The Firestone WeatherGrip stands out for its light snow traction and everyday comfort. On the flip side, Goodyear’s WeatherReady promises a seamless touring experience with year-round “assurance”. Let’s see which tire is better for you.
So, let me start off by giving you a whole picture here: The WeatherGrip provides better hydroplaning resistance, dry grip, and steering responsiveness due to its design and construction. Conversely, the Assurance WeatherReady excels in wet conditions, comfort, and winter traction with its siping and tread design.
Table of Contents
Tread Structure
Let’s start off with Firestone WeatherGrip, showcasing a pretty voided up structure.
The tire has a directional pattern, which is basically also voided up in a way, that 5 ribs are created (ribs another name for block columns).
The central most is almost continuous running, and is the narrowest of all.
While the adjacent ribs carry squared off structures, with thick longitudinal slits splitting them up.
These slits combined with the siping structure they have are also common with shoulder blocks.
Though these blocks are sligher wider, and have snow vices too.
These snow vices are basically toothed-edges, and are also seen on the central most rib.
Internally, the tire is pretty lightweight, featuring a single-ply polyester carcass, supported by two steel belts and topped with a nylon cap ply.
In contrast, the Goodyear Assurance WeatherReady comes with an asymmetric tread design.
And although like the WeatherGrip, this tire also delineates 5 unique ribs that form four circumferential channels, there is a lot more going on here.
I mean comparatively, this tire ends up being more aggressive.
Especially, when you look at its central 3 ribs with a lot of biters.
The narrowest middle most rib comes with lateral notches, saw-toothed grooves, and interlocking sipes.
While one of the adjacent rib features even more aggressive pattern with needle like blocks, having chamfered edges, and multiple other biters.
(The other rib, alongside the middle one, although also carries chamfered edges, and similar siping, here blocks are more streamlined due to their squared off structures).
Though they have zigzag outer edges facing the similar ones on the shoulders.
Internally, the tire integrates a 2-ply polyester shell, enhanced by broader twin steel belts and a singular polyamide-reinforced cap ply.
Size Selections
Make sure you look out for the correct sizes, which would align better with your vehicular needs.
| Specs | Assurance WeatherReady | WeatherGrip |
|---|---|---|
| Rim Size (inches) | 15 to 20 | 15 to 19 |
| Speed Ratings | T, H, V | H, V |
| Load Ratings | SL, XL | SL, XL |
| Tread Depth (32″) | 10 or 11 | 10 |
| Weight Range (lbs) | 19 to 37 | 17 to 30 |
| Mileage Warranty | 60k miles | 65k miles |
| UTQG Rating | 700 A A | 640 AA |
- Review Firestone’s tire in greater details: https://tiredriver.com/firestone-weathergrip-review/
- Review Goodyear’s tire in greater details: https://tiredriver.com/goodyear-assurance-weatherready-review/
Overall Wet Performance
Wet performance hinges on two primary factors: wet traction and hydroplaning resistance.
Let’s discuss both.
Hydroplaning Resistance
In wet conditions, both tires deliver pretty decent results, and to appreciate their performances, it’s essential to understand how effective their grooves and siping structure is.
Now grooves determine the overall resistance to hydro or aquaplaning, which is just another name for floating of a tire, as it happens when a layer of water comes in between the ground and the tread, and the rubber is not able to grip properly.
Having said that, both tires with their spacious grooves, don’t have any issues here. Though still, as Firestone has the edge of its directional tread pattern, you see better float speeds on this tire compared to Goodyear.
Its V shaped arrow like grooves basically offer better water evacuation properties. These grooves are also interconnected longitudinally too, allowing for more effective water disposal in all directions.
Wet Braking and Handling
While grooves are instrumental in displacing water “on a bigger scale”, sipes come in later, soaking up residual moisture, by flexing and creating a suction.
These sipes are directly related to wet traction, where they basically act as water containers. They flex, and suck up water particles in their slits, clearing away the path a little more for tire’s rubber/biters to grip on.
Now as already explained, the WeatherGrip offering V-shaped directional grooves, effectively disperses more water to begin with, leaving less water burden behind on sipes.
So is the tire better here? Well, not really.
You see, Firestone’s tire only offers wave-like siping designs, which are also only laterally arranged.
In other words, it doesn’t come with “multi-directional” biters, which are highly needed, especially when it comes to harsher maneuvers.
In contrast, the Goodyear Assurance WeatherReady benefiting from a (relatively) softer compound and a blend of linear and interlocking sipes, provides superior overall wet traction in comparison.
Moreover, it’s asymmetric design having ton of biters, in the form of needle-like chamfered edges and in-groove notches for example, allow for wet gripping in all directions, allowing for superior performance.
So overall, the Goodyear offering more biters delivers superior wet performance, whereas the Firestone’s tire, provides greater resistance to hydroplaning.
Ride Comfort
Ride comfort is directly linked to how well a tire soaks up road imperfections. And here overall tire’s construction (both inner and outer), is one of the most significant factors.
That’s why both tires with their softer, thermally adaptive and 3PMSF certified rubber compositions do so great here.
But still overall, the Goodyear WeatherReady still leads the way and provides a more comfortable ride experience, because of the following reasons.
- It’s tread is relatively softer, which is self explanatory.
- The tire has a greater tread depth, so there’s more rubber between you and the bumps.
- It’s internal construction has more layers of polyamide, which again adds to it’s soaking abilities.
On the other side, the Firestone WeatherGrip lacks, since here you get less room for bumps to settle down, relatively.
Fuel Consumption
Fuel consumption is directly linked with tire’s grip level, construction weight, and rubber composition.
Considering these factors, it can be seen why the the Firestone WeatherGrip is marginally superior here, providing better fuel economy in comparison.
This is attributed to the tire’s:
- Lighter overall build: Which exerts less pressure on lugs as they come in contact with the road, resulting in reduced friction.
- Generally shallower tread depth: Which means the tire is less prone to lug bending, which wastes energy (in to heat, for the most part).
- Rounded contact patch: Which ensures uniform pressure distribution on the lugs, further limiting the bending of it’s lugs.
The WeatherReady on the other hand, does the opposite, where it’s softer compound bends/deforms more, compromising on fuel economy.
Dry Performance
The efficiency of a tire in dry conditions is primarily determined by its grip and handling.
Let’s talk both in details.
Directional Grip
Several factors play a role in a tire’s directional grip, including its tread composition, the rubber contact area with the road, its weight, and rolling resistance.
Taking these into account, the Firestone WeatherGrip, despite having more tread voids overall, still emerges as a better option here.
And that’s mainly because of the it’s lighter weight, rounded contact patch, and it’s continuous-running central rib. Let me explain how each of these help.
- It’s continuous running central rib provides better adhesion to the road. And that coupled with its more streamlined design (directional pattern), you get superior straight-line grip.
- Additionally, the tire is marginally lighter in comparison, and that decreases its momentum inertia, allowing it to stop easier and quicker, (which is significant because braking distance is the direct measure of directional grip).
- And lastly, its rounded contact patch further adds to that, as it distributes the tire’s weight more evenly, putting less pressure on the lugs, to begin with.
On the flip side, the Goodyear Assurance WeatherReady has a greater weight resting on a smaller rubber area, so it makes sense why it takes 3 feet longer to stop, on average (on braking distance testing).
Dry Cornering
Overall cornering is two parts, grip and steering.
The cornering “grip” of a tire, primarily hinges on its shoulder/sidewall region, as they make the most contact with the ground, as the tire turns and it’s seen better on WeatherReady.
The Goodyear’s tire, basically coming with more packed up shoulders, and abundant biters, provide you with 0.3g (g force) greater lateral grip/traction compared to Firestone’s tire.
Moving towards steering, it depends on flexing of the lugs. I mean, with greater bending/flexing (of the tread), the overall under/over-steering balance gets disrupted.
And in this area, the WeatherGrip takes the lead, with it’s relatively stiffer rubber, and lighter construction weight.
Both these factors keep the lugs more composed, so they are less susceptible to bending, relatively.
In essence, while the WeatherReady offers superior grip, the WeatherGrip excels in steering responsiveness. So, consequently, their overall handling performance is overall, the same, as evidenced by their similar lap times during handling tests.
Winter Performance
Both tires excel in the fundamental aspects of winter performance, showcasing superb abilities in ice/snow acceleration, braking, and handling. (That’s why both of these are also branded with the 3 peak mountain snowflake ratings).
However, the Assurance WeatherReady still ends up getting greater overall winter scores, at the end of the day (as my tests with these tires, reveal here).
Now this superior winter performance for the Goodyear’s tire is attributed to its asymmetric tread pattern which offers better snow trapping abilities (which is highly needed on snowy terrains, as snow sticks better to itself than rubber).
Moreover, the tire’s zig-zag and chamfered edges, complimented by in groove notches (running in all directions), also ensure superior overall ice traction too.
On the other hand, the Firestone WeatherGrip, although lacks overall, still stands out for its superior (relatively) longitudinal traction on snow, primarily owing to its directional tread pattern.
This design enables lugs to efficiently gather and expel snow particles (backwards), promoting forward propulsion/acceleration, adding to it’s linear grip.
Tread Wear
Tread longevity is crucial and primarily depends on the rate at which the rubber degrades, along with the duration it takes for the tread to burn/wear down to 2/32″.
Note: 2/32″ is the U.S.’s legally accepted minimum tread depth.
Now considering these parameters, I can tell you that, there’s isn’t too much of a difference between both tires.
In case of Firestone WeatherGrip, the tire despite its marginally reduced rolling resistance (elaborated in the fuel economy section), offers similar tread longevity due to its shallower tread depth.
Whereas the Assurance WeatherReady although wears more with it’s softer rubber, and greater weight pushing down on lugs, it’s deeper tread, and specialized rubber composition still keeps the overall wear rate just as low, in comparison.
That’s why it makes sense why this only offer 5k less treadwear warranty compared to Firestone’s.
Take Home Points
Overall, the selection is contingent upon your personal needs, given that both tires exhibit notable strengths.
The Firestone WeatherGrip excels in the following:
- Greater resistance to hydroplaning, due to its directional tread pattern with V-shaped grooves.
- Superior directional grip in dry conditions, thanks to its lighter weight and continuous central rib.
- More responsive steering, due to its stiffer rubber and lighter construction.
While the Goodyear Assurance WeatherReady takes the lead in:
- Superior wet traction, benefiting from its softer compound and a blend of linear and interlocking sipes.
- Better ride comfort due to its softer tread, greater tread depth, and more layers of polyamide.
- Enhanced winter performance, with its asymmetric tread pattern, providing better snow trapping and ice traction.
