Tires: AT tread compound in P vs LT


Question
I've seen engineering graphs showing the advantage passenger tires have on wet pavement (hydroplane excluded) compared to truck tires, attributed mainly to different proportions of natural and synthetic rubber. It seems logical that the wet traction difference would also apply, perhaps on a milder level, between P and LT tires, as well. Assuming this is true, what would you expect the situation to look like in the case of all-terrain tires? Does the P-metric all-terrain tread compound typically retain some wet traction advantage over its LT AT counterpart of the same brand and model (speaking to compound and ignoring the small pattern difference)? If yes, is the wet traction difference narrower in ATs of both types compared to, say, all season tires that come in both P and LT? Within LTs, would you expect a meaningful difference in wet traction at the load range level (C,D,E)?

Thanks

Answer
Jeff,

Traction is so highly variable, it is difficult to make truly valid comparisons due to the amount of overlap.  We can only talk about tendencies.

That said, I would expect All Terrain tires to have slightly less traction than the street counterparts because the tread rubber has to be tougher.  However, I expect the traction difference between a P type and and LT type to be more or less the same regardless of the type of tread - so long as we are comparing tires with the same kind of tread.

And there would be no differences between load ranges.