It's the test we look forward to all year, the Auto Bild winter tire shootout.
2014 sees Auto Bild testing fifty different winter tires in 225/50 R17. As usual, they test all fifty tires in wet braking from 50 mph, then take the top twenty through to a snow braking test from 31mph. The top fifteen from this test then go on to the full winter tire test, where Auto Bild crown the best winter tire of 2014.
As usual, there's a huge disparity between the best and the worst winter tires in the wet braking test, with the winning Pirelli stopping in 35.7 meters and the worst budgets at 52.7 meters, a huge 17 meters, or nearly two double decker busses further. For a predominately wet winter climate like the UK, the wet braking tests are really worth concentrating on.
For comparison purposes, Auto Bild also included an undentified summer tire in the wet and snow braking tests. The summer tire matched the bset winter tire on test, stopping in just 36 metres in the wet, but took a huge 58.2 metres in the snow, 30.3 metres longer than the best winter tire from 31 mph.
The Braking Results
Please note: Places 20-50 were not tested in snow braking, our results show 0.1 metres for formatting reasons. Position 45 was PneuVranik Everest HPL in 45.1 metres, and Position 50 was Sonny WOT 18 in 52.7 metres. Neither tire feature in our database as there is no brand information online.