GT Radial Champiro WinterPro

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GT Radial Champiro WinterPro Review
Winter Tire

The latest trend in tires, and especially winter tires, is different oils that help the tire keep its elasticity at lower temperatures to improve grip and traction. Some companies use Rapeseed oil, Canola oil, and in this case for the Champiro WinterPro, GT Radial is using Sunflower oil.

This directional winter tire has plenty of grooves and sipes that you can see by clicking on the image of the tire to the left. The Champiro Winter Pro was designed with snow handling, wet traction, and comfort in mind. You can see that the profile of the tire is about 'medium', not quite as high profile as a passenger tire, and not quite as low as a high performance summer tire would be. This will give drivers a 'touring' feel, which is a blend of both comfort and handling. 

GT Radial designed this tire with an enhanced silica tread compound to assist with wet traction along with circumferential and lateral grooves to prevent hydroplaning. An optimized tread pattern should also give the driver plenty of winter traction but still work well when encountering dry roads. You will want to switch this tire out for a set of summer tires once the seasons change completely and the roads dry up.

The Champiro WinterPro fits these vehicles (and I'm sure a few others):

• Chevrolet Colbalt
• VW Golf, GTI, Jetta, Passat
• Mazda 3, 5, RX-8
• Subaru Legacy, Impreza
• Nissan Altima, Cube, Sentra, 350Z
• Toyota Prius, Corolla

So the big question always is- how do these tires perform?

Pros:

• Light snow and deep snow handling - this is what these tires are designed for. Good handling, cornering, and steering response in all snow conditions. Impressive overall handling. 
• Then we hit some ice on side roads as well as the highway. The tires provided very good traction in almost all situations. We did slip out a bit when pushing the tires more aggressively just to see how far we could take them.
• In wet and slush conditions the tires gripped the road well and we did not encounter any issues. We did hit some spots with good sized puddles and did not hydroplane. 
• Last but not least we took the tires for some driving on mostly dry roads to see how they handled. Steering response and handling was very good for a winter tire such as this, which traditionally do not perform as well on dry roads, due to the number of sipes (small slits all over the tire). 

Cons:

• On dry roads the tires did produce some road noise, but this is not uncommon for a winter tire.
• These are winter tires and need to be changed out for summer tires once the seasons change.

Conclusion:
Overall the GT Radial Champiro WinterPro provides excellent traction and handling, especially in winter conditions. Ice and snow were not a problem at all, and as a bonus the tires performed well on dry roads too, which is not always the case with winter tires. These are reasonably priced, and a good value for the money. 

Similar Winter Tires:
Dunlop SP Winter Sport 3D
Michelin Pilot Alpin PA3
Pirelli Winter Sottozero Serie II

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