Bert Wagner shows how implicit conversions in a predicate can ruin query performance:
Why? Because SQL is performing that implicit conversion to the numeric datatype for every single row in my table. Hence, it can’t seek using the index because it ends up having to scan the whole table to convert every record to a number first.
And this doesn’t only happen with numbers and string conversion. Microsoft has posted an entire chart detailing what types of data type comparisons will force an implicit conversion:
This is one of those things that can easily elude you because the query will often return results in line with what you expect, so until you have a performance problem, you might not even think to check.