Falken Aklimate vs Nokian WR G4 tires

All-weather tires, on the surface, have a lot in common with all-season tires, but they’re distinctly different from each other. They’re a fairly new category in the tire world; they’re designed to fill a specific need where all-season tires usually fall short of what you really need as far as control and grip. Anyone who’s tried to safely get from A to B when there’s 3-4 inches of snow on the roads will soon find out that most all-season tires are not going to be up to the job. All-weather tires are designed to provide dependable traction, braking, and control that are needed to gain an advantage in winter traction. They feature optimized tread formulations, more aggressive tread patterns, redesigned sipe networks, and other design details with the performance target of more consistent traction in snow and slush. In other words, winter tires split the difference between all-season tires and winter tires, delivering enhanced winter grip without the yearly nuisance of having to dismount winter tires and store them once temperatures get above 40-45 degrees Fahrenheit.

Are you familiar with SimpleScore? SimpleScore is the system that the SimpleTire team has developed to give our customers a quick at-a-glance idea of a tire’s capabilities and performance based on its spec sheet, reviews, manufacturer information, and other data points. The scores are calculated as per tire parameters such as traction, handling, and longevity, and an overall average SimpleScore is also available for each tire. For the Falken Aklimate and Nokian WR G4, the SimpleScore numbers shake out as follows:

Falken Aklimate:

• Traction: 8.4
• Handling: 8.6
• Longevity: 9.7
• Overall average SimpleScore: 8.9

Nokian WR G4:

• Traction: 9.6
• Handling: 9.4
• Longevity: 8.2
• Overall average SimpleScore: 8.8

As you can see, the Falken Aklimate and Nokian WR G4 have some notable disparities in the SimpleScore ratings, which will set things up for a pretty interesting comparison review. As handy as SimpleScore is, though, it’s the 30,000-foot view that doesn’t give you the full idea of any tire’s strengths and weaknesses. Let’s go in and take a closer look at this head-to-head comparison review of the Falken Aklimate and Nokian WR G4:

Falken Aklimate tires

Here at the SimpleTire team, we’ve been pretty impressed with just about every tire we’ve seen in the Falken product family, and the Aklimate all-weather tire holds on to that favorable impression. The Aklimate is designed to behave like a Grand Touring tire, displaying the same kind of ride quality, capable handling, low noise, and exemplary road manners, but with added emphasis on excellent traction and control on wet or snowy roads. Falken started from the ground up with the Aklimate, with a redesigned tread formulation that’s centered around their award-winning Advanced 4D Nano Design Technology. This advanced rubber formulation helps the Aklimate offer great wear properties, cuts rolling resistance for a boost in fuel efficiency, and reliable, consistent grip in wet or wintry conditions. The Falken Aklimate has the 3 Peak Mountain Snowflake rating for severe winter service.

On wet pavements, the Aklimate inspires confidence with Falken’s innovative Canyon Groove design that helps to mitigate hydroplaning by routing standing water away from the tire’s contact patch. In standing water, snow, slush, or rain, 3D Canyon Sipes multiply the tread’s surface area and traction by adding hundreds of extra biting edges that slice their way through difficult road conditions for dependable grip. The Aklimate’s sipe pattern, internal structure, and tread design give the tire’s tread face and shoulders extra stiffness, resisting the forces and stress of cornering for sharp handling. Falken stands by this tire with a 65,000 mile limited manufacturer’s tread life warranty, making the Aklimate a tire that drivers can count on for a long, long time.

Nokian WR G4 tires

Nokian is a Finland-based tire manufacturer that’s built its reputation on tires designed for rough Scandinavian winters. Indeed, the WR G4 has the Three Peak Mountain Snowflake certification for severe winter service, thanks to a rubber formulation that’s designed for versatile performance in everything from broiling desert heat to subfreezing temperatures, an aggressive, asymmetric all-season tread, and centipede siping to dig into snow and slush. Tread wear properties are superb too, thanks to an Aramid-reinforced sidewall for durability. The WR G4 features engineering of its tread compound and shoulders that help promote even wear, with Nokian offering a 60,000 mile limited manufacturer tread life warranty. The tread pattern, grooves, sipes, Aramid sidewall, and large shoulder blocks all work as a system to enhance cornering, road manners, and braking performance. The asymmetric all-weather tread features Nokian’s Blade Grooves, designed to resist hydroplaning by pushing slush and standing water out of the tire’s contact patch. The Nokian WR G4 is also designed for low cabin noise and low rolling resistance, making it a great fit for hybrid and EV vehicles.

Falken Aklimate vs Nokian WR G4 tires on traction

So how do the Falken Aklimate and Nokian WR G4 compare in the traction category? The Nokian comes through this one with flying colors and a SimpleScore of 9.6 vs 8.4 for the Falken. Both tires have the 3 Peak Mountain Snowflake rating for severe winter service (which is pretty notable just by itself), but Nokian’s decades of experience and expertise in the field of winter tires influence the WR G4’s design, with its aggressive asymmetric all-weather design and innovations like its Blade Grooves and jagged 3D sipes. There are, however, snow claws, an innovative tread design, an asymmetric tread pattern, and a unique rubber compound for better grip on the Falken, but these are definitely not comparable to the Nokian. You can’t argue with that kind of design and real-world performance, and our call is:

ADVANTAGE: Nokian WR G4

Falken Aklimate vs Nokian WR G4 tires on handling

In the handling category, the Nokian WR G4 is the clear winner again in SimpleScore rankings, with a very solid 9.4 vs 8.6 for the Falken Aklimate. It just makes sense that handling and cornering ability will be a function of a tire’s traction; if your tires aren’t getting good grip as you go into a corner, you risk a loss of control with the front end either plowing ahead and understeering out of your desired turn, or kicking the rear end out and oversteering. The dependable grip, Aramid-reinforced sidewalls, sticky tread formulation, and reinforced shoulder blocks of the Nokian WR G4 give it excellent control and easily resist the inertia of cornering (as the vehicle’s weight tries to keep you pointed in a straight line) for handling properties that are accurate and predictable all the way to the limit. Our call:

ADVANTAGE: Nokian WR G4

Falken Aklimate vs Nokian WR G4 tires on longevity

Things get flipped a bit in these rankings when we come to the longevity category, with the Nokian WR G4 registering a SimpleScore of 8.2 vs a very strong 9.7 for the Falken Aklimate. This one’s a bit of a puzzler, since SimpleScore for longevity is usually tied directly to the tire’s limited manufacturer’s tread life warranty. In this case, though, the Falken’s limited manufacturer’s tread life coverage is 65,000 miles while the Nokian has a 60,000 mile warranty. We’re not real sure why there would be such a gap in SimpleScore ratings, with that in mind, but our SimpleScores do not lie. Based on the above, the winner is:

ADVANTAGE: Falken Aklimate

When to use each

When it comes to confident, reliable traction year-round, the Nokian WR G4 and Falken Aklimate are both really solid choices in all-weather tires. Both the Kumho and the Nokian have the 3PMSF certification for winter traction, both are designed for superb performance year-round, and both come from the factory with generous manufacturer’s tread life coverage. As we noted up at the top, all-weather tires are a great way to go when you have to deal with challenging winter weather, but you know that specialized winter tires are going to be a little more of a hassle than you want to deal with every year.

Winter tires are designed with a softer tread compound that stays flexible for grip at subfreezing temperatures (think about how a soft rubber boot behaves on a slick surface vs a hard-rubber hockey puck). While their winter traction is hard to beat, there’s one big disadvantage: the tread compound is also softer and will wear down quickly on warmer days. When temperatures get above 40-45 degrees, tire manufacturers advise exchanging your winter tires for all-season tires again, and then you’ll have a yearly process of dismounting them and figuring out a place to store them for the next nine months until winter comes around and the snow starts flying again. All-weather tires are a great way around that; if that sounds like your situation, you can’t go wrong with either the Falken or the Nokian.

Which one should you choose?

Usually in the course of SimpleTire’s comparison reviews, the two tires are pretty closely matched in terms of design and performance, making it difficult to recommend one over the other. That’s not the case this time, though except the SimpleScore for longevity, the Nokian is the tire to beat in this matchup. The Falken Aklimate is a very capable and well-designed tire with a lot to offer, but it just can’t match the performance that the Nokian WR G4 brings to the game. The low rolling resistance, quiet ride, tough Aramid sidewalls, and reinforced center rib of the Nokian are designed for great road manners and stability as well as crisp and capable handling. Its aggressive asymmetric all-weather read helps deliver dependable grip in some of the worst weather (about every kind of condition other than a foot of snow or a sheet of ice), and it’s hard to argue with SimpleTire’s starting price of $93.99 per tire ($375.96 for 4).

At $95 per tire ($380 for 4) for the Falken, pricing isn’t really enough to move the needle much or change the equation between the two tires; the Nokian still looks better. While there’s plenty to like about the Falken Aklimate, we here at the SimpleTire team would have to recommend the Nokian WR G4 as a better value and better performer.

Still not sure which tire to buy? Fortunately, SimpleTire is here to help as our helpful agents will be more than happy to assist you in selecting the right tire for your ride and budget.