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!

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!

We're going to let the test do the talking for this one. The excellent Swedish testers at ViBilagare have tested eight SUV studless friction winter tyres, included the new Nokian Hakkapeliitta R5 SUV and Bridgestone Blizzak DM-V3 using a Volvo V40 wearing 235/55 R18 tires. Fortunately, where the tyre patterns match those in the Tyre Reviews Nordic Winter Tyre Test, the results are very similar!

Sadly here at Tyre Reviews we've not had time to do a studded tyre test for 2022, but fortunately the excellent testers at the Nordic publication Vibilagare have tested eight sets of studded winter tyres to show us which of the studded tyres on the market are the best! While the test size is an SUV size (235/55 R18) and the test vehicle a Volvo XC40, these results should give you an idea of the balance between the tyres in all sizes.

As you would hope, the tyres have been tested in the dry, wet, snow and ice. Which is of course the reason studded tyres exist.

The data is interesting, and in full below, but as we saw in the Tyre Reviews Studless Winter Tyre Test there is a pretty clear inversion between the tyres which priorities wet performance, and the tyres which priorities ice performance.

Auto Bild tests are always amongst the best in the industry, and this year Auto Bild have taken things a step further. Not only did Auto Bild start with 25 all season tyres in the popular 195/55 R16 size and test them in dry and wet braking to get the best 15 for the full test below, they've also tested things Tyre Reviews was unable to test in the Tyre Reviews 2022 all season tyre test, including real world fuel use, the all important wear test, and new for this year, they tracked the abrasion of the tyres to see which tyre gives off the least particulates to the environment, which is separate from projected tyre life!

Snow tyres, studless friction tyres, extreme winter tyres, nordic winter tyres. This category of tyre goes by many names, and they have one design goal, to be the very best on snow and ice for harsh winter climates, where studded tyres aren't appropriate, or for people who don't want studs.

To find out which is the best, Tyre Reviews has taken 7 of the most popular tyres available to both the North American and Nordic markets, and will be putting them through a full range of tests, including ice, snow, wet and dry testing to find out which is best at what. Also, to help you understand where these tyres fit in the market, I'm also including the very best of the central european and studded winter tyres, the Continental WinterContact TS870 and the studded Nokian Happapelliita 10.

For 2022, the excellent German test organisation ADAC have tested 15 winter tyres in 185/65 R15 and 15 crossover SUV winter tyres in 215/60 R16.

The results below are for the 185/65 R15 test, where we have no real surprises in the overall results. 

For 2022, the excellent German test organisation ADAC have tested 15 crossover SUV winter tyres in 215/60 R16 and 15 winter tyres in 185/65 R15.

The results below are for the 215/60 R16 test, where we have a few interesting quirks in the overall results. 

For this year's Tyre Reviews winter tyre test, we've got nine sets of the most popular winter tyres, half of which are brand new tyres for this year!

As always I'll be testing in the snow, wet and dry, and looking at rolling resistance, noise and comfort, to ensure you get the best overview of all the new winter tyres!

Once a year, the wonderful people at the German publication Auto Bild take a huge number of all season tyres through a wet and dry braking, to find the very best to include in their full test.

Fortunately, this year is no different, and below you'll find the wet and dry braking results of thirty five all season tyres, and a summer and winter reference tyre, with the top fifteen going through to the full test which will be on the site next week.

All season tyres are trying to be one tyre for every situation, but as we know no tyre can excel in every category, meaning tyre manufacturers often take away from one area to be better in another.

So, which all season tyre is best for YOUR own needs? To find out Tyre Reviews has ten of the most popular all season tyres on the market, and will be testing them in the snow, dry and wet, noise, comfort and rolling resistance!

The tyre size I'm testing is massively popular 225/45 R17, and while there might not be any new names in the test this year, a different size and different testing location means we're likely to get some interesting results! The Michelin Crossclimate 2 stormed to victory last year in 16", will this year be any different?

The 2022 Auto Bild SUV all season tyre test has tested eleven popular all season tyres in 225/50 R18 tyre size and included a summer and winter tyre as comparison references! 225/50 R18 is a small sidewalled tyre for an SUV,  this is aimed at the more compact crossover SUV all season tyre market, with Auto Bild using a BMW X2 for the testing.

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

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.

Autobild are at it again, with the best SUV / mild 4x4 summer tyre test you'll see all year (Tyre Reviews sadly isn't doing one)! The German publication have tested ten leading SUV tyres in the popular 235/55 R18 tyre size using a VW Tiguan, and have managed to test the tyres in the usual range of tests covering the dry and wet performance of the tyres, but also test them on grass, dirt, gravel and even sand!

To add even more awesomeness Autobild included the multiple award winning Goodyear Vector 4Season Gen 3 all season tyre. There's been a number of driver reviews on Tyre Reviews claiming that an all season tyre is actually pretty cabible in certain offroad conditions, and now we get to see!

The 2022 AutoBild summer tyre is here! As usual, the test started out as a wet and dry braking test of fifty sets of tyres in the popular 215/55 R17 size, with the best twenty one moving through to this full test. Not only have AutoBild managed to test the new Hankook Ventus Prime 4 and Kumho Ecsta HS52, they've also put all twenty one sets of tyres through a wear test, and included an (unnamed) all season tyre as a reference in the grip tests!

The Goodyear EfficientGrip Performance 2 won the test by combining good grip in the dry and wet, very low rolling resistance and the best wear on test. Even though it wasn't the cheapest tyre, when AutoBild divided the purchase price by the projected mileage it also proved to be the best value tyre on test, a very impressive showing from Goodyear.