It's never a bad thing when a magazine goes to the effort of testing summer AND all season tires in the same test, as it gives the motorist a good idea of the different balance of performances each tire type has, so it's great to see Auto Navigator doing exactly this for their 205/55 R16 summer tire test.
Not satisfied with just summer and all season tires, Auto Navigator have included a "test winning" winter tire, as well as worn summer and worn winter tires (tread depth unknown!)
Caveats from the test? Well, sadly Auto Navigator didn't perform what I would call a full tire test, instead just covering dry and wet braking, dry and wet peak cornering speed (not a full handling lap) and they touched upon noise and wear.
Additionally, we've decided not to include the wear testing scoring in our database, as they seemed to give a score out of "1", with "0.9" being the best and "0.1" being the worst with very little scientific basis behind the result. For reference the Michelin Primacy 4 and Continental AllSeasonContact seemed to show the lowest wear.
Dry
During dry braking (60-0 kph), the Michelin CrossClimate+ and Bridgestone WeatherControl A005 were the only all season tires to trouble the summers. The worn winter tire performed better than the new one, which isn't unusual for a siped tire in the dry as lower tread depth means lower block movement / tear.
The dry "handling" lap was actually peak cornering speed on a dry circle. Again, the worn tires had an advantage thanks to less block movement, but the Michelin CrossClimate+ was mighty impressive.
Wet
The results get more confusing in the wet. The wet braking was the same 60-0 kph tested, and some tires managed to do a better job of stopping the car than in the dry (we're assuming a higher friction surface for wet braking.) The Goodyear won this safety critical test, which also makes us wonder why it finished tenth overall...
Wet "handling" was again peak speed on a wet circle, not a real handling lap. This time the Firestone won, with the Kleber Quadraxer 2, which performed relatively poorly in the wet braking, taking third overall.
It might be worth noting at this point, Tire Reviews doesn't conduct peak speed circle testing as the results can be variable.
Environment
Only the Bridgestone Turanza T005 had an advantage in the noise testing.
Results
Be sure to check out the full article on the Auto Nagivator website, where you can change your driving preferences to change the order of the results!
Magazine note - Conditionally recommended - "it is only available in a few ways, and we know that the different production times can give significantly different characteristics, so it is far from certain that the purchased copy is so good will be like the test arrived"
Best UUHP Tires
Best All Season Tires
Best Winter Tires
