In the realm of grand touring all-season tires, both the BF Goodrich Advantage Control and the General Altimax RT45 stand out as pretty decent choices. Both provide a distinct combination of performance, handling, and comfort. Are these the tires you need? Let’s find out.
Table of Contents
Key Takeaway
As a tire engineer, my tests reveal that the General Altimax RT45 takes the lead in terms of:
- Superior braking capabilities in dry conditions, with its more effective biters.
- Enhanced lateral grip and handling, particularly evident in its high lateral G-force readings.
- Better performance in ice and snow braking, handling, and steering responsiveness due to its intricate secondary groove patterns.
On the other side, the BF Goodrich Advantage Control has the upper hand in terms of:
- Superior wet traction and hydroplaning resistance, attributed to its full-depth siping structure and Aqua-Flume Technology.
- Reduced noise levels and improved ride comfort, owing to its slightly better pitch sequencing tread and a more flexible rubber.
- Comparable fuel efficiency and tread longevity.
Size Info
The BF Goodrich Advantage Control Review comes in 14 to 20 inches rims, and they have the following specs.
- Speed ratings: H, V and W.
- Load ratings: SL and XL.
- Tread depth range: 10.5 to 11.5/32″.
- Weight range: 17 to 32 lbs.
- Warranty: 75k miles for H, or 65k miles for V and W speed rated sizes.
- UTQG rating: 700 B A.
Review this tire in greater detail: https://tiredriver.com/bf-goodrich-advantage-control-review/
The General Altimax RT45 comes in 14 to 20 inches rims with following specs.
- Speed ratings: T, H and V.
- Load ratings: SL and XL.
- Tread depth range: 11/32″ on all.
- Weight range: 15 to 31 lbs.
- Warranty: 75k miles for H and T, or 65k miles for V-speed rated sizes
- UTQG rating: 600 A A.
All sizes on RT45 comes with Replacement Tire Monitor (RTM), and Visual Alignment Indicators (VAI), showing wear and alignment issues respectively.
Make sure to check: My main all-season tire page is your hub for expert advice and top tire picks.
Dry Performance
The overall dry performance of tires is contingent upon two elements: their longitudinal grip and handling. Let’s explore each element in sequence.
Longitudinal Grip
The ability of a tire to maintain control in a straight line, known as directional traction, is largely influenced by the tire’s contact patch with the road and the effectiveness of its tread footprint.
In this context, the General Altimax RT45 excels due to its robust, thicker central ribs that feature advanced, precisely angled biters.
This tire is designed with a broader and more consistent central rib, ensuring a steady and strong road contact. This design element contributes significantly to the RT45’s superior braking capabilities.
Plus the tire also further enhances its grip and traction with carefully engineered features like optimally angled notches, linear siping, chamfered edges, and “Y-shaped” in-block biters on the surrounding ribs.
On the other hand, the BF Goodrich Advantage Control falls short with its narrower central ribs and wider grooves.
Sure they are pretty effective in providing resistance to hydroplaning due to the Aqua-Flume Technology (as you’d see in wet performance section), they also compromise the tire’s braking traction.
In fact braking is the BFG’s weakest performance aspects that also extends to wet conditions.
Lateral Grip and Handling
Handling is a more comprehensive indicator of a tire’s overall performance in dry conditions, as it combines almost all other key aspects together, including braking, lateral traction, and steering response.
Now, this is best understood by examining the three phases of navigating a corner. Entering, mid-cornering and exiting.
Initially, as a vehicle enters a corner, the tires need to decelerate, testing their braking capabilities. And in this regard, the Altimax RT45 excels, (already discussed why in the previous section).
At the mid-point of the corner, the vehicle’s weight shifts towards the tire edges or shoulders. Here, the General’s superior shoulder design comes into play, offering enhanced grip, which is evident from its higher lateral G-force readings (on my tests).
Moreover, its stiffer rubber composition contributes to better steering responsiveness.
The stiffness of the RT45’s rubber means that its lugs are less prone to bending compared to those of the BF Goodrich tire.
This rigidity is crucial because flexibility in the lugs causes a delay in returning to their original shape, impacting the time between steering input and the corresponding output from the wheels.
That’s why here the Advantage Control compromises its ability to provide the same level of steering responsiveness and lateral traction (with its relatively softer rubber).
Wet Performance
To determine overall wet performance, I specifically tested both tires here for their wet grip, handling and resistance to hydroplaning. Let take a look at them all, respectively.
Wet Grip and Handling
Understanding wet traction involves recognizing that water is incompressible, which has significant implications for tire performance.
I mean since water cannot be compressed/squeezed, it must be efficiently channeled away by the tire’s tread to prevent hydroplaning, a condition where the tire loses contact with the road surface due to a layer of water.
Key to this process are sipes and grooves. Here’s how they work.
Grooves serve as “main” pathways for water evacuation, while sipes are small slits containing air. And as the tire rolls, these sipes compress against the road surface, pushing out air and creating a vacuum. This vacuum then aids in clearing/sucking-up moisture drying out the road for rubber to grip on.
Now here, the BF Goodrich tire takes the lead clearly. Despite some occasional slippage, the Advantage Control’s superior full-depth siping structure, which features multiple angles, and its softer tread composition, give it an “advantage”.
Its softer rubber basically allows the sipes to more effectively draw in water particles, which is crucial for clearing water from the tire’s path.
On the flip side, the Altimax RT45 shows more slippage, primarily due to its less effective sipes.
Sure it does have numerous sipes, but the General’s harder rubber composition, designed for increased durability (longevity), restricts their flexibility.
So its more rigid sipes aren’t able to create sufficient suction to handle water effectively, leading to reduced wet traction performance.
Hydroplaning
Now, as we’ve already discussed, hydroplaning occurs when a tire floats on water. To counteract this, tires are designed with grooves.
Basically the traction part of overall wet performance is dependent on sipes, while resistance to hydroplaning or aquaplaning heavily relies on the structure of the grooves and their ability to efficiently channel water away.
And here, the Advantage Control stands out thanks to its Aqua-Flume Technology, which is the name BFG gives to its curving grooves that are notably more effective in displacing greater volume of water.
Additionally, this tire also benefits from a slightly greater tread depth, which is self-explanatory: the deeper the tread, the more water the tire can displace.
For Your Info: With the BF Goodrich tire taking more water out through grooves, it reduces the reliance on sipes to begin with, enhancing overall wet traction further. Though the tire still lacks to Altimax RT45 in terms of wet braking.
Snow and Ice Performance
Both tires here are pretty decent contenders when it comes to winter conditions. Sure they don’t have 3 peak mountain snowflake certifications, but they still provide an above average overall performance compared to other tires in their group (of competitors).
And here although the Advantage Control excels in snow acceleration the overall performance gets to be better on General’s tire, based on tests conducted on both icy and light snowy tracks.
The Altimax RT45 shows superior capabilities in ice and snow braking, handling, and steering responsiveness. And this is largely due to its intricate secondary groove patterns, designed not only to minimize noise but also to engage effectively with snow.
(I mean grooves have biters embedded on the base of the tread).
These grooves basically enhance the tire’s ability to create snow-to-snow contact, which is crucial for traction particularly in lighter, fluffier snow. This aspect is important because snow adheres to itself better than to rubber, providing the RT45 with a notable advantage in such conditions.
Furthermore, the General tire also features more effective in-block notches and a shoulder design with offset edges. And these elements are skilled at displacing snow and improving propulsion in snowy environments, resulting in enhanced snow acceleration.
Ride Quality
Ride quality is two parts, tires’ ability to keep road noise low, and their efficacy in smoothening out road imperfections. Let’s start with noise.
Noise Comfort
Noise is a common issue with both tires, which is somewhat expected given their high levels of traction. Though let me share my subjective evaluations here.
Let me start with BFG tire. So the Advantage Control produces a varying pitch noise characterized by distinct tread interaction.
I mean, the tire generates multiple harmonics that change from one surface to another and also vary with speed.
In contrast, the General Altimax RT45 tends to emit cyclic tones accompanied by growling sounds and, depending on the surface, some cavity noise too.
So overall none of the tires here are good enough. Though if we’re splitting hairs, the BF Goodrich is slightly better at least on the paper. I mean it ends up showing marginally lower decibel levels on my averaged tests.
And this can be attributed to its rubber composition, which is basically better at minimizing in-groove resonance. In other words its rubber absorbs noise energy more efficiently.
Ride Smoothness
Ride comfort is intrinsically linked to a tire’s ability to absorb and mitigate the effects of road irregularities. And this smoothness is largely determined by the tire’s rubber composition and its overall design, including both the inner and outer construction.
In this regard, the BF Goodrich Advantage Control emerges as the superior choice, based on my subjective testing.
This is because this tire is designed with a softer rubber compound that effectively transforms more energy from road bumps into tread flexing, contributing to a notably smoother ride.
Additionally, the BFG tire’s greater tread depth and an extra layer of polyester in its internal structure provide added cushioning. This design allows for more effective absorption of bumps, significantly reducing the amount of vibration that reaches the vehicle’s cabin.
Fuel and Tread Efficiency
When evaluating fuel efficiency and tread longevity, rolling resistance is a key factor. It is influenced by the tire’s rubber composition, design, overall weight, and grip level.
Let’s break it down.
So grip-wise, the Altimax RT45 has a stronger hold on dry surfaces, so naturally, it rubs against the road more. This could mean using a bit more fuel.
But here’s the thing, when it comes to fuel economy, the RT45 isn’t really burning through more gas compared to the BF Goodrich tire. I mean in real-world terms, you’re not going to see any difference in your car’s miles per gallon when switching between these two.
So why is that?
Well, this is because the Advantage Controls ends up with similar rolling resistance values with its softer rubber which flexes/bends a little more wasting energy in the form of heat. So you get similar fuel economy with this tire.
And yes, same is the case in terms of tread longevity.
The General Altimax might have tougher rubber, which wears down slower, but the Advantage Control balances that out with a deeper tread and less rolling resistance. So, they both give you similar mileage over their lifetimes.
That’s why both tires offer similar treadwear warranties of up to 75k miles.
Wrapping Up
So what’s the verdict here? Well it’s a game of trade-offs.
The Altimax RT45 leads in dry performance, particularly in braking and handling, thanks to its robust central ribs and advanced tread design.
Whereas in wet conditions, the Advantage Control edges ahead with its superior siping and Aqua-Flume Technology, offering better water evacuation and traction.
And in winter scenarios, the Altimax provides better handling, but lacks to BFG in terms of traction.
Other than this, both tires are closely matched in terms of overall comfort, longevity and fuel economy.
