It was exactly beyond the Arctic Circle that Autoportal found itself, where it personally tested the new Nokian Hakkapeliitta 8 SUV tire. Before you is Lapland... a paradise corner where snow is whiter than white and ice is cleaner than crystals.
How and where Nokian tests winter tires will be told by our video report:
It should be noted that the first winter tires for cars appeared exactly 80 years ago. In honor of this, the Finnish side arranged a whole celebration for us – from a feast in an ice house with ice shot glasses to fire shows with fireworks. In addition, we were shown for the first time tires with retractable studs:
There was also a Finnish sauna, but let that remain behind the scenes... after all, the purpose of the visit was to get acquainted with the Hakkapeliitta 8 SUV. The new studded tire for SUVs differs from the eighth Hakka not only by the presence of the SUV prefix. It uses stronger materials on the sidewalls, such as aramid fibers, and a special rubber compound of the tread that can withstand the impact of rough road surfaces. By the way, aramid is used in the aviation and military-industrial industries!
The model for crossovers and SUVs also differs in studding. It includes a new generation anchor stud, a new flange design that reduces the impact on the road, and the Eco Stud system, which improves the functionality of the stud and further softens contact with the road. The softer rubber compound under the stud flange works like a spring: it softens the impact of the stud and reduces the stud force and noise level
The new studding concept offers a good balance of longitudinal and lateral grip on ice. Even on a frozen lake, crossovers shod with Hakka 8 SUV trace maneuvers as if on rails. And this is not an exaggeration or advertising. Of course, there is also credit to the cars themselves with many safety systems. But if you turn off the electronic assistants, possible drifts and skids can be easily corrected even without extreme driving skills. For this, we should thank the rigidity zone in the shoulder area of the tread and the 3D sipes, thanks to which the tire quickly and sensitively responds to steering wheel maneuvers, enhancing safety and steering precision.
In more detail - upon contact with the road, the sipes lock the tread blocks, connecting them into a single whole, which improves handling when driving in an arc and maneuvering on the track. Of course, the studs play an important role. Depending on the size, one Nokian Hakkapeliitta 8 SUV tire can have up to 190 studs! In other words, there are 80 studs per linear meter of tread. It is logical that the more there are, the better the car grips the road. At the same time, they almost do not spoil the road surface itself, although our roads cannot be spoiled by anything anymore... therefore, for us it is much more important that these tires are not very noisy, because the studs have an air cushion - something like a pneumatic spring is obtained, which reduces the noise level. We were convinced of this on public roads in Finland, where, by the way, they are not sprinkled with chemicals and sand. Snow here is not removed but compacted. Therefore, if you turn the steering wheel slightly in the wrong direction, you can easily fall into a meter-deep snowdrift... then you cannot do without the help of a friend, no matter how cool the tires on the car are.
Separately, it is necessary to say about braking. There is a myth that studs are useless on asphalt and reduce the braking distance only on ice. There is some truth in this, since there is no tire that works perfectly in snow, slush, and dry asphalt. Even the Finns themselves say that any tire is a compromise. When releasing the Hakka 8 SUV, Nokian tried to find this golden mean, therefore introduced a lot of technological tricks, including brake boosters on the rear edges of the tread blocks. The jagged pattern increases the contact surface and improves grip during braking. To date, Hakkapeliitta 8 and 8 SUV occupy first places in tests of various automotive publications – Finnish, German, Russian, and so on. This confirms that the manufacturer's claims and our impressions are not empty words...
