The Bridgestone Potenza RE980AS+ is characterized by its excellent directional and handling grip in both dry and wet conditions, marked by stable rubber composition and advanced siping structure. But how well does it stand in other key areas? Well, let’s find out!
Being a tire engineer, I can tell you that the Bridgestone Potenza compliments its amazing traction with a very stable and precise steering responsiveness, thanks to its durable construction, which also offers above average tread life. Though the tire significantly underperforms in ride feel, emitting pronounced noise and lacking road smoothness. And its relatively heavier construction also hampers its fuel economy.
Table of Contents
Sizes Specifications
The Bridgestone Potenza RE980AS+ comes in 16 to 20 inches rims, and they have the following specs.
- Speed ratings: W on all.
- Load ratings: SL and XL.
- Tread depth: 6.5 to 11/32″.
- Weight range: 22 to 34 lbs.
- Treadwear warranty: 50k miles.
- UTQG rating: 500 AA A.
Tread Design
Bridgestone Potenza RE980AS features an asymmetric tread design with a lot of tread features.
Starting with its central lugs, they are solid blocks positioned over a secondary rubber layer, and feature linear lateral grooves.
(Where these voids act as in-groove notches/biters, adding to the tire’s longitudinal traction).
Moreover, they also feature slanted wave-like siping, and have snow-vices, (the sharp, zigzag teeth, you see).
(Note how these snow-vices are only available on the central most rib, and shoulders only).
Speaking of which, the shoulder lugs carry less overall biters in comparison still, where they are only seen with linear siping and straight forward lateral voids.
And just like the central lugs, these shoulder blocks are also backed up by reinforced foundations underneath.
Find all the tires compared with Bridgestone Potenza RE980AS+.
Directional Grip
Directional grip refers to the traction a tire generates as it moves in a straight path.
This particular aspect is influenced by several elements including the tread structure, the composition of the material, and primarily, the central footprint of the tire.
Now the Bridgestone Potenza RE980AS+ features a very stable and adhering rubber composition, with a pretty packed up central area.
Like already explained in the tread design, it features 3 continuous running circumferential ribs, which make consistent rubber to road contact.
Moreover, with its angular, chunky lugs featuring in-groove biters and saw-toothed outer edges (on the central most rib), the tire gets to effectively bite in to the surface of the road, generating grip.
All these aspects combined ensures you get pretty decent dry braking distance (calculated on average, stopping from 60 mph).
Compared to the best here, the Michelin All Season 4, the Bridgestone’s tire only lacked by a mere 2 feet.
Handling Grip
When it comes to handling or sideways grip, the outer edges of the tread define the overall traction (measured by lateral G force).
So how well the shoulders and sidewalls of a tire are constructed are significant here (as they get the most weight pressure on them, as the tire concerns, due to centripetal force).
In this aspect, the Bridgestone Potenza RE980AS+ again doesn’t disappoint. I mean sure, it doesn’t offer the best results here, but its still above average.
Compared to the tire with the best overall lateral traction in the category, the Potenza only lacks by a mere 0.2 G.
Steering Feedback
The steering response of Potenza RE980AS+ is one of the best, I’ve experienced (in the category of ultra high performing all season tires).
This tire is noted for its immediate responsiveness to every steering input, making the vehicle feel more responsive, agile, and precise, enhancing overall driving satisfaction.
So what makes this tire do so well here?
Well, this is attributed to the tire’s compact shoulder lugs, which are fortified by additional foundational supports underneath.
This construction prevents the lugs from bending, allowing the tire to have perfect under and over steering balance.
That’s why the tire showcases best handling times on test.
Wet Performance
Achieving reliable wet traction is generally a challenging feat compared to gripping on dry, as water has to removed out in time (so that it wont come between the tread and the road).
And since water is not compressible, that’s the only way.
In this context, the Bridgestone Potenza RE980AS+ offers excellent performance.
It’s wet handling times (just like the dry), are taking the lead, outperforming all its competitors. And its wet braking is also not too far off, although not ranking at the very top, still comes in the middle.
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.
Regarding the tire’s steering response (in wet conditions), it’s impressively sharp and precise. This precision provides a strong front-end authority, allowing drivers to navigate turns with confidence.
In other words, with superb under and over steering balance, you get to position the car exactly where you want it to be, (while cornering).
But what makes this tire perform so admirably here? Well, the answer lies in its superior siping structure.
The Bridgestone Potenza RE980AS+ comes with a blend of both rectilinear and interlocking (wave-like) sipes, ensuring outstanding water displacement.
Essentially, sipes are slits designed to soak up water particles.
Now, although purely linear siping designs are susceptible to becoming rigid, which is undesirable for optimal traction, this tire’s design ensures the necessary flexibility.
And this flexibility allows the sipes to adapt and create better suction, enhancing the tire’s overall wet grip.
Winter Traction
In its previous version, the Potenza lacked full-depth siping and its grooves were not ideally structured to tackle all types of snowy tracks, and yes, its stiffer rubber composition tended to harden up too in colder temperatures.
However, the newly updated Bridgestone Potenza RE980AS+ has significantly improved upon its predecessor by paying closer attention to enhancing winter traction.
The tire offers pretty biting snow vices on its central most rib and shoulders, allowing for braking and handling efficacy respectively.
Furthermore, its slanted, wave-like sipes and chamfered lug edges enhance traction on icy surfaces, while in-groove notches aid in maintaining traction on softer, snowy tracks.
It is important to note, however, that it still does not offer the three-peak mountain snowflake rating certification. Though this rating isn’t everything, as it only tells that the tire performs 10% better in acceleration compared to an average all-season tire lacking this certification.
And it doesn’t reflect the tire’s braking and handling capabilities, which are pretty great in the case of our tire.
Tread Life
Tread longevity of a tire depends on wide array of factors, where a “good tire” with better tread life would have:
- A stiffer rubber composition, (which would resist rapid wear).
- A greater tread depth, so it would reach down to replacement levels slower.
- A lighter construction, so lugs have less weight pressure on them.
- And a uniform tread pattern, so the weight is evenly divided (which also prevents uneven wear, and different types of tread deformations).
Now considering all these factors, the Bridgestone Potenza RE980AS+ performs acceptably.
While it’s true that the tire’s more substantial internal construction and the increased flex in its lugs result in a higher rolling resistance, its well crafted tread pattern helps in evenly distributing this weight across the tread.
Moreover, its relatively deeper tread depth is also pretty helping here, requiring more time to wear down to 2/32″ (the minimum legal tread depth in the USA).
That’s why overall, this tire comes with the treadwear rating of 500, and gives out a 50k miles warranty.
Feel of Ride
To thoroughly evaluate the quality of ride (this tire offers), I divided up this section in to following 2 parts.
Tread Noise
Noise is a pretty complicated subject, where there are a lot of factors contributing. But let me save you some time by telling you that the Bridgestone Potenza RE980AS+ is not impressive at all.
The tire’s tread pattern generates a noticeable growl and a grinding sound, especially on coarse concrete surfaces.
And when on asphalts, diverse sound patterns emerge, with some sounds fading out in to the white noise.
To be more specific, there’s a pronounced two-tone cavity noise that persists consistently.
This makes the tire notably louder than many others in the ultra-high-performance all-season category.
But why is this the case?
Well, the continuous growl it emits is primarily due to its heavily siped design. Moreover, its inability to effectively incorporate variable pitch technology results in the distinct two-tone cavity noise, I talked about.
This technology designs lugs with varying geometries, producing different tones that neutralize one another, reducing overall noise, and its needs to be more sophisticated in our tire here.
Ride Comfort
While the Bridgestone Potenza RE980AS+ promises high performance, its overall comfort during my extensive testing has proven to be inferior compared to others in its category.
This is mainly because this tire demonstrate an extended recovery, duration post-impact, causing prolonged ride disturbances and a noticeable absence of smoothness, a quality effortlessly exhibited by its competitors.
In simpler words, the tire gives you a sluggish response in its bumps damping properties.
Moreover, you also feel slight tread vibrato on smoother tracks as well.
So it ends up getting the least score in the overall subjective comfort performance.
Fuel Usage
Fuel usage is directly proportional to the tire’s rolling resistance, which is then influenced by various parameters including the tire’s weight, tread depth, and composition, (among others).
Unfortunately, the Bridgestone Potenza RE980AS+ falls short in this respect, primarily owing to its weight which is slightly on the heavier side for an all-season tire.
Additionally, its pliant tread (mainly because of its heavily siped design), tends to adhere more to the road surface, resisting easy release and thus demanding higher fuel input to maintain momentum.
While the tire’s greater weight exerts additional pressure on the lugs, forcing them to flex more, the greater tread depth acts as a catalyst in this process, further leading the lugs towards deformation.
This flexing (of the tread) requires energy to restore the lugs to their original shape, basically diverting energy that could otherwise propel the tire forward.
For Your Info: Comparing to its direct competitors, the Bridgestone Potenza weighs the most, and comes with 11/32″ tread depth, where the rest of the group do go above 10/32″.
Take Home Points
The Bridgestone Potenza RE980AS+ offers both impressive features and areas needing improvement.
It gives you a nice directional and handling grip in dry conditions, (attributed to its stable internal cap plies), where you also get a very responsive steering response too.
The tire also shines in wet performance, leading in handling times and providing reliable wet braking due to its superior siping structure.
Conversely, it struggles with fuel efficiency due to its greater weight and pliant tread, resulting in higher rolling resistance.
Though its tread life is acceptable, where its deeper tread depth with a well-crafted tread pattern allows it to have a 50k miles warranty.
But it seriously needs a bump up in the comfort department, where its very noisy and does not offer a good enough impact comfort performance (where it lacks post-impact smoothness).
