Pirelli Tire North America Inc. gave the industry a sneak peek of its new Scorpion All Terrain Plus at the 2017 Global Tire Expo in Las Vegas. It chose the same city to officially launch the tire in the second quarter of this year.
The replacement-only tire was designed to replace most sizes in the Scorpion ATR line.
Steve Carpino, senior consultant, product design and development, shared more in-depth information about the tire to many of Pirelli's largest U.S. dealers. He said the tire was designed for the customer who is on road 95% of the time and off-road only 5% of the time. “That’s most of the users of the pickups and the big SUVs you see driving around today.”
The All Terrain Plus also is dramatically different than the ATR. Both customers and dealers were “loud and clear” in their opinion of the ATR: It wasn’t aggressive enough, especially visually. “It… looked like a highway all-season tire,” said Carpino.
In contrast, the All Terrain Plus has an aggressive tread pattern and upper sidewall design. Large tread blocks with high density lateral sipes not only look aggressive, but also help the new tire perform on wet and snowy services. The deep tread grooves, aided by conical stone ejectors, increase mud and snow traction. The snow traction is good enough to earn the tire the 3-Peak Mountain Snowflake designation.
The next-generation silica tread compound was engineered to improve wet traction without giving up mileage, but it also gives the tread elements a high resistance to cutting and chipping.
Carpino said there also were wet grass traction complaints about the ATR from customers, so the new tire is superior in that area, too. The only areas in which the ATR out-performs the All Terrain Plus are on-road comfort and noise resistance.
The Scorpion All Terrain Plus is available in 14 P-metric and nine LT sizes broken out as follows:
* seven 16-inch sizes ranging from LT245/75R16 120/116R Load Range E and 265/75R16 116T to 265/70R16 112T;
* eight 17-inch sizes ranging from LT235/80R17 120/117R LRE to 225/65R17 102H and 245/65R17 111T XL;
* four 18-inch sizes ranging from LT275/70R18 125/122S LRE to 265/60R18 110H;
* four 20-inch sizes ranging from 275/60R20 115T through LT285/55R20 122/119T LRE.
Examples of planned fitments include the Chevrolet Silverado, Suburban and Tahoe; Cadillac Escalade; Ford F-150, 250 and 350; Dodge Dakota, Journey and Ram; GMC Sierra and Yukon; Toyota Tacoma, Tundra and RAV 4; and Honda CR-V.
Pirelli backs the tire with a 50,000-mile limited tread wear warranty regardless of the size, unless the front and rear tire sizes differ. In that case, the rear tires are backed by a 25,000-mile warranty.
