Pickup trucks, SUVs and crossovers are everywhere on the roads in the United States. Every generation and every model year of trucks and SUVs gets a little more refined and a little more sophisticated, and premium tire manufacturers like Pirelli have partnered with automakers to develop tires that are the correct complement for the power, torque, handling, ride quality and overall driving dynamics of those trucks. While many trucks and SUVs are equipped with 4WD, many others are more inclined toward the pavement and spend about all their time on streets and highways. Sporty street trucks and SUVs need a tire that’s the correct fit and can deliver year-round performance with nimble handling, a quiet and compliant ride, great wear properties, and stable, solid road manners on the highway.

The Scorpion Zero All Season Plus 3 is Pirelli’s next-generation performance-oriented all-season tire for American light trucks and SUVs, and is packed with innovations and advanced features that make it an outstanding value and a great performer for a wide variety of vehicles. But don’t just take us at our word on that, let’s go in for a closer look with this Pirelli Scorpion Zero All Season Plus 3 review:

Features and Benefits

Here are some of the design features and innovations that make the Pirelli Scorpion Zero All Season Plus 3 the great premium all-season tire that it is:

• Advanced silica-rich tread compound is designed to go the extra mile, with excellent wear properties and enhanced traction and braking on wet pavement
• Contact patch is redesigned and optimized to put more rubber in contact with the road for improved braking, handling, and long, even wear
• Continuous center rib helps with solid straight-line stability and road manners as well as quick, light steering response
• Features Pirelli Noise Canceling System, a layer of foam rubber that helps absorb sound waves and overtones from the pavement for a quiet and serene ride
• Designed with Pirelli’s Run-Flat technology, a reinforced internal structure and sidewall that allows a driver to go up to another 50 miles at 50 mph even in the event of complete loss of inflation pressure
• All-season tread features wide circumferential grooves, angled and lateral grooves to help evacuate water from the tire’s contact patch and resist hydroplaning
• Dense network of 3D sipes is designed to interlock and reinforce the tread’s stiffness while multiplying surface area and traction with hundreds of fine biting edges
• Tread compound and tread design are optimized for reduced rolling resistance, improved fuel economy and lower emissions
• Internal construction and shoulder reinforced for extra rigidity, helping to avoid deformation and tread squirm during hard maneuvers and cornering
• Covered by Pirelli with a 50,000 mile limited manufacturer’s tread life warranty
• 31 sizes from 17 to 22 inches, making the Pirelli Scorpion Zero All Season Plus 3 a great fit for a wide range of vehicles

Pros and Cons

PROS:

• Amazingly quiet and refined ride on the highway
• Run-Flat technology adds peace of mind to the ride
• Handling is nimble and precise
• Reduced rolling resistance
• Generous limited manufacturer’s tread life coverage

CONS:

• A little expensive
• Not good in heavier snow

SimpleTire’s view on Pirelli Scorpion Zero All Season Plus 3 tires

Are you acquainted with SimpleTire’s SimpleScore ratings system? SimpleScore is the system that the SimpleTire team developed to give you a quick at-a-glance idea of a tire’s strengths and weaknesses. We look at the tire’s specs, manufacturer info, customer reviews and other data points, then process that into a 1-10 numerical value for the categories of traction, handling, and longevity, as well as an overall average SimpleScore rating. For the Pirelli Scorpion Zero All Season Plus 3, the SimpleScore numbers look like this:

Pirelli Scorpion Zero All Season Plus 3:

• Traction: 9.5
• Handling: 9.6
• Longevity: 8.6
• Overall average SimpleScore: 9.2

You don’t need us to tell you that any tire that scores solidly in the mid 9s on a scale of 1-10 has a lot going for it.

Pirelli’s decades of experience in the motorsports world has served them well. This latest iteration of the Scorpion tire family is an example of how Pirelli leverages that racing expertise into their automotive tires, with its nimble handling properties and glue-like grip on the road. Ultra-high-performance (UHP) tires are great, but they have the disadvantage of a softer, stickier tread formulation that will harden and lose traction on colder days. That’s why tire manufacturers advise against using UHP tires if the thermometer is lower than 40-45 degrees. The Pirelli Scorpion Zero All Season Plus 3 delivers UHP levels of cornering, steering response, braking and overall performance, but with the versatility of year-round traction.

The Run-Flat design of the Pirelli Scorpion Zero All Season Plus 3 is a great feature, and while some drivers report a stiffer ride from the reinforced sidewall of run-flat tires, the ride quality of the Pirelli is refined and controlled, even on irregular pavement. The noise levels of the Scorpion Zero All Season Plus 3 are as quiet as a cathedral on the highway, with road manners that are as solid and stable as if your vehicle was on rails. Steering response is light and immediate without being overly sensitive, and the Pirelli tracks predictably even when pushed hard into a corner.

Performance on wet pavement is admirable with confident handling and short braking distances. The sipe design of the Scorpion Zero All Season Plus 3 does give it a boost and above-average performance in snow, but the Pirelli doesn’t have the 3 Peak Mountain Snowflake certification for severe winter service, so expecting strong traction in heavier snow is probably somewhat wishful. Still, the Scorpion Zero All Season Plus 3’s combination of UHP-style handling, short braking distances, a 50,000 mile limited manufacturer’s tread life warranty and superb ride quality and noise levels make this a great premium all-season tire for sporty trucks and SUVs.

Vehicles the Pirelli Scorpion Zero All Season Plus 3 is a good replacement tire for

While the Pirelli Scorpion Zero All Season Plus 3 isn’t featured as the OEM tire on any vehicles, it would make a great replacement tire for makes and models like these:

• Chevrolet Tahoe
• Dodge Durango
• Ford Excursion
• GMC Sierra
• Honda Ridgeline
• Jeep Gladiator
• Nissan Titan
• Nissan Murano
• Toyota Tundra
• Toyota 4Runner
• Toyota Land Cruiser FJ
• Nissan Pathfinder
• Ford Explorer
• Ford Expedition
• Ford Escape
• Honda Pilot
• Honda CR-V
• Toyota RAV4
• Kia Telluride
• Kia Sportage
• Mitsubishi Montero
• Kia Soul
• Kia Sorento
• Hyundai Palisade
• Hyundai Tucson
• Hyundai Kona
• Hyundai Venue