Nick Gustas

Pardon some of the pic quality, I was shivering.


When I first looked at the tires I thought a mistake had been made, they didn't seem to have any of the advertised carbide granules in the tread. I chopped off a bit of tread block and found it full of granules, further inspection made it obvious that they are chock full of carbide. The color and molding process hides them, I'd say they need at least 500 miles to expose properly. The tires have provisions for studding, but that's illegal and excessive in my state so...

On with the pics:

Apparently the swedish side of the company is called "Da Capo"
<img src="http://tychl.txf.com/gd/dacapo.jpg">
<img src="http://tychl.txf.com/gd/inari-ms.jpg">
<img src="http://tychl.txf.com/gd/iso9002.jpg">
<img src="http://tychl.txf.com/gd/madein.jpg">


Here are the pieces of the tread that I cut up, I couldn't cut any smaller since I was hitting carbide chunks, for reference the biggest chunk in the picture is about the size of a green pea.

<img src="http://tychl.txf.com/gd/granule.jpg">

Here is an exposed granule, about in the middle of the pic. You can't see it, but there are a bunch of granules just below the surface giving it a bumpy look.

<img src="http://tychl.txf.com/gd/granuleexposed.jpg">

Treaddepth is about .37" or around 12/32", pretty deep.

<img src="http://tychl.txf.com/gd/treadepth.jpg">
<img src="http://tychl.txf.com/gd/treadepthtread.jpg">


And here is an overall shot of the tire, pretty open and agressive tread, I hope it does well in the deep stuff.

<img src="http://tychl.txf.com/gd/tread1.jpg">


Someone has to test it right? I hope the ice traction is good.

E-mail I recieved from Mike at GD when I inquired a few months ago:

"Nick, if you liked the Hakkas, you'll love GD.

Like you, I was a long-time Nokian customer. If fact, I started out
first as a Green Diamond customer. All I wanted to do was order a set
for my A4 and my wife's ML320 (the Hakkas on both vehicles were worn).
I was so impressed with the ice-traction that I bought franchises for
the US mail-order market and Midwest wholesale market. I am also
currently in the process of building a Green Diamond tire plant in
Central Wisconsin.

Like I said... all I wanted to do was buy 2 sets of tires!

These things grab the ice so profoundly, that you can actually hear the
carbides scratching the ice during hard breaking/cornering. It almost
sounds like an ice skater doing an abrupt stop.

Take care."

jquattro

Sounds pretty interesting, wonder what the carbide is going to do to everyone's paint?

AJLa4

please post a review after you have them broken in, thx

Singletrack

Hmmm...you actually think it will shoot off on to the car? Yikes,that would not be good.

jquattro

Where I live. I have to deal with lava rock during the winter, so this won't be much worse I guess.

Singletrack

I'm trying to make it 3 years in between repaints : )

-st