2016 Winter Tire Guide

With autumn finally here, now is a good time to take a look at the best solutions for keeping mobile regardless of the weather in 2016.

Winter tire interest spiked after the heavy snow in 2010 and 2011, but after a number of mild and wet winters the benefits of winter tires have been largely forgotten. As such, the focus of both the consumer and tire manufacturer has now switched to all season tires.

All season tires still offer improved grip compared to summer tires when the temperatures are freezing, and offer a vastly improved performance on snow and ice when compared to a summer tire, but their less extreme nature than a full winter tire means there are less penalties during wet, and particularly dry braking where a full winter tire can give up 20% of a summer tires performance even in colder conditions.

Types of All Season

With the launch of the Michelin CrossClimate in 2016, there are now two categories of all season tire - the summer-bias all season, and the winter-bias all season.

The Michelin CrossClimate is currently the only summer-bias all season tire on the market, and while it gives up a little snow and ice performance when compared to the best winter-bias all season tires on the market, it will still outperform a summer tire by an order of magnitude, without giving up 15% dry and wet braking, as other all season tires can so is our recommendation for ensuring winter mobility.

If you spend your time in the more northern parts of the UK and are more worried about snow and ice performance, Goodyear and Nokian are currently making the best winter-bias all season tires on the market.

The Goodyear Vector 4Seasons Gen-2 builds on the near flawless performance of the first generation tire, has a wet performance to match any tire on the market, and balances dry and snow and ice performance well.

The Nokian WeatherProof is a little more extreme again, having the performance of a full winter tire on snow and ice, excellent wet grip, but as a result of the snow performance behaves more like a winter tire in the dry, where it can give up almost 20% under dry braking.

One other tire definitely worth considering as a winter-bias all season tire is the Continental WinterContact TS860. While this is sold as a full winter tire, it proves how the line can be blurred between winter-bias all season tires and full winter, as it often out performs all season tires in the dry and wet, and dominates them on snow and ice.

To highlight the difference in summer, all season and winter tires, we took four identical Skodas to an indoor ski slope, and this was the result. The tires, from left car to right car were Michelin Primacy 3 (summer), Michelin CrossClimate (summar-bias all season), Goodyear Vector 4 Seasons Gen-2 (winter-bias all season) and Continental WinterContact TS850 (european winter).

Winter Tire Options

While we've be more than happy running to the alps on any of the tires mentioned above, sometimes a full winter tire is the best option for more performance bias cars where all season tires aren't available, or if you plan extreme snow and ice driving in Europe.

Other than the new Continental WinterContact TS860, 2016 has been a slow year with very few new winter patterns announced. Luckily, the winter tires launched at the end of 2015 are still excellent options, with the Michelin Alpin 5, Dunlop WinterSport 5, Goodyear UltraGrip Performance Gen-1, and Nokian WR D4 all worth considering, depending on your personal requirements.