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Last updated 7/11/2024 - Originally published 7/11/2024
Written by SimpleTire
For most drivers of sedans, coupes, minivans, crossovers, and SUVs, all-season tires make the most sense for a lot of reasons. All-season tires are a Swiss Army Knife kind of solution for year-round driving, with dependable traction in everything but heavy snow, capable handling, a quiet and controlled ride, good response and road manners, and a generous treadwear warranty. That’s why all-season tires dominate the tire market year in and year out as the single biggest-selling category of tires.
When it comes to premium all-season touring tires for crossovers and SUVs, there are a lot of options on the market. We’re going to take a closer look at the Pirelli P7 All Season Plus 3 and Goodyear Assurance All Season, both of which are great values, and great performers in their own right. These are tires that have similarities and contrasts as well as their own unique sets of strengths and weaknesses, and we’ll get a bit deeper into that in this head-to-head comparison.
In the course of this product comparison, you’ll see us refer frequently to SimpleScore numbers – if you’re not familiar with that, SimpleScore is the ranking system that the SimpleTire team developed for tires. We look at reviews and other data points to determine a numerical value of 1-10 for the categories of traction, longevity, and handling for each tire, as well as an overall average SimpleScore for each. It’s a quick and handy way to get an overview of a tire’s capability and performance in those respects.
Our SimpleScores for these tires are as follows:
Pirelli P7 All Season Plus 3:
- Traction: 9.5
- Handling: 9.3
- Longevity: 9.5
- Overall average SimpleScore: 9.3
Goodyear Assurance All Season:
- Traction: 8.4
- Handling: 8.4
- Longevity: 9.0
- Overall average SimpleScore: 8.5
As you can see, these are tires that each have their strengths and weaknesses but are not quite equivalent to each other. SimpleScore is a handy at-a-glance tool, but it’s also a 30,000 foot view that doesn’t give you a comprehensive, detailed idea of what to expect with a tire. Let’s go in for a closer look at this product line review:
Pirelli P7 All-Season Plus 3 tires
Pirelli is a company that strives to stay ahead of the game when it comes to features and benefits with its all-season tires. The P7 All-Season Plus 3 is designed for enhanced ride comfort and lower noise along with consistent traction even in light winter conditions.
Its functionalized polymer tread compound generates better traction and delivers longer wear, and an asymmetric tread pattern delivers great traction in wet or dry conditions, along with superb handling properties.
An innovative design touch is a void space in the tread pattern that’s kept to a minimum for best rubber-to-road contact. Larger, sequence-tuned tread blocks help cancel road noise while simultaneously improving dry-weather handling On wet pavement, the P7 All-Season Plus 3’s tread grooves and channels are equally distributed and work in unison to remove water from the tire’s contact patch and resist hydroplaning tendencies.
Winter traction is enhanced with full-depth and 3D sipes in vertical, horizontal, and zigzag patterns which all provide hundreds of extra biting edges for consistent traction in snow, slush, and rain. For durability and a stable, secure driving experience, twin steel belts, a 2-ply polyester casing, and two polyamide cap plies are part of the P7 All-Season Plus 3’s design. Pirelli backs the P7 All-Season Plus 3 with a 70,000 mile limited manufacturer tread life warranty. SimpleTire’s pricing on the Pirelli P7 All-Season Plus 3 starts at $157.64 per tire.
Goodyear Assurance All-Season tires
So what does the Goodyear Assurance All-Season bring to the table? The Assurance All Season is designed for Grand Touring levels of ride comfort, and road manners, with dependable traction year-round. Its large, stable shoulder blocks boost cornering and responsiveness by resisting the inertia of cornering that can lead to tread deformation and squirming, instead keeping the tread face firmly planted on the pavement during hard maneuvers.
Multiple biting edges in the tread groove pattern and a dense network of sipes work as a system to deliver a confident grip in snow or slush, and wide tread grooves divert water or slush from the tire’s contact patch to mitigate hydroplaning on wet roads. Internal construction details of the Assurance All-Season include a polyester cord body with twin high-tensile steel belts, and its tread compound is designed for long, even wear and dependable traction in wet or dry weather. Goodyear backs the Assurance All-Season with a 65,000 mile limited manufacturer’s tread life warranty. SimpleTire’s price on the Goodyear Assurance All-Season starts at $101.99 per tire.
Pirelli P7 All-Season Plus 3 vs Goodyear Assurance All-Season tires on traction
How do the Pirelli P7 All-Season Plus 3 and Goodyear Assurance All-Season stack up against each other when it comes to the traction category? It’s not really close, with the Pirelli netting a SimpleScore of 9.5 vs 8.5 for the Goodyear. While Goodyear has a well-designed tread pattern for traction on wet or dry roads, tests, and reviews show that the 3D sipe design of the Pirelli does a better job of enhancing grip in wet or wintry conditions. On wet pavement, the Pirelli is equally confident, with little tendency toward hydroplaning and handling and braking performance that are precise and predictable. Our decision:
ADVANTAGE: Pirelli P7 All-Season Plus 3
Pirelli P7 All-Season Plus 3 vs Goodyear Assurance All-Season tires on handling
When it comes to the handling category, once again the Pirelli and the Goodyear are barely in the same ballpark with each other, with the Pirelli showing a SimpleScore of 9.3 vs 8.4 for the Goodyear. Pirelli draws from their extensive experience in the motorsports world, and those designs tend to inform how they develop even all-season tires like the P7 All-Season Plus 3. The sipes that enhance its traction also have an impact on maneuverability and handling, with reinforced shoulder blocks that help with cornering ability. In addition, the solid center rib of the P7 All-Season Plus 3 boosts responsiveness and straight-line road manners. The P7 All-Season Plus 3 might not have the handling of a summer or UHP tire, but it’s very capable for drivers who like to push the envelope. Our decision:
ADVANTAGE: Pirelli All-Season Plus 3
Pirelli P7 All-Season Plus 3 vs Goodyear Assurance All-Season tires on longevity
In the longevity category, the comparison is a lot closer and the two tires stack up quite a bit more evenly with each other, with the Pirelli’s SimpleScore of 9.5 vs 9.0 for the Goodyear. When it comes to longevity, the SimpleScore results tend to be a lot less subjective, with the limited manufacturer tread life warranty telling the whole story. In this case, the Pirelli has a tread life warranty of 70,000 miles vs a 65,000 mile tread life warranty for the Goodyear. It’s an open-and-shut decision:
ADVANTAGE: Pirelli P7 All-Season Plus 3
When to use each
Let’s be honest: when we’re talking about a premium Pirelli tire vs a premium Goodyear tire, you probably can’t go wrong with either one. Both are equally strong performers for a wide variety of sedans, coupes, minivans, and crossovers; both offer great traction and handling in wet or dry conditions, with the exception being deeper snow (neither tire has a Three Peak Mountain Snowflake certification for winter traction, and most non-3PMSF all-season tires don’t do well in heavier winter weather). The Pirelli is designed for a quiet, and luxurious ride along with a generous treadwear warranty and enhanced handling. For that matter, so is the Goodyear although it doesn’t quite stack up favorably against the Pirelli in the SimpleScore ratings. Long story short, though, these are both good prospects for any driver who needs all-season performance but also likes a tire that’s responsive and nimble so they can push the performance envelope now and again.
Which one should you choose?
Let’s take a look at what the Pirelli P7 All-Season Plus 3 and Goodyear Assurance All-Season have to offer. Both tires are designed for the same performance targets when it comes to noise level, ride quality, handling, year-round grip, steering response, and treadwear. Both have sets of design features that compare well to each other, but the Pirelli consistently outranks the Goodyear by a wide margin in all the SimpleScore categories except longevity, where the gap is at least closer. Of course, the other factor that tips the scales here is price and $157.64 per tire is a whole lot more than $101.99 per tire. In light of that, the Goodyear does look a bit better, especially if you’re on a budget. Still, if we were looking for a set of premium all-season tires for a sedan, coupe, minivan, or crossover, it’s our take that the Pirelli P7 All-Season Plus 3 is the superior choice all the way around.
Still not sure which tire to buy? Fortunately, SimpleTire is here to help as our helpful agents are more than happy to assist you in selecting the right tire for your ride and budget.