Light trucks, SUVs, and crossovers are everywhere on the roads these days. In the last 25 years or so, light trucks have taken on the role of family haulers, the kind of duties that used to be filled by minivans (or big V8 station wagons a generation before that). Light trucks keep getting more sophisticated and refined in terms of comfort, amenities, ride quality, handling, and overall road manners, and it just makes sense that all-season light truck tires would evolve the same way to keep pace with them.

Today’s all-season tires for light trucks and SUVs are designed around the weight, center of gravity, power, torque, and handling properties of these vehicles. The best premium all-season tires for light trucks can deliver ride quality, handling, braking, and road manners that rival the best automotive Grand Touring tires. The best news, though, is that now that level of refinement isn’t just for top-brand tires – you can find affordable light truck tires that easily check all those boxes at a much lower price. The Leao Lion Sport HT is a great example; Leao tires are manufactured by Pacific Rim tire maker Linglong, and the Lion Sport HT is a fantastic value and a solid performer in an affordable light truck tire. But there’s no reason to just take us at our word on that – let’s take a closer look with this product line review:

Features and Benefits

Here are some of the features and innovations that make the Leao Lion Sport HT a great value and a real contender in the world of all-season light truck tires:

• The symmetric all-season tread pattern is designed for long, even wear and year-round performance
• Wide circumferential grooves work as a system with angled and lateral grooves to resist hydroplaning by channeling water away from the tire’s contact patch
• The next-generation tread compound is designed for long wear and enhanced traction in wet or dry conditions
• The redesigned contact patch is wider, longer, and flatter to keep more rubber in contact with the road for better braking, handling, traction, and wear properties
• Tread pitch is randomized and computer-tuned to help keep road noise to a minimum by canceling certain frequencies and resonances
• Cornering ability is enhanced with large, reinforced shoulder blocks that resist tread squirm and deformation during hard maneuvers
• Tread formulation is designed for good heat dispersal
• A dense network of sipes and microgrooves work together to multiply the tire’s surface area and traction, lending hundreds of biting edges to slice through snow, slush, standing water
• The internal construction features polyester casing with a high-tensile steel belt package and nylon cap ply layer for ride comfort and high-speed stability

Pros and Cons

PROS:

• Handling is predictable and stable
• Ride comfort is quiet and compliant
• Dependable traction on wet or dry roads

CONS:

• No treadwear mileage warranty
• Not good in heavier snow
• Not good offroad

SimpleTire’s view on Leao Lion Sport HT tires

If you’re not familiar with SimpleScore, it’s the proprietary system the SimpleTire team has developed to give you an at-a-glance idea of a tire’s capabilities, strengths and weaknesses. We look at the specs, reviews, and other data points for a tire and then distill that into a 1-10 numerical score for the categories of traction, handling, and longevity, along with an overall average SimpleScore for each tire. For the Leao Lion Sport HT, the SimpleScore numbers shake out as follows:

Leao Lion Sport HT

Traction: 7.8 Handling: 8.1 Longevity: 7.1 Overall average SimpleScore: 7.6

As you can see, those are some pretty solid numbers for an affordable tire. The Leao Lion Sport HT’s tread pattern helps it provide surefooted traction on wet or dry roads; the network of grooves and circumferential channels delivers short braking distances, confident lane changes, and solid road manners even in a blinding rainstorm. Straight-line stability is secure and dependable, making long interstate trips a pleasure, and cornering is precise and predictable (if not quite up to what you’d expect from a performance tire).

Ride quality with the Leao Lion Sport HT never loses its composure or gets squirrely even when dealing with rough or irregular pavement, and road noise stays muted (although the tire can be a bit louder on some pavement surfaces). No, the Leao Lion Sport HT doesn’t have a treadwear warranty, but its rubber formulation is designed for long, even wear and resistance to cuts, punctures, and abrasions. And no, the Leao Lion Sport HT doesn’t perform well if there’s more than a couple of inches of snow on the roads, but in all fairness, most all-season tires fall short in those conditions. At the end of the day, it’s our take here at the SimpleTire team that the Leao Lion Sport HT represents a great value and capable performer for a wide variety of light trucks, SUVs, and crossovers and is especially appealing if you’ve got an older vehicle and don’t want to spend a small fortune on a set of premium-brand tires.

Vehicles the Leao Lion Sport HT is a good replacement tire for

While the Leao Lion Sport HT isn’t the OEM tire for any new vehicles, it would make a great replacement for OEM on trucks and SUVs such as these:

• Chevrolet Tahoe
• Dodge Durango
• Ford Excursion
• GMC Sierra
• Honda Ridgeline
• Honda Pilot
• Honda CR-V
• Toyota RAV4
• Jeep Wagoneer
• Jeep Compass
• Jeep Cherokee
• Jeep Gladiator
• Nissan Titan
• RAM 2500
• Toyota Tundra
• Toyota 4Runner
• Toyota Land Cruiser FJ
• Chevrolet Silverado 1500
• Chevrolet Silverado 2500
• Chevrolet Colorado
• Chevrolet Equinox
• Chevrolet Trailblazer
• Ford Escape
• Ford Explorer
• Ford Expedition