Tyre Reviews Tyre Tests

We test the dominent Michelin Pilot Super Sport against the new boy to the max performance tyre segment, the Continental Sport Contact 6! Read on for the full details

The 2016 ACE magazine all season tyre test covers ten all season tyres in the popular 205/55 R16 tyre size using a VW Golf, and includes a summer and winter tyre as benchmarks.

Once again, the test highlights the fact that current all season tyres, with the exception of the Michelin CrossClimate, should be considered as slightly tweaked winter tyres and have all the drawbacks of the winter rubber in warm dry and wet conditions.

Testing nine of the latest max performance tyres, EVO have chosen the popular 235/35 R19 size, using a Ford Focus ST at Continentals circuit in Texas for the 2016 EVO Summer Tyre Test.

The 2016 Auto Express summer tyre test has just been published, and it's the first test to have the "holy 4"! The new Dunlop Sport Maxx RT 2, Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 3, Michelin Pilot Sport 4 and Pirelli P Zero PZ4 have finally been tested together at the same track, on the same car (VW Golf GTI), in the same 225/40 R18 size!

The Test World ultra high performance summer tyre test puts thirteen 225/40 R18 tyre patterns through the usual array of wet, dry and environment testing using a VW Golf GTI.

Sadly, there's no Michelin Pilot Sport 4 in this test, with Test World testing the older Pilot Sport 3 pattern, but they have included the new Goodyear and Dunlop tyres.

This year Sport Auto have chosen 235/40 R18 as their ultra high performance tyre test size. Sadly, this resulted in a couple of the key new tyres being left out, so Sport Auto also tested the Michelin Pilot Sport 4 in 225/40 R18 and the Continental Sport Contact 6 in 235/35 R19 to get an approximate idea of how they compared, but excluded them from the final results.

This year the German magazine "Gute Fahrt" have tested nine all season tyres in 205/55 R16 using a VW Golf, plus summer and winter tyre for comparison.

While the full results are summarised below, we thought it would be interesting to take a closer look at how the all season tyres compared to the summer Continental EcoContact 5 and winter Dunlop WinterSport 5 included in the test.

This year the German AutoBild magazine have taken the 15 best tyres from their 205/55 R16 50 tyre braking shootout through to the full test, and the result is another impressive win for Hankook!

One VW Golf wearing 205/55 R16 tyres, 50 different tyre patterns, and a lot of wet and dry braking tests gives us a good overview of the market in 2016. The dry test was braking from 62 mph, and the wet from 50 mph.

The test we've all been waiting for is here, and it's round one to Continental.

The 2016 Auto Bild Sports Cars tyre test placed six maximum performance tyres through their paces on a Jaguar F-Type, in 255/35 R20 front and 295/30 R20 rear sizes.

The new Continental Sport Contact 6 was tested against the reigning performance tyre king, the Michelin Pilot Super Sport, and the result was surprising.

Testing in 225/45 R17, the GTU test is the first test to include the new Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 3, Dunlop Sport Maxx RT2, Falken Azenis FK510, Toyo Proxes T1 Sport+ and GT Radial SportActive amongst the fourteen tyres tested! Sadly, the new Michelin Pilot Sport 4 was absent from the test, but we can't have everything at once.

Much like the 225/45 R17 test ADAC published at the same time, the ADAC 185/65 R15 tyre test looks at sixteen premium and mid range tyres, but this time has selected tyres intended to be fitted to smaller town and city cars.

The biggest surprise of the test was this time delivered by Vredestein, with the Sportrac 5 dominating the test, and beating the wet weather master Continental Premium Contact 5 in the wet tests. The Vredestein must have gone through a life cycle update, as in 2015 the best result it could manage was fifth overall, and over placed near the bottom of the tests it took part in.

The 2016 ADAC 225/45 R17 summer tyre test is a classic ADAC by-the-numbers tyre test, with the results driven from data rather than subjective scoring.

Of the sixteen tyres tested, at least three patterns have already been replaced, with the Michelin Pilot Sport 3, Toyo Proxes T1 Sport and GT Radial Champiro HPY already superseded by the Michelin Pilot Sport 4, Toyo Proxes T1 Sport+ and GT Radial Sport Active in late 2015.

Goodyear and Dunlop are also noticeably absent from this test, with the newly released Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 3 and Dunlop Sport Maxx RT2 missing.

The first summer tyre test of 2016 is a curious one. ACE, the Automobile Club Europa, are often first to publish their regular summer tyre tests, but this year their first tyre test exclusively features midrange tyres.

Testing ten 195/65 R15 tyres on a VW Golf, ACE argue that the most important consideration for 90% of motorists is price, which is why they've chosen to tests tyres as cheap as 35/euros per tyre.

Continuing the year of all season tyre tests, French magazine L'Argus have released their first all season tyre test, which included both the new Michelin CrossClimate, the new Nokian Weatherproof, and the new Nokian WR D4 as the reference winter tyre.

Testing five of the latest all season tyres in 205/55 R16 on a VW Golf, L'Argus put the all the tyres through a full complement of winter and summer tests, in both an Austrian Autumn at a warm 15c, and a Finnish winter where the temperatures were as low as -15c.

Testing 10 premium UHP winter tyres in 225/50 R17, including three patterns released in 2015, Auto Motor und Sport put the tyres through the usual range of dry, wet, snow and environmental tests across Finland and Germany.

Our copy of the 2015 ACE winter tyre test is a little thin on details, but we thought it was important to include as it tests many of the new winter tyres for 2015, in the popular 225/50 R17 tyre size.

This year, Sport Auto have tested seven different UHP winter tyres in 235/35 R19, on a VW Golf R.