Tyre Reviews Tyre Tests

Times are hard, and now more so than ever people are asking me what the best budget tyre they can buy is. As these have never been tested against each other properly, I usually don't have an answer, but all that is about to change!

Sadly I've not been able to test every budget available, there are literally hundreds of tyre brands coming out of the far east, most of them from just a handful of factories. In fact, I've got over 300 tyre brands on the tyre reviews website, and as much as I love big tests, even that's too much for me.

Instead, I've bought eight of the most common and cheapest tyres available I could find, and because I've never tested a retread tyre, I bought one of those too. Naturally they'll all be going through a full tyre reviews tyre test to see which is best.

It's not often I'm completely shocked by a tyre test, but this years AMS EV tyre vs normal tyre test has me stumped.

Why? Let me run a few things past you. The Michelin e.Primacy was best in wet braking, beating both the Continental SportContact 7 and Bridgestone Potenza Sport, which usually ace that test. The Michelin e.Primacy also beat the Michelin Pilot Sport 4 SUV overall, which has won every other test it's featured in, and Continental won the test twice!

The concept for the test seems relatively straightforward - get a bunch of the best performance tyres on the market and test them against the newest ultra low rolling resistance / EV tyres, the Michelin e.Primacy, the Falken eZiex and the Pirelli Scorpion Elect.

Sadly Tyre Reviews isn't performing an SUV summer tyre test this year, but luckily the German publication AutoBild once again have us covered if you want to know what the best tyre is for your SUV!

This year AutoBild tested twelve SUV tyres for the crossover SUV segment in the 225/65 R17 tyre size.

As usual, all the tyres were tested in the dry and wet, and had their rolling resistance and noise / comfort levels graded, but as this category of tyre is also intended for some "light off-roading" they tested the twelve SUV tyres in mud, sand, dirt and even on wet grass! This means this really is the best test this year you show you what the best tyre is for your SUV!

The 2023 Sport Auto summer tyre test has set out to discover what the best UHP summer tyre is by testing eleven summer tyres in the popular 225/40 R18 size using an Audi S3.

Once again the Continental SportContact 7 won the test with a strong performance in the dry and wet, with the Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 6 close behind in second place. 

Following on from the fifty tyre braking shootout, Autobild have put the best twenty summer tyres through a full tyre test and included a budget reference tyre, which performed terribly!

The biggest advantage of an Autobild tyre test? They include a wear test, this year done on a machine, so scroll down the page to see each tyres estimated mileage and take note of how that affects the overall result!

The 2023 Auto Zeitung Performance Summer Tyre Test included nine of the very best UHP summer tyres in the popular 235/35 R19 tyre size, and also included the Michelin CrossClimate 2 all season / all weather tyre so show us how one of the best all season tyres compared to some of the best summer tyres. The test car was a 280bhp Ford Focus ST which will give the summer tyres a good stress test, let alone the all seasons!

If you've ever dreamed of seeing the Michelin Pilot Sport 5, Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 6, Continental SportContact 7 and Bridgestone Potenza Sport in the same test, your dreams have just been answered with the 2023 Auto Bild Sportscars Summer Tyre Test! They even included the new Falken FK520!

The German publication tested thirteen of the most popular UHP tyres in 225/40 R18 using a Toyota GR Yaris, and yes you read that right, the SportContact 7 is now available in some 18" wheel sizes!

Want to know which of the UHP titans is best overall? Read on!

It's the 50th anniversary of the ADAC tyre test, and to celebrate the German automotive body have tested fifty summer tyres in the popular 205/55 R16 tyre size, and have included wear testing for every tyre!

There's a lot to unpack in this test, so we'll dive straight in! Headline notes, there are two Michelin tyres in this test, the Michelin Primacy 4+ and the energy saving Michelin e.Primacy, the Continental on test is not the new PremiumContact 7, it's the previous model, the Continental PremiumContact 6, and Continental also have the new Continental UltraContact in the test, which is meant to be a lower rolling resistance and higher mileage tyre for those who drive a lot of distance!

In this test, we'll be finding out what the best premium touring summer tyres on the market are!

I'm going to try and keep this as condensed as I possibly can as we have 13 sets of tyres in this test including the newest and best from Continental, Michelin, Hankook, Pirelli, Bridgestone, Vredestein, Kumho, Toyo, Nankang and more! This should also be the world's first test of the Continental PremiumContact 7!

Every year it becomes harder and harder to argue that the German publication AutoBild aren't leading the tyre testing game, and once again they seem to be a huge step ahead of everyone else.

For their 2023 summer tyre test, AutoBild have started with fifty 225/45 R18 tyres, mostly ultra high performance tyres but also some touring bias rubber, and put them through a huge dry and wet braking test.

As always, the real fun will be published in the full review in a few weeks where the top twenty tyres from this test will be put through a full examination, but this braking data does give us some interesting insights.

The first summer tyre test of 2023 has been published, the Gute Fahrt / ACE Europe UHP tyre test in the popular 235/35 R19 size using a Golf GTI.

Unfortunately the details of the test are somewhat limited, and this isn't a test that shares any data or percentage results. Instead they use a positive or negative scoring system, which really doesn't satisfy our geeky desire for data, so this write up will be limited.

The 2022 Auto Express summer tyre test is here! For 2022 Auto Express tested seven ultra high performance summer tyres in the popular 225/40 R18 tyre size!

As always, we will steer you towards the Auto Express website to see the full details of the test, but we do have a few comments to make.

Auto Express tested seven sets of 235/55 R18 SUV tyres for their 2022 summer tyre test.

With 2022 seeing the launch of the track day specific Bridgestone Potenza Race, the German publication Auto Bild have decided to see how the new Bridgestone fairs up against its key rivals in the segment, the Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 Connect, Pirelli P Zero Trofeo R, and Goodyear Eagle F1 SuperSport R.

As usual with Auto Bild tests they have been extremely thorough, not just testing the dry track performance of the tyre, but also looking at long run wear, wet grip, and dry and wet braking performance of the track specific rubber.

We are very late in the season for this one, so we're not going to write too much on this. For 2022 Auto Zeitung tested ten crossover SUV tyre sizes in 215/55 R17 using a Ford Puma.

The excellent testers at AZ were obviously happy with the majority of the tyres tested as they gave out seven awards to the top seven tyres! It's also worth noting the Continental tyre in this test was the ultra low rolling resistance EcoContact 6, not the PremiumContact 6 you'd expect.

Sadly AZ didn't get the chance to do any offroad testing, not that these tyres are intended for much offroad use, but if you would like to see how these sorts of tyres perform on dirt and grass you can check out the Tyre Reviews SUV test here.

If like me you've been wondering exactly how low rolling resistance / eco / EV tyres differ from their regular counterparts, this is the test for you!

The wonderful people at the Swedish publication ViBilagare have tested ten sets of tyres in the popular 205/55 R16 size, and included "normal" AND "eco / EV" tyres from Continental, Michelin and Nokian. This means we have the Continental PremiumContact 6 vs EcoContact 6, Michelin Primacy 4 vs e.Primacy and Nokian Hakka Blue 3 vs Green 3 (these are the Nordic specific versions of the Nokian WetProof.)

Why no eco / low rolling resistance / EV tyres from Goodyear and Bridgestone? This test highlights the different approaches of certain tyre manufacturers, and while Tyre Reviews isn't sure on Bridgestones philosophy, Goodyear firmly believe that EV specific tyres aren't needed if you make all your tyres EV Ready, by focusing on low fuel consumption and excellent grip in all conditions for every tyre.

For AutoBild's third summer tyre test for 2022, the German publication tested ten sets of 245/40 R19 tyres using a BMW 5 Series.

As this is the first test with both the new Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 6 AND Continental SportContact 7, it makes for a very interesting test!

The new Goodyear wins overall thanks to excelling in nearly every test, other than aquaplaning (though strangely Auto Bild still said the tyre has good aquaplaning reserves, we're not sure why.)

The SportContact 7 was the fastest tyre in the dry and had the best dry braking, however it couldn't match the stellar wet performance we found in the Tyre Reviews 2022 UUHP Tyre Test.

The Michelin Pilot Sport 5 is new to market, but so is its main rival, the Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 6! 

To find out which of these new ultra high performance tyres are best, I use a VW Golf GTI wearing 225/45 R17 tires and test the dry, wet, comfort, noise and rolling resistance of nine sets of performance tyres, to see if the new PS5 or Asym 6 can retain their crowns, or whether another brand of tyre will prove to be best!

For 2021 EVO magazine tested nine sets of UHP / UUHP tyres in the popular 225/40 R18 size. That size in particular offers some interesting issues as companies like Bridgestone and Goodyear offer their UUHP products in that size, but companies like Continental and Michelin do not.  

The test was conducted using an Audi S3 which has a haldex type based four wheel drive system, which is fairly uncommon in tyre testing. EVO spend a lot of time rating the subjective handling, noise and comfort of  the tyres on the road and track, which means they put more score weighting on subjective data than any other publication. This makes the results really interesting for those of us who enjoy driving.

It doesn't take much to make me happy, but a Chevrolet Camaro SS 1LE at Nelson Ledges with five sets of tyres ranging from treadwear 300 to treadwear 100... well that's a very easy place to be happy.

The reason for this test was to see if a lower treadwear value, which is a number the American Uniform Tire Quality Grade (UTQG) standards body assign to a tyre based on a basic wear test, really does mean more grip, but it turned out to be a fascinating insight into some of the big hitting tyres used on track in North America.

Watch the video below for the full details.