Whether you're a new driver looking to replace your tires for the first time, or another seasoned road-warrior looking for a change, researching tire types and picking a suitable type can be daunting and a bit intimidating for the unprepared.

Fortunately, things don't have to be that complicated. Below are the major tire types, summarized for your convenience.

Summer Tires

As the name suggests, summer tires are designed to excel in spring and summertime driving applications. Traction is tuned for warm roads, with much wider treads and patterns such as orbitals to maximize traction and comfortable handling in such conditions. They're also typically rated for higher speeds than other tire types. Unfortunately, this means that these types of tires don't fair particularly well on snow or ice and also have a higher tendency to succumb to hydroplaning. This makes them perfect for regions with Mediterranean weather—warm climate and little rain or snow if any at all.

Winter Tires

These types are designed to excel in the slippery, adverse weather conditions of fall and winter. These have design features to allow maximum grip on ice, snow, and water-slick roads—features that allow the tire to more easily shed and cut through the slick stuff, and grip the road beneath.

Winter tires are usually significantly softer than summer tires, to allow for better traction and pliability at sub-zero temperatures. This can have the unfortunate side effect of accelerated wear.

All-season Tires

These are the jack-of-all-trades, masters of none of the tire world. While their performance in extremes may not be quite as good as the prior two types, all-season tires are designed to be competent enough in any sort of weather they may face. This makes them excellent for regions that have massive seasonal shifts in weather, saving the driver multiple cumbersome tire changes throughout the year.

All-season tires can be further split into two sub-classes: passenger and touring. Passenger tires are very long-wearing and offer a very smooth ride, whereas touring tires offer more responsive handling and an overall much quieter driving experience.

Truck Tires

In the old days, options for truck tires were highly limited, due to their reputation and role as primarily work vehicles. Nowadays that couldn't be any further from the truth.

Trucks these days enjoy much of the same tire options that cars do, and then some! These specialty tires include aggressively-lugged off-road tires that can easily tackle any unpaved surface, and utility tires that wear like iron.

For tires, contact a company such as Euro-Tire.