My Nokian Tire Experience

It’s been about 2 weeks since I visited Finland and the Nokian tire testing facility, “White Hell”. White Hell is named after the fabled turn at the Nurbürgring in Germany, “Green Hell”. I think the fact that they named the facility after a turn at one of the most well renowned race tracks in the world is testament to their dedication to performance. Or a good indication they’re automotive geeks. During my visit I came to find Finnish people are like that. A bit tongue and cheek.

White Hell is in Ivalo Finland, about 230 km north of the arctic circle. It could be said that it’s the perfect place to test the performance of winter tires.

Nokian has put this resource to good use at their facility. They have several areas for testing specific aspects of winter tires. Some are designed like race tracks. Some are long straight aways. One is just a circle. They even have a covered, 700 meter long “Ice Hall” as dubbed by our tour guide AJ. Except when he would say it, it sounded like, “ice hole”. I’m sure the Finnish translation more accurately describes it. Don’t be too hard on him, his English is a heck of a lot better than my Finnish.

It’s easy to see that Nokian has gone to great lengths to not only build, but maintain this location for testing. It’s not like the weather avoids the ice covered lakes where some of the tracks are set up. They have a small army of people and equipment to help maintain the track surfaces and roads at the facility. Not to mention what they need to maintain the “ice hole”.

It’s a massive investment in time and resources to say the least.

In short, White Hell is the winter tire testing facility. I’ve never seen or heard of anything else like it on the planet.

I realize I may be coming off as very pro Nokian here despite the recent scandal,
which we’ll get into later, but hear me out before you pass judgement.

The truth is I hadn’t even heard of Nokian tires until a couple of months before I left for Finland. Several of my viewers had mentioned Nokian tires in the comments to some of my videos, but I had always assumed it was a European brand and they just weren’t available in North America. I’ve come to find out I was very wrong about that.

Since I live in southern Ohio, we don’t see much on the way of winter. Well, we get some visits from the White Death, or an occasional ice storm, but nothing on the level I used to see when I lived just south of Buffalo NY. Those were winters to write home about. Lake effect snow be damned.

It seems in the northern US and Canada, the brand Nokian carries quite a bit more weight. It could be said Nokian tires are legendary to some in those areas in the that get pummeled by winter for months on end.

In fact, I came to learn that Nokian made the very first winter tire in 1934. In 1936, the Hakkapelitta winter tire was born. The rest is legend.

If you’re curious, the word Hakkapelitta describes the well trained Finnish cavalrymen who fought in the 30 years war circa 1618. Soldiers would come charging in on horseback yelling “Hakka Påålle”, meaning, “hit them in the head!”. Or some have also said it means, “cut them down!”. Either way, the name is associated with some pretty BA dudes that kicked some serious butt.

Now lets talk about my day in White Hell.

It was a gorgeous day. Barely a cloud in the sky, and the sun sparkled off the snow like a sugar frosted cake. It felt like we were driving to Santa Clauses’ house in a giant snow globe that hadn’t been shaken yet. In 3 words, Finland…is…beautiful.

We turned off the main road onto a road that was barely cleared of snow. About 8 of us were comfortably piled into a Mercedes minibus that was equipped with, you guessed it, Nokian Hakkapeliitta C3’s. The driver had no trouble at all negotiating the .3 meters of snow on the road and we traveled on.

Yes, the bus had a manual transmission. I’ve come to find that Europeans are very attached to their manual transmissions. I never said that was a bad thing, they just make mention of it, often.

Once we reached the gate, AJ dialed a special code into his phone and it magically opened. At first it looked like any other road. In parts the trees would open up and we could catch a glimpse of the test tracks and other parts of the facility. It covered several kilometers in an expanse of snow covered roads, tracks, and buildings. There was also a road that went up a steep hill that we later climbed at speed in an Audi RS-4 with Tommi, one of their test drivers.

Our first stop was the ‘ice hole’. A massive structure about 700 meters long. The floor was covered in smooth ice that you had to skate/shuffle on to get anywhere. Inside were 2 Audi SUV’s. I think they were Q5’s. One equipped with all season tires, and there other with Nokian winter tires. Honestly, I don’t remember the designation of those tires. Probably Hakkapelitta SUV’s. They weren’t studded, I do remember that.

There was a ‘dummy’, wearing a stylish winter hat, standing in the middle of the of the ice near where we walked in. At the other end, the Audi equipped with the Nokian winter tires came toward us at about 30 kph. At the marked zone, about 20 meters from our position, the driver applied the brakes and the vehicle came to a stop on the ice almost right in front of us.

The ‘dummy’ was moved in line with the front bumper of that vehicle which remained on the ice toward the wall across from us.

They invited us to ride in the other Audi to the opposite end of the hall where they would repeat the test with all season tires. The idea being that the all seasons would have a much greater stopping distance, and the unfortunate ‘dummy’, would suffer the fate of a wayward pedestrian wondering out in front of a vehicle traveling at speed on ice equipped with all seasons.

To say this was amusing is an understatement. I can attest that plowing into dummies while braking on ice is quite fun. We all got a good laugh out of it. I got some great video too.

Point being, having Nokian winter tires on your vehicle, as opposed to all seasons, while driving on ice, greatly reduces stopping distance. Yes, I know, obvious. It was still a very entertaining exercise.

Then, they brought out a toy. This was a Porsche Cayenne equipped with some very special tires. These were Nokian studded winter tires, but not in the traditional sense.

This next part gets a bit James Bond. The studs on these tires were retractable with the push of a button in the passenger compartment.

For realzees! They even demonstrated them for us. Once with the studs retracted, and once with them extended. Retracted, the Porsche spun out and moved forward a little. With them extended, the studs dug in leaving cat claw scratches on the ice as it quickly moved forward. Neat!

We then piled back into the bus and went down to the frozen lake where the ‘race track’ was. In the center of the track was an area for brake testing separate from the track itself. There was also a parking lot of sorts with 4 Audi Q5 Hybrids. Very environmentally conscious of them, and one bright yellow Audi RS-4, perhaps less environmentally friendly, but a lot more fun.

The 4 Audi’s were equipped with different sets of tires. One had all seasons. Another had a competitors winter tires. One had Nokian Hakkapelitta studdless winter tires, and the last one had Nokian Hakkapelitta studded tires. Sorry I don’t remember the designations of each of the tires.

The brake testing area had a cone to indicate where to begin braking. After that the distance was marked off in 10 meter increments all the way up to 80 meters.
A perfect place to test the effectiveness of all the different tires while braking.

I jumped in the first Audi with the all season tires and headed toward the braking point at 70 kph. I hit the brakes and waited for the SUV to stop. The all seasons took about 65 meters to stop. I did 2 runs and took an average on each set of tires I tested.

The ‘other brand’ winter tires were tested next. Those stopped on average at 53 meters. A significant difference.

Then I was interrupted, “Eric, do you want to go for a ride in the RS-4 around the track with our driver?” I think you already know my answer. You would have done the same.

Not only did Tommi, one of their test drivers, take us for a spirited lap around their very nice, curvy, track on the lake, but he also took us at speed up the hill road I mentioned earlier. Even with the 3 of us and Tommi in the car, he was able to get some serious speed. Almost 50 kph around the track.

We took a break at the top of the hill and got out to take video and pictures of the track below. Did I mention Finland is beautiful?

Afterward, we raced back down the hill to test the braking of the Audi at real speed. Did I mention the RS-4 had Hakkapellita 8 studded tires on it? Well, between those and Tommi’s driving, I had no fear whatsoever doing those speeds on this closed course.

At one point I said to Tommi, “These tires are fantastic”. His reply, “Yes, they are.”

At some point I made my way back to complete my braking distance testing. For some reason I skipped right over the Nokian winter tires and went right for the studded Hakkapellita’s.

The stopping distance? 65 meters. You might be scratching your head at this point because my results defy logic. How could studded winter tires have the same stopping distance as the all seasons? 2 reasons.

Reason 1: I realized I had been going faster than 70 kph when I hit the brakes on the first run. It was actually about 80 kph when braked at the cone.

Reason 2: My little break in the RS-4 had taken up a good chunk of time. When I finally returned to testing, the conditions had changed. Remember, the sun was out and we were on a frozen lake above the arctic circle. In short, stuff had changed.

I took 2 more runs with the studded Hakkapellita’s and stopping distance was roughly 49 meters. I was told by others that had tried the same test, with the same vehicle earlier in the day, stopping distance was about 40 meters for them. I have no reason to doubt those numbers.

No matter what, it was clear to see in those conditions the best tires for the job were the Hakkapellita’s. Preferably studded.

If you’re going to chide me for not getting better results, well, I’ll give you that, but in my defense, the RS-4 was a pleasant distraction.

After my testing, we broke for lunch in a nice little circular wood hut called a “grillikota”, or “grill house”. At least I think that’s what it was called. In the center was a cooking fire where they made us salmon soup, Finnish coffee (non filtered coarse ground), bread, cheese, and a blueberry cake-like dessert with cream. It was very cozy sitting around the fire and having lunch. The smell and sound of fire.

Finnish people are fantastic hosts.

Afterward, we went on a snow safari in the same Audi’s we used for the braking test.

I grabbed the Audi with the all seasons for the trip out. Ben Chiappinelli the videographer on our trip rode shotgun. The snow on the road was a little deeper than it was coming into White Hell, perhaps .4 meters.

The all season tires did OK climbing through snow covered Lapland roads on our safari. It was an all wheel drive Audi after all. Honestly, I was more taken in by the surroundings. The snow, the sun through the trees. Breathtaking.

We even encountered some reindeer on the trail which we followed for a bit. They didn’t want to leave the road because the snow on either side was a meter and a half high. Who could blame them? I wouldn’t want to leave the road to jump into deep snow either.

On the trip back we switched vehicles. I got in the Audi with the Nokian winter tires, not studded. There was a marked difference in the way it handled the snowy roads. Much as you’d expect. Still, it was nice to notice a difference.

When we got back from our safari, we climbed back in our bus and headed back to the cabin. My time in White Hell was sadly over.

I’m not going to go into detail about what we did afterward. I don’t want to make you jealous. Let’s just say it was super cool and we completed the day with a great Finnish meal in Ivalo.

The day couldn’t have been more perfect. Well, I could have done a better job of testing the tires braking distance, but you probably knew the outcome of that before I reported it.

Studded winter tires are better than all seasons in the snow. Nokian makes kick butt tires.

There’s a reason they call them “Northproof”. I for one, believe them.

The next time I’m in the market for winter tires, I’m going to look for a set of Nokians. Then I’m going to drive to see my family south of Buffalo in the middle of winter just because I know I can.

Now lets talk about the scandal.

At this point it’s old news, but here’s my take on it. Given that Nokian commits the time and expense to create and maintain a facility like White Hell, and the fact they invited all of us out to see for ourselves what Nokian tires can do in that setting, I don’t think the scandal matters much.

From what I’ve come to learn about manufacturing, in particular automotive manufacturing, it’s clear that the engineers have a vested interest in making the best product possible. They tend to take their work as a personal mission to prove their capabilities. It’s likely the reason they got into engineering in the first place.

The limitations come in when you bring cost into the equation. Cost rules everything when you build something. When it comes down to it, if there isn’t a big enough profit margin, there’s no point in doing it. You’d often have to close the doors and send everyone home if you made things exactly the way you wanted and ignored cost.

This means that with just about every single design, there is a compromise. I think what Nokian did was put forward the tires they’d love to make, not the tires they were making for those tests. I think some other companies did the same.

Was that fair or just? No, but Nokian has admitted it’s mistake and continues to make great tires. They have a new CEO and a new direction going forward. It’s just as much a part of the past as my trip to Finland.

Nokian’s statement about the scandal: http://www.nokiantyres.com/company/news-article/test-tyre-policies-and-processes-in-nokian-tyres/

FAQ about Scandal: http://www.nokiantyres.com/testtyre-faq/

It really is moot now anyway. The testing has changed and they now pull tires right off the shelf instead of manufacturers sending them tires to test. Problem solved. I believe Nokian’s will still do quite well, and if they don’t, I have every reason to believe they’ll try harder and come back for more. I think it’s a matter of pride for them.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my blog. My experience with Nokian tires in Finland was one I’ll remember for the rest of my life. In fact, I struggle sometimes to find words to describe that week I spent in Finland.

My trip to White Hell was only part of it, one day in fact. Two days were spent traveling if you’re curious. I can say this again, Finland is beautiful. The people are also friendly, humorous, and open hearted. I’d love to go back someday.

Kiitos! (pronounced key tos)
(that’s “thank you” in Finnish)

Stay Dirty

ETCG

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