Firestone WeatherGrip Review

The Firestone WeatherGrip is an all-season tire, promising to bring a balance of performance, reliability, and longevity to drivers. Now as this tire is structured with modern tread compound and technologies, it aims to cater to a variety of driving conditions and preferences. So how does it perform? Well, you’re about to find out!

The Firestone WeatherGrip excels in wet and snowy environments due to its effective siping and traction technologies but struggles with dry performance and steering response. And it maintains admirable fuel efficiency and longevity, with moderate road noise present, that asks for improvement (but this noise makes sense, given its winter tire like structure).

Tire Sizes

The Firestone WeatherGrip comes in 15 to 19 inches sizes, and all of those have the following specs.

• Speed ratings: H and V.
• Load ratings: SL and XL.
• Tread depth: 10/32″ on all.
• Weight range: 17 to 30 lbs.
• Treadwear warranty: 65k miles.
• UTQG rating: 640 AA.

Tread Pattern

The WeatherGrip tire offers a very biting directional tread pattern with a 5 rib design.

In the middle, the 3 ribs form 4 spacious circumferential grooves, where the outer channels are prominently joined up laterally as well.

But yes, the central rib prevents that as its continuous running, though its still pretty voided up.

Due to this, the tire slightly lacks in providing ample dry grip.

Though it has no problem in wet and snowy roads, as it comes with countless wave-like sipes, all over the tread.

Where its also helped by the thick longitudinal slits and snow vices on its shoulders (and central-most lugs).

Internally, the tire comes with a very light-weight construction, of just a single ply polyester casing, with dual steel belts and a single ply nylon cap ply on top.

Find all the All Season tires compared to Firestone WeatherGrip.

Dry Performance

Dry performance can be assessed using three key metrics: steering response, dry grip, and lateral traction. Let’s check out all of these aspects for a comprehensive understanding.

Directional Grip

Directional grip is quantified through stopping distances, measured when the tire is fully braked from a designated speed (in case of my tests, 60 mph).

And here factors such as tread composition, rubber-to-road contact area, weight, and rolling resistance collectively determine the overall grip level.

For Firestone WeatherGrip, the central tread area is particularly important as it makes maximum contact with the road, mostly due to the tire’s directional design.

However, despite the tire featuring a continuous running rib and a rounded contact patch, it fails to yield satisfactory braking distances, as evidenced by test results.

When compared with its direct competitors, this tire trails by almost six feet in braking tests. Though, considering its price point, this performance level can still be deemed acceptable.

Lateral Grip

The overall lateral grip is predominantly affected by the shoulder areas of the tire, and unfortunately, the Firestone faces similar issues here as well.

Despite the tire being equipped with interconnected biters on the shoulders, characterized by a combination of thick longitudinal slits and linear lateral paired with interlocking siping, it still lags behind its peers by an average of 1.5 seconds.

So why is that? Well its pretty simply actually.

The WeatherGrip exhibits significant voids, especially in the outer circumferential grooves and between the shoulders (lateral voids), preventing it from making sufficient rubber-to-road contact.

But, yes that’s just half the story, as the tire’s steering response is also subpar, as elaborated in the following section.

Steering Response

Being the wintry traction-focused all-season tire, the Firestone WeatherGrip steering response reminds of a snow tire. It’s tread is pretty soft, and due to which the tire seem to be laid back a little, where you get slower responses form the wheels.

So making any sudden or strong moves messes up the balance of the car, resulting in loss of control or the wheels spinning without moving the car forward.

The tire actually struggles with quick steering and gets to have a difficult time blending inputs, and this often leads to understeering, (where the car doesn’t turn as much as the driver intends).

Moreover, the tire’s front part is also too controlling, which makes the balance even worse, negatively affecting the overall tire’s grip.

But why is this happening?

Well, basically with a softer compound, the tread of the tire faces more inertia force, where the heavily planted tread doesn’t want to move too quickly.

When cornering, the lugs on the tire deform and require time to regain their shape, introducing a delay between the steering action and the feedback received.

So due to its sluggish feedback, Firestone lacks in overall handling, as seen by lap time tests.

Winter Performance

If you’re looking for an all season tire that can handle snowy roads really well, the Firestone WeatherGrip is an excellent choice.

This tire impresses across several key performance areas such as acceleration, braking, and snow handling, as well as quick and precise responsiveness to steering inputs. And it makes sense that it has the 3 peak mountain snowflake rating (besides M+S).

It’s technically a winter tire where it features snow traction claw technology, offering you with very biting, interlocking sipes, snow vices, and dedicated thick lateral and longitudinal slits.

These biters not only deliver excellent traction on icy roads but are also advantageous on softer tracks, where they gather particles to create snow-to-snow contact.

This feature significantly enhances traction, as snowflakes naturally stick well to other particles, creating what’s commonly known as the “snowball effect.”

Moreover, the tire’s directional pattern is also another pro here, as it efficiently scoops up and expels the snow backwards, generating forward momentum, or you can say acceleration for the tire.

Overall Wet Performance

Wet traction comes form two key areas, grip (combined with tire’s steering), and resistance to hydroplaning. Let’s discuss these one by one.

Hydroplaning Resistance

Wet conditions demand quick water evacuation from the tire. And this is mainly because water is not compressible, so if its not cleared off in time, it would come in between the tread and the road, causing slippage and a loss of traction.

To counteract this, tires are equipped with grooves which help most of the water to be pushed out.

Now, the Firestone WeatherGrip, with its “spacious and directional” tread pattern, doesn’t face any kind of issues here.

It effectively disperses water in all directions, ensuring stable directional and lateral float speeds, (which tells how fast the tire rolls over watery surface).

Wet Grip and Handling

Now, although, most of the water is pushed out with the help of grooves, the leftover water particles (that end up under the lugs) can still make the tire slip, but that’s where sipes come in.

Sipes are actually really important for wet grip. They’re small cuts in the tread that pull in the remaining water, helping prevent slipping by contracting and expanding (creating suction), to soak up the water particles.

And in this domain, the Firestone WeatherGrip gets to an awesome job.

It’s tread is heavily siped (so much that it reminds you of a winter tire), and since its construction comes with high-silica rubber composition, those sipes are pretty flexible as well (so they create a good suction power).

That’s why you get pretty commendable wet handling and lateral traction values, with this tire (despite the tire not performing so well on dry).

Tread Longevity

Evaluating the longevity of a tire involves a multi-faceted approach, considering things like the depth of the tread, the resistance it offers while rolling, and the type of materials used in its construction.

Now, contrary to initial impressions, the Firestone WeatherGrip, despite its relatively pliant rubber, doesn’t wear down rapidly.

I mean, its fairly resilient, and clarifies why it has the treadwear rating of 640 and comes with a treadwear warranty of 65,000 miles.

So the longevity of this tire is enhanced by two key features, its lighter, single-ply construction and its rounded contact patch, complemented by a directional design.

Both these basically lower the rolling friction, and the burning rate of the rubber.

Road Noise

Road noise is the result of various factors working together, from the noise produced by the tire itself, rolling over the road, to the different sounds generated by varying road textures.

And here air plays a lot of contribution.

As the tire rolls, these air particles come (predominately through shoulder area), and hit the tread walls, generating noise.

And in case of WeatherGrip, there was a constant (yet minor), tread growl and cavity noise, which acted kind of like the background noise.

While there’s room for improvement, this ambient noise can mask minor frequency shifts in tone, actually rendering the noise less bothersome (to ones ear). And hey, given the tire’s heavily siped structure, this minor growl is really nothing.

Furthermore, the noise could have been even more pronounced, if it weren’t for the tire’s varying pitch pattern.

This design feature, allows tread to produce diverse tones, (as air particles strike different tread areas). And these tones aim to neutralize one another, preventing sound waves from amplifying or being louder.

Fuel Economy

The relationship between fuel consumption and rolling resistance is significant. This resistance is primarily determined by two elements, the weight of the tire’s construction, and the composition of its tread.

Now, although the Firestone WeatherGrip has a highly siped structure and a very soft tread compound that is very sticky, its fuel efficiency is surprisingly decent.

This is mainly, thanks to its lightweight structure and a directional tread pattern featuring a “rounded contact patch”.

For keeping things on a lighter side, the tire employs just a single ply polyester casing, (unlike many of its direct competitors which utilize two). And so this weight reduction alleviates the pressure on the lugs as they rub against the road, reducing overall friction.

Further, the combination of a rounded contact patch and directional tread design allows the tire to interact more efficiently with the road, minimizing friction and, hence, lowering rolling resistance further.

So the result? You end up with a tire which is not so bad at fuel economy.

Take Home Points

The Firestone WeatherGrip offers a mixed bag of results.

The tire is simply outstanding when it comes to wet and winter conditions, thanks to its superior siping and innovative traction technologies.

However, it struggles in dry performance, with notable issues in braking distances and lateral grip due to considerable tread voids and slower steering responses it gives out.

Though despite these shortcomings in dry performance and a constant but moderate road noise, the tire offers commendable fuel efficiency and tread life due to its lightweight and thoughtful design.