Tyre Reviews Tyre Tests
Summer Tyre Tests
All Season Tyre Tests
Winter Tyre Tests
Total Tests: 528
Most Tested Brand: Michelin (488 tests)
Most Tested Tyre: Dunlop Winter Sport 5 (63 tests)
The European winter tyre test is the largest of the year, covering 28 tyres in 2 different sizes, 225/45 r17 and 185/65 r15.
This year the tests were more stringent than ever. Not only did the 28 tyres have their dry, wet, snow and ice grip tested but they were also scored on their wear, fuel consumption and comfort properties.
Read onWinter tyres are a hot subject at the moment, with new tests being released weekly. Usually winter tyre tests focus on the smaller tyre sizes winter tyres are often used in, meaning if you drive a performance car and are interested in ultra high performance winter tyres you have to hope the tyres tested in the smaller sizes have the same attributes in the larger sizes.
Read more...This year the 2010 winter tyre reviews season was opened by Auto Zeitung who put 14 different 195/65 r15 winter tyres on a Ford Focus to the test.
The good news for UK drivers is that this years report included a slush test which rates how the tyres cope with the road surface when the packed snow is melting and it's a mix of snow and standing water.
With fuel prices sky high, "Eco Tyres" (or ultra low rolling resistance tyres) are a hot topic. Traditionally eco tyres have been just like normal tyres only with a harder rubber compound. While this is an effective way to save fuel, the harder the tyres compound the less grip it produces meaning people were having to consider whether the risk of low grip tyres was worth the savings in fuel.
This years Auto Express UHP Summer tyre test comes at a rather odd time - issue 1131 released 8th September. While it might have come at a time when the country is starting to think about winter tyres, Auto Express have still done an excellent job writing 9 pages dedicated to 12 performance summer tyres over 10 different disciplines. To carry out these tests Auto Express borrowed the Contidrom in Germany, a fleet of Skoda Octavia test cars wearing the optional 225/45 r18 sized tyres and purchased 2 sets of each tyres tested at random to ensure the manufactures didn't send "special tyres".
Here are the results from the 2010 Autocar tyre tests for the RWD section of the test. To read commentary, and the results of the FWD tyre test click here
It's always nice to have a tyre test from British Magazine, and this week the Auto Car have provided us with not one, but two excellent tests.
Testing both 205/55 r16 tyres on a FWD VW Golf and 225/45 r17 tyres on a RWD Mercedes C280, Auto Car visited Uvalde test track in Texas, USA to put the chosen tyres through seven different disciplines.
On test were tyres from Bridgestone, Continental, Dunlop, Goodyear, Michelin and Vredestein echoing Auto Cars message from 2008 - budget tyres aren't worth the risk, especially in a wet climate like the UK.
It might still be August, but after an unusually snowy start to 2010 talk has already turned to winter tyres in the UK.
While we're waiting for the magazines to put together their 2010 winter tyre tests, here's one of the more interesting articles from 2009. This test is particularly good as it uses a powerful RWD car (Mercedes SLK350) which wears relatively wide 225/45 r17 performance tyres.
Each of the 8 tyres were tested in the snow, on wet roads and in the dry with the scoring emphasis bias towards wet weather and snow performance (these are winter tyres after all!)