Tyre Reviews Tyre Tests

The 2019 Auto Express winter tyre test has tested ten 225/45 R17 winter tyres, and included a summer and all season product as a benchmark.

The newest winter tyre from Goodyear is shaping up to be an excellent winter product. Thanks to a near perfect all round performance, it wins another tyre test, narrowly beating the established king of winter motoring, the Continental WinterContact TS860.

The ACE / GTU tyre test is always a funny one, as they go to a lot of effort to test the tyres, but then provide no data at all, only the overview scores.

For this reason, we always keep the commentary low, but it's important to have the test results on Tyre Reviews, as the more tests published the better right?

The weekly UK publication Auto Express has just published their 2019 all season tyre test! This year Auto Express tested nine all season tyre patterns in 205/55 R16 using a VW Golf.

As in previous years, Auto Express have included a summer and winter tyre as reference. Shockingly, the summer Continental PremiumContact 5 was the best in dry overall, near the best in wet, and fell apart in snow. Things get more interesting when we compare the winter Continental WinterContact TS860 to the all season tyres on test.

While studded tyres don't have much use in the UK, for parts of the Nordic countries they are essential for safe mobility.

To find out which of the latest studded winter tyres are worth fitting, Swedish magazine Vi Bilagare have tested seven studded winter tyres in 225/50 R17, and included a studless nordic friction winter tyre as a comparison.

Winter tyre buying can be a confusing challenge, as there are now six types of tyre you can realistically fit to your car. But which is best? To find out, I test summer, all season, all weather, winter, extreme winter and studded tyres in dry, wet, snow and ice testing, covering handling, braking and grip.

Following on from the All Season tyre market overview, Auto Bild have published their winter version of the shootout style braking test.

For the winter test, Auto Bild have tested 53 winter tyres in 225/45 R17 in wet and snow braking. The two braking distances are combined, and the top twenty tyres go through to a full test covering all aspects of a tyres performance.

Warning, lots of data ahead! For the 2019 winter, Auto Motor und Sport have tested eleven of the best winter tyres in the 215/55 R17 crossover SUV size.

The biggest plus of this test is the sheer amount of data they've produced, as they've rated the tyres both objectively and subjectively in a lot of categories.

This year the German motoring organisation ADAC have tested sixteen winter tyres in the popular 185/65 R15.

With summer sadly coming to an end, now is a great time to start thinking about switching to all season or winter tyre options.

To help this purchase decision, the excellent German publication Auto Bild publish the results of their pre-tests, in order to select the best all season tyres to send through to their full all season tyre test.

This year Auto Bild have tested 31 all season tyres in 225/45 R17 in wet and dry braking, and the top ten will go through to the full test due next month.

For their 2019 summer tyre test, Auto Express have tested eight SUV tyres in the popular 235/50 R18 size.

It's never a bad thing when a magazine goes to the effort of testing summer AND all season tyres in the same test, as it gives the motorist a good idea of the different balance of performances each tyre type has, so it's great to see Auto Navigator doing exactly this for their 205/55 R16 summer tyre test.

Not satisfied with just summer and all season tyres, Auto Navigator have included a "test winning" winter tyre, as well as worn summer and worn winter tyres (tread depth unknown!)

The Norwegian AutoMobile Federation (NAF) has tested seven summer tyre patterns in 205/55 R16, and included a premium winter tyre for comparison.

The winter tyre performed surprisingly well during the wet braking testing, which was tested between 18 and 25c, beating the Dunlop and Bridgestone summer tyres. Wet handling showed a little more weakness, with the winter tyre finishing last, but it was still within a few percent of the summer tyres.

The Swedish news paper Aftonbladet have tested thirteen 205/55 R16 touring summer tyres using a VW Passat.

Sadly the data is a little lacking in this test, but as the driving was done by the experts at Test World, you can be sure it was a proper tyre test.

The ACE / GTU tyre test is always a funny one, as they go to a lot of effort to test the tyres, but then provide no data at all, only the overview scores.

For this reason, we always keep the commentary low, but it's important to have the test results on Tyre Reviews, as the more tests published the better right?

The 2019 Auto Motor und Sport tyre test has tested eleven crossover SUV tyres in 215/55 R17. While this fitment isn't the most exciting fitment in the world, usually being found fitted to vehicles like the Vauxhall Mokka, Skoda Karoq, Seat Ateca, Hyundai Kona and Audi Q2, it is a high growth segment thanks to the huge sales of these types of cars.

The results of this test are fairly straight forward, with only one note. The Continental PremiumContact 5 tested has been replaced by the PremiumContact 6, which undoubtably would have fared better than the seventh place overall.

Every year Auto Bild test over fifty tyres in wet and dry braking testing to decide which twenty tyres make it through to the full summer tyre test. In 2019 they have tested 53 patterns, using the popular 225/45 R17 summer touring tyre size.

The 2019 summer tyre test season is underway, and as always the first published is by the German motoring organisation ADAC!

This year ADAC have tested sixteen 185/65 R15 summer tyre patterns using a VW Polo, and interestingly included the Michelin CrossClimate instead of the Michelin Energy Saver+ as the Michelin "summer" tyre.

While studded tyres aren't suitable for the normal UK winter, Tyre Reviews does have a lot of international readers, which is why we're covering this excellent studded winter tyre test from the Swedish publications Vi Bilägare.

Why this one? Well, they've used a Volvo V30 to test seven studded tyres in the very common 205/55 R16 tyre size, and they've also included a friction studless nordic winter tyre.

As always, we keep our coverage of the Auto Express tyre tests to a minimum, instead encouraging you to go and see the full article on the Auto Express website (link in comments), but there is one aspect of the test we'd like to mention.

The 2018 Auto Motor und Sport [AMS] winter tyre test has tested eleven winter tyre patterns in the popular 205/55 R16 winter tyre size, using a Seat Ibiza.