires may not have the same level of snow performance.

"The expectations for winter grip with those (HP) products might not be the same as a standard or premium winter tire," Bourassa said. "Consumers are buying the performance winter tires for better dry handling, for better wet grip, and typically the sacrifice is some of the winter grip on those products.

"A premium winter tire is achieving a level of 130 or 150 (in 3PMS testing), so way, way above the threshold. Performance winter tires may not be that high. They might be closer to that threshold, and I think the same thing about potential value winter tires as well.

"Low-entry, low-cost winter tires might not have the technology or the materials needed to really over-achieve on those standardized tests," he said, adding, "That's one of my thoughts: Do we need to change the three-peak-mountain-snowflake test? Do we need to make it harder? The risk is that we might start to eliminate some products that are more or less needed in the markets in order to try to bump up that minimum threshold of three-peak-mountain snowflake."

The USTMA's Norberg said the ASTM regularly reviews the testing procedures.

All-weather tires are designed for year-round driving conditions and may carry the 3PMS because they provide better winter traction performance than all-season tires, but they do not provide the same performance as dedicated winter tires, which also can carry the 3PMS symbol.

"Consumers may think that everything that has the three-peak mountain snowflake is at the same level of performance. That's not entirely true. It will depend on the tire and the model and the tread characteristics and compounds, etc.," TRAC's Yutronkie said.

When the 3PMS designation was created, only dedicated winter tires could achieve the designation. Most all-season tires had the M+S marking for mud and light snow. The 3PMS was added to show a tire had that extra level of winter performance capability, Yutronkie said.

Now the growing segment of all-weather passenger tires can carry the 3PMS stamp.

"We like to refer to them as all-seasons with the 3PMS symbol. All-weather is more like a marketing term used by companies," Yutronkie said.

He said he thinks there is a bit of consumer confusion between all-weather and dedicated winter tires.

"We try to educate them. We do have a winter tire report that we put out annually that denotes differences in the different types of tires. Through our media campaigns, we try to give consumers the information they need to make that decision and certainly the tire retailers are quite familiar with the different products that may suit their customers the best. They should be able to steer them in the right direction.

"It just a matter of doing a little bit of homework on what type of tire that you need for your vehicle. Sometimes it's not always clear to the consumer because there are so many choices. Doing a little bit of research will ensure they can find the tire that would work for them for their needs."