Tyre Reviews Tyre Tests

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 The Continental PremiumContact 5 tested has been replaced by the PremiumContact 6, which undoubtably would have fared better than the seventh place overall.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.

This year the Hungarian publication Auto Navigator have tested fourteen 205/55 R16 summer tyres, but also included an all season tyre (the Michelin CrossClimate), a full winter tyre, and most interestingly worn summer and winter tyres.

It's important to note that the worn winter tyre used was from last years test, whereas the worn summer tyre was 7 years old and had been stored in "sub optimal conditions". While the tread depth of each of the worn tyres isn't exactly clear, the worn summer tyre was at a huge disadvantage due to age and storage conditions. 

All tests were performed around 15c air temperature. Sadly aquaplaning wasn't tested by the magazine.

Thanks to the explosion in SUV type vehicles, tyre companies are feverishly updating their SUV and 4x4 product lines. To see which manufacturer is currently doing the best job, Auto Bild Allrad have tested eight of the latest patterns in the large 265/60 R18 size.

The 2018 Gute Fahrt test is a confusing tyre test for a number of reasons. Firstly is tests both summer and all season tyres in the same dry and wet tests, but fails to include the all season class leading Michelin CrossClimate. 

There's a lot of tyres in the 2018 Auto Bild 195/65 R15 test, so we'll keep the intro as short as possible and let the data do the talking.

It's worth keeping in mind, the twenty tyres chosen for this test have been through a 51 tyre wet and dry braking pretest. This means the tyres included in this test are some of the best tyres available on the market, had Auto Bild included some of the worst tyres in the pretest, the gap between the best and the worst tyres overall would have been much larger.

Every year Auto Bild test over fifty tyres in wet and dry braking test to decide which twenty tyres make it through to the full summer tyre test. In 2018 they have used the popular 195/65 R15 summer touring tyre size.

The spread of dry braking results was higher than usual this year. The best dry braking tyre on test, the Hankook, stopped the car from 62mph in 34.5 metres, and the worse 42.4 metres. This 7.9 metre difference might not sound like a huge amount, but it is the difference of stopping or hitting an object at around 26 mph!

The spread in the wet was even larger. The Bridgestone was best in the wet, stopping the car from 50 mph in 34.3 metres, where as the worst tyre on test took a massive 17.6 metres further, totaling 51.9 metres. That's over 4 car lengths further and a huge residual speed at time of accident.

In 2018, German test body ADAC have tested fourteen 175/65 R14 summer tyres, and sixteen in the larger 205/55 R16 size.

In this 175/65 R14 test, the mid range brands dominate! Falken impressively win the test and continue their run of recently form with the SN832 Ecorun having a very balanced overall performance. The Continental owned brand Semperit finishes in second place, owing to an excellent wet performance, and third place was the best result a premium manufacturer could manage with the Dunlop proving to be a well balanced tyre.

In 2018, German test body ADAC have tested sixteen 205/55 R16 summer tyres, and fourteen tyres in the smaller 175/65 R14 size.

In this 205/55 R16 test, premium manufacturers take the top three places. Michelin lead the way, having the lowest wear on test and proving to be excellent in the dry, Bridgestone have a surprisingly strong performance in the wet to score second place overall, and Continental have a very balanced showing for the last of the podium spots.

The first tyre test of 2018 is rather unique. German publication Auto Zeitung have tested six summer tyres and three all season tyres all in the same test, and while it's going to make the Tyre Reviews version of the result at the bottom of this page read slightly wonky, it's a really interesting way of comparing the dry and wet performances of the two tyre types.

Keep in mind, the nine tyres were only tested in the dry and wet, there was no snow or ice testing to highlight the all season tyres year-round abilities. This means this test should just be looked at to see how the all season tyres compare to the summer tyres in summer conditions, rather than making a purchase decision for year-round motoring.

The excellent 2017 Auto Express summer tyre test has just been published! This year Auto Express tested eleven 205/55 R16 tyre sizes, ranging from the premium end of the market to the budget end.

This year's winner is the Continental Premium Contact 5. This tyre has always tested well, but with the newer Premium Contact 6 having already been on the market for 6 months at time of test, it would have been interesting to see just how well the latest version of the Premium Contact range would have done!

With the SUV sector booming, tyre manufacturers are starting to merge their car and SUV lines into one product. The latest, and according to this test by the Swedish magazine Vi Bilägare, greatest example of this, is the new Continental Premium Contact 6.

The first test featuring the new Bridgestone DriveGuard runflat tyre has been published!

Testing ten 205/55 R16 touring tyres on a VW Golf, Polish Motor magazine included the new generation Bridgestone DriveGuard runflat tyre against the traditional non-runflat competition. 

We've currently very few details about this years ACE / GTU SUV Summer tyre test, but we do know some things.

The testers tested eleven 215/60 R17 tyres using a the crossover SUV Vauxhall Mokka. No offroad tests were done, as crossover SUVs spend most of their lives on the black stuff.