General > Product Reviews
Nankang Snow SV-2 - First Impressions
andrewparker:
--- Quote from: RedRobin on December 15, 2010, 04:26:42 pm ---
--- Quote from: andrewparker on December 15, 2010, 02:05:14 pm ---Now the weather has improved I thought I'd give a further appraisal of the Nankang Snow SV-2 tyres.
In snow, ice and slush these tyres never ceased to amaze me, so driving them in drier conditions has given me a chance to rate them from a totally different perspective. The temperature has been approximately 6 - 7°C recently, and the roads have varied from wet/greasy to fully dry. I've found that the tyres struggle for grip under hard acceleration in first and second gear. It's all too easy to trigger the ESP light, something I found very hard to do even in snow! My car has the standard power output, so this would be magnified on a remapped car.
Secondly, they have absolutely no rim protection edge. They actually appear to sit inside the rim edge slightly. This isn't of much a concern for me because I have them on my winter wheels, which I've long since given up being careful with, but it might be worth considering if you're putting them on wheels you value.
--- End quote ---
....On the point of lacking rim protection I think that most of us who value our rims aren't going to place our wheels anywhere near situations where a tyre's rim protector would get used. So, a very good thing to know but not a deal-breaker.
Hearing that these tyres "struggle for grip under hard acceleration in first and second gear" is a deal-breaker for me though. But one does have to remember that these Nankangs are "Snow" tyres and so that's what they're primarily designed for. Personally, I simply don't go anywhere in my car if there's snow and ice.
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I don't think I'd buy a tyre without rim protection for my summer wheels, simply because accidents do happen. I'd never intentionally put my wheels in a situation where the tyre protector is needed, but I'd prefer to play safe.
As for the lack of grip, it horses for courses. If I was running a summer tyre I'd be slipping around in the snow, putting myself and others in danger. I'd be disappointed if they had been billed as an all-seasons tyre, but they're not. These are a good compromise, short of changing my wheels each day to suit the road conditions.
bodger00:
I long time ago I bought a Celica GT4 import that was a great car. The only problem/shock I had when I bought the car is that the tyres were Nankang snow tyres! I bought the car in March and frankly the car was unuseable at 10-12 degrees! It was a complete handful. To cut a long story short they were left on from when it was imported from Japan (I got the dealer to change them in the end).
The point I learnt from all this, is that winter tyres are designed for those tricky cold icy circumstances but not for much else. :smiley:
RedRobin:
^^^^
But do we need to consider any differences between what the tyre manufacturers call "winter tyres" and what they call "snow tyres"?
It seems that these Nankangs are excellent in the snow and ice but very poor in just wet and greasy conditions.
bodger00:
I can only comment on my experiences but they were very unstable, even in the dry at the above temperatures!
Note they were the same as Andrew's "Nankang Snow SV-2 tyres"
andrewparker:
--- Quote from: bodger00 on December 15, 2010, 07:08:59 pm ---I can only comment on my experiences but they were very unstable, even in the dry at the above temperatures!
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I wouldn't go that far, in fact cornering is actually very good. I guess a Celica GT4 is a very different beast to the Golf though. You do have to really boot it to lose any traction, and the ESP is quite sensitive on a Golf.
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