Tyre Reviews Tyre Tests

For the 2020 Auto Express all season tyre test, Auto Express tested six 225/45 R17 all season tyres using a VW Golf.

For their second winter test of 2020, the excellent Vi Bilagare have tested eight Nordic friction (studless) winter tyres.

As with the studded version, Vi Bilagare have performed a thorough test covering dry, wet, snow and ice, and should be considered one of the benchmarks for extreme winter testing in Europe. 

This test is particularly interesting as it has the new Michelin X-Ice Snow, Bridgestone Blizzak Ice, Pirelli Ice Zero FR and Nexen Winguard Ice Plus WH43 placed up against the established Nordic winter tyres from Continental, Goodyear and Nokian.

For the 2020 Vi Bilägare Winter studded tire test, the Swedish magazine has tested 8 of the most extreme studded winter tyres in 205/60 R16.

As this is a studded winter tyre test, the testers placed much more emphasis on snow and ice performance, so if you're in a region that sees a lot of compacted snow and ice on the road during normal winters, this is a very useful test.

Here are the Tyre Reviews best winter tyres for the 2020 winter tyre season.

As usual, all these tyres have been picked based on data from Tyre Reviews testing, other tests from around the world, and user reviews - think of this as one big meta-analysis of the best winter / snow / studded tyres on the market. This video covers European, Nordic and North American winter tyres / tyres, and covers cars, SUV's and Electric vehicles (EVs.)

The 2020 Auto Zeitung has tested fourteen winter tyres in 205/55 R16, including new winter tyres from Bridgestone, Goodyear and Maxxis, as well as a low cost retreaded tyre.

While all the tyres were tested in the dry, wet and snow, sadly Auto Zeitung didn't include any handling data, instead just providing subjective feel scoring.

The 2020 Sport Auto all season tyre test has covered seven of the best all season tyres in 225/45 18, using a new BMW 3 Series.

Most of the tyres on test were also included in the 2020 Tyre Reviews all season tyre test, however as Sport Auto used a different size and vehicle, this test still makes for interesting reading!

If you're planning on undertaking a massive Nordic friction and studded winter tyre test, having the right facilities to conduct the test in is key. Fortunately for Test World, they own one of the best independent arctic testing facilities in the world which is why we're super excited to see this 21 tyre test, covering all the key friction studless and studded winter tyres on the market.

All tyres are in the popular 205/55 R16, and were tested using a VW Golf. There were some interesting new tyres in the test, including the first test of the studless Michelin X-Ice Snow.

For the 2020 Auto Express winter tyre test, Auto Express tested nine 205/55 R16 winter tyres using a VW Golf.

The 2020 ACE / ARBÖ / GTÜ winter tyre test has tested nine winter tyres in the popular 225/50 R17 size using a BMW 3 Series.

The 2020 Auto Bild SUV Tyre test has tested ten crossover SUV / 4x4 winter tyres in the popular 225/55 R17 size, with a summer tyre included as a reference.

Of the ten tyres on test, the top four tyres were given the "Exemplary" award, which included the new Goodyear UltraGrip Performance+, the much improved Bridgestone Blizzak LM005, the new Michelin Alpin 6 and the Vredestein Wintrac Pro.

The test winning Goodyear had a good all round performance, with the testers noting the winter tyre felt precise and dynamic in all conditions. The Bridgestone LM005 performed well in the dry and wet to secure second place, while the joint third Michelin and Vredestein pair performed well in all tests, but either cost more to buy (Michelin) or used more fuel (Vredestein.)

ADAC tyre tests are some of the most influential in the world, and for the 2020 winter season ADAC have chosen to test fifteen 205/55 R16 of the best winter tyres for cars, and thirteen 235/55 R17 winter tyres for SUV / 4x4.

ADAC tyre tests are some of the most influential in the world, and for the 2020 winter season ADAC have chosen to test thirteen 235/55 R17 winter tyres for SUV / 4x4 and fifteen 205/55 R16 of the best winter tyres for cars.

Following on from the 52 winter tyre braking test, the top 20 winter tyres in 245/45 R18 have been put through the usual Auto Bild winter tyre tests, to discover the best performance winter tyre for the 2020 season.

Following on from the 32 tyre braking shootout, Auto Bild have taken the fourteen best all season tyres to the full test, and included a summer and winter tyre as reference.

As with the Tyre Reviews all season test, Auto Bild have ranked the new Goodyear Vector 4Seasons Gen-3 as the best all season tyre, not because it was outstanding in one single area, but because it had a rounded performance in nearly all tests.

Every year, the German publication Auto Bild selects a tyre size, finds as many all season tyres as possible in that size, and tests them all in dry and wet braking, with the top 14 tyres proceeding to the full all season tyre test.

For the 2020 all season tyre test, Auto Bild rounded up 34 all season tyres in the common 205/55 R16 size, and a summer and winter tyre as reference.

With the promise of one tyre to work in all conditions, all season tyres are a rapidly growing market segment.

To find out which of these all season tyres is best, and whether they can match a summer and winter tyre, the 2020 Tyre Reviews all season tyre test has tested nine of the best 225/45 R17 all season tyres on the market, and included a summer and winter tyre as reference.

This year Auto Express have tested ten 205/55 R16 summer tyres using a VW Golf. You can be forgiven if this setup sounds similar, as it's almost the same test as the Tyre Reviews 16" summer tyre test.

As eight of the ten tyres on test match tyres we used in our test, but the overall results differ in places, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to look into what's different, and why that might be.

Do you want to know what tyre is best for every day, real world driving? In this test we take eleven of the very best 205/55 R16 tyres on the market, plus a well regarded budget tyre, to see exactly what tyre performs best in the dry, wet, comfort, noise and rolling resistance tests!

Tyre testing is incredibly complicated to conduct, and one of the most difficult parts of testing is good repeatability.

Take for example wet braking. To get the wet braking distance of a tyre, you don't just do the braking run once, you do it 6-8 times, delete the outliers then average out the results. Even on the most expensive test facilities in the world, with the most perfect sprinkler systems and perfect tarmac, you rarely get the same distance twice as there are so many variables, which means when you use a less than state of the art facility, results can be surprising.

This brings us on to this test by the Italian publication "al volante". 

Each year, the wonderful Swedish publication Teknikens Värld performs a summer tyre test in Sweden. Their 2020 test covers ten 225/50 R17 summer tyres, including the first test of the brand new Goodyear EfficientGrip Performance 2!

The unique Swedishness of the test means they don't perform dry handling, but instead the "moose test" which involves a sharp lane change at speed. Sadly, we can't database this, but you can see the results of the test in the commentary at the bottom of the page.