For most drivers of sedans, coupes, minivans, CUVs, and SUVs, all-season tires are the best all-around choice for a lot of reasons. All-season tires are a versatile and capable solution for year-round driving, with consistent traction in every kind of condition but heavy snow, predictable handling, a quiet and composed ride, good response and road manners, and good wear properties with a generous limited manufacturer’s tread life warranty. That’s why all-season tires take up the biggest part of the tire market year in and year out and are the single biggest-selling category of tires.

When it comes to premium all-season touring tires for CUVs and SUVs, there are a lot of options on the market. We’re going to take a closer look at the Pirelli P7 All Season Plus 3 and Hankook Kinergy PT (H737), both of which are great values, and great performers in their own right. These are tires that have differences and common ground as well as their own unique sets of strengths and weaknesses, and we’ll take a deeper look at that in this head-to-head comparison.

In the course of this product comparison, you’ll see us refer frequently to SimpleScore numbers – if you’re not acquainted with that, SimpleScore is the proprietary ranking system that the SimpleTire team developed for tires. We look at the tire’s technical details, specs, manufacturer info, customer reviews, and other data points to determine a numerical value of 1-10 for the categories of traction, longevity, and handling for each tire, as well as an overall average SimpleScore for each. It’s a quick and handy way to get an overview of a tire’s capability and performance in those respects.

Our SimpleScores for these tires are as follows:

Pirelli P7 All Season Plus 3:

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

Hankook Kinergy PT (H737):

• Traction: 8.3
• Handling: 8.6
• Longevity: 9.3
• Overall average SimpleScore: 8.7

As you can see, these are tires that each have their strengths and weaknesses but also have some pretty significant differences. SimpleScore is a handy at-a-glance tool, but it’s also a 30,000-foot view that doesn’t give you a comprehensive, detailed idea of what to expect with a tire. Let’s go in for a closer look at this comparison review of the Pirelli P7 All Season Plus 3 and Hankook Kinergy PT (H737):

Pirelli P7 All Season Plus 3 tires

Pirelli is a company that always manages to stay one step ahead of the game when it comes to features and benefits with its all-season tires. The P7 All Season Plus 3 is designed for enhanced ride comfort and lower noise along with consistent traction even in light winter conditions. Its functionalized polymer tread compound generates better traction and delivers longer wear, and an asymmetric tread pattern delivers great traction in wet or dry conditions, along with superb handling properties.

An innovative design touch is a void space in the tread pattern that’s kept to a minimum for best rubber-to-road contact. Larger, sequence-tuned tread blocks help cancel road noise while simultaneously improving dry-weather handling. On wet pavement, the P7 All-Season Plus 3’s tread grooves and channels are equally distributed and work in unison to remove water from the tire’s contact patch and resist hydroplaning tendencies.

Winter traction is enhanced with full-depth and 3D sipes in vertical, horizontal, and zigzag patterns which all provide hundreds of extra biting edges for consistent traction in snow, slush, and rain. For durability and a stable, secure driving experience, twin steel belts, a 2-ply polyester casing, and two polyamide cap plies are part of the P7 All-Season Plus 3’s design. Pirelli backs the P7 All-Season Plus 3 with a 70,000 mile limited manufacturer tread life warranty. SimpleTire’s pricing on the Pirelli P7 All-Season Plus 3 starts at $161.99 per tire.

Hankook Kinergy PT (H737) tires

With the Kinergy PT (H737), Korean tire maker Hankook has developed an all-season tire that delivers crisp and agile handling, a refined ride, year-round performance, and a truly exceptional limited manufacturer’s tread life warranty. With a mix of next-generation fillers, silica, enhanced carbon black, and materials designed for durability and flexibility, the Kinergy PT’s tread compound delivers phenomenal wear – this tire is covered by a 90,000 mile limited manufacturer’s tread life warranty (75,000 miles for V speed rated sizes). Internal design details of the Kinergy PT include a sheet of rubber between the first and second belt layers, increasing durability and preventing separation between the tire’s belt edges. An innovative rim cushion sheet toward the bead aids in durability and stability, and the optimized contact patch of the Kinergy PT puts more rubber in contact with the road for improved weight distribution. That means, as part of Hankook’s MaxMileage technology, the tire offers better handling of inertia and forces during acceleration, braking, and cornering. The asymmetric all-season tread design of the Kinergy PT includes wide circumferential and lateral grooves to resist hydroplaning and Aqua-Slant sipes for performance in wet or snowy conditions. Handling is optimized with a stiffer sidewall and continuous center rib, and tie bars across tread blocks give the Kinergy PT extra rigidity for crisp cornering and braking performance. Hankook’s Visual Alignment Indicator System, molded into the tread blocks, gives a driver an easy heads-up to wheel alignment issues and uneven or excessive wear. SimpleTire’s price on the Hankook Kinergy PT (H737) starts at $103.99 per tire.

Pirelli P7 All Season Plus 3 vs Hankook Kinergy PT (H737) tires on traction

How do the Pirelli P7 All Season Plus 3 and Hankook Kinergy PT (H737) stack up against each other when it comes to traction? With a SimpleScore of 9.4 for the Pirelli vs 8.3 for the Hankook, it’s not a real close one. The Hankook and the Pirelli are both designed for dependable grip on wet or dry roads (note that neither tire has the Three Peak Mountain Snowflake certification for severe winter service). The sipe design of the Pirelli, however, is denser and strategically placed for a leg up when it comes to winter performance, at least in light snow, and that optimized sipe network is enough to move the needle on the traction SimpleScore. Our call:

ADVANTAGE: Pirelli P7 All Season Plus 3

Pirelli P7 All Season Plus 3 vs Hankook Kinergy PT (H737) tires on handling

Think about it for a moment: if your vehicle’s traction leaves something to be desired, chances are your handling won’t be great either. If your tires aren’t getting a good purchase on the pavement as you enter a turn, you’re likely to experience understeer as the front end plows ahead of your desired direction or oversteer as the rear wheels kick out and fishtail, which can also mean a loss of control. Handling is a function of traction, and sure enough, the Pirelli comes out ahead on this one too with a SimpleScore of 9.4 vs 8.6 for the Hankook. We do appreciate the tie bars, reinforced sidewall, and reinforced shoulder blocks of the Hankook, which help with stability and cornering dynamics. The Pirelli, though, has the stiffness it needs to resist the inertia and momentum of cornering and fast maneuvers; that rigidity also gives it improved steering response without compromising ride quality. Our call:

ADVANTAGE: Pirelli P7 All Season Plus 3

Pirelli P7 All Season Plus 3 vs Hankook Kinergy PT (H737) tires on longevity

When it comes to SimpleScores for longevity, there’s a bit of an anomaly here. The Hankook has the longer limited manufacturer’s tread life warranty (90,000 miles vs 70,000 miles for the Pirelli), yet the Pirelli comes out with a 9.6 SimpleScore for longevity vs 9.3 for the Hankook). That’s not a huge gap, and either 70,000 miles or 90,000 miles is some excellent warranty coverage, so we’re confident in stating that longevity is excellent for both tires. Usually, it’s customer reviews that make a difference in an instance like this, so we defer to customers and our call is:

ADVANTAGE: Pirelli P7 All Season Plus 3

When to use each

So let’s talk for a moment about what you really need from a set of all-season tires. If you have to deal with rough winter weather every year, in a part of the country that sees winter storms that leave several inches of snow on the roads for days at a time, all-season tires like the Pirelli or Hankook probably will fall short of getting the job done. They’re not designed for deeper snow, slush, and ice, and all-weather or dedicated winter tires would probably be a better choice. If you want the kind of slot-car cornering and overall handling that’d be suitable for the racetrack, you’d be better off with a set of summer tires or ultra-high-performance tires that are designed for sports sedans, sporty CUVs, and sports cars. If, though, your priorities are for reduced rolling resistance and enhanced fuel economy, year-round performance (in everything but heavier snow), extended tread wear, capable handling, and a quiet, refined ride, then the Pirelli P7 All Season Plus 3 or Hankook Kinergy PT (H737) could both be great options for you.

Which one should you choose?

When it comes down to “which one to choose,” the Pirelli looks like a clear choice, but that doesn’t mean that the Hankook is an inferior tire. There are plenty of things about the Hankook’s design features and performance that make it a strong choice, even though the Pirelli does outrank it when it comes to raw SimpleScore numbers. And of course one of the biggest advantages that the Hankook brings to the table is that phenomenal 90,000 mile limited manufacturer’s tread life warranty, the kind of mileage warranty that was unheard of only 15 or 20 years ago. So let’s consider prices too, while we’re at it: SimpleTire’s price for the Pirelli P7 All Season Plus 3 starts at $161.99 per tire vs $103.99 per tire for the Hankook Kinergy PT (H737). That’s about a $200 difference for a set of four tires, and that’s before you even factor in taxes, installation, disposal fees, and other ancillary charges. We’d just break it down this way, then: they’re both excellent tires and if you can afford the Pirelli P7 All Season Plus 3, that should be the tire you go with. If cost is a concern and you want to save some money on your purchase, go with the Hankook Kinergy PT (H737). We’re confident in saying you won’t be making a bad decision either way.

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