Nokian Hakkapeliitta R winter tires

Yesterday I bought the winter tires I mentioned in yesterdays entry. In Norway it's not just recommended that you use winter tires during the winter season, it's also mandatory. That means that we have to have two wheel sets. Therefore I got the Turbine wheels to use in the summer season and for the winter season I will use the Blade wheels that came with the car. For winter tires I got the Nokian Hakkapeliitta R studless winter tires. We're also allowed to use studded tires, but I chose the more comfortable, less noisy and less fuel consuming studless tires.

Since winter tires are a big seller every autumn, the car magazines and organizations have tests where they select a winner and a loser. In this year's test done by the Norwegian Automobile Federation, the Nokian tires came in second. I have used Nokian before and I've been very satisfied with the grip, so I chose Nokian again. In the test they write the following:

"Nokian is just as good on ice as the Continental tire [the tire Nokian shares second place with], but slightly worse on snow. Test drivers praise the tire for a stable and secure driving feel both on snow and ice. It's good for slush and wet asphalt, and has the lowest rolling resistance of all the tires in the test. That means less fuel consumption and lower CO2 emissions. The noise from the tire is low."

I'm not very fond of winter, but I look forward to testing the new car and tires in both snow, ice and slush! :) 

Update: You can read some more about my experience with these tires on winter roads here.