Summer Tire Tests

For the 2021 ADAC summer tire tests, the German organisation selected the popular 205/55 R16 and 225/50 R17 summer tire sizes.

As usual with ADAC tests there is little raw data provided, instead the testers grading each tire with a score, but this year we do get wear data (below) and even some of the testers subjective thoughts on the tires, which is an excellent addition.

Without fail, each year German publication Auto Bild provides the most comprehensive overview of the summer tire market by testing a huge amount of tires ability in the dry and wet, in order to work out which twenty tires deserve to be tested in their full summer tire test.

For 2021, Auto Bild have tested 53 tires in the most popular tire size in Europe, 205/55 R16.

All 53 sets of tires have their wet and dry braking results below, with the shortest 20 combined braking distances progressing to the full test, which will be on the website shortly.

The 2021 summer tire test season is kicking off early, with the excellent team at Auto Zeitung publishing their 10 set 225/40 R18 summer tire test during February!

As this test is out so early in the season, it means the testing would have been completed in late 2020, which means it's missing the new Bridgestone Potenza Sport, but it's still an excellent start to the year as AZ always dig into the subjectiveness of the tires, covering dry handling, wet handling and comfort!

All testing was carried out using a Seat Leon FR, and the popular 225/40 R18 UHP tire size should cover many mid-sized sporty cars, including the ever popular VW Golf, the front of a BMW 1 Series, the Audi TT and many other vehicles.

Every year, the British publication EVO Magazine conduct a UHP summer tire test, with this years test covering the hugely popular 235/35 R19 tire size, on a VW Golf GTI. This year, due to travel restrictions, the handling testing was conducted at MIRA in the UK, rather than the Continental facility in Germany.

The EVO summer tire tests are particularly interesting as they're one of the few publications to really dig into the subjective handling of each tire on test, as what good is a fast tire if it's no fun to drive? This means, much like our own tests, the EVO test can help you understand which tire will give you not just the best grip, but the most driving enjoyment too.

Motorcycle tire testing is the most difficult type the tire testing available, and as such we don't get a many good motorbike tire comparison tests as we do for car and SUV.

Fortunately in 2020 the UK motorcycle magazine MCN managed to test six of the best sports touring motorbike tires using a BMW R1250RS.

The only objective test included was a 70-0 mph dry braking (below), the rest of the results were taken from a 22 mile road route over many different surfaces, which two riders tested blind and rated the tires for steering, confidence, stability, ride quality and feel.

This year Auto Express have tested ten 205/55 R16 summer tires using a VW Golf. You can be forgiven if this setup sounds similar, as it's almost the same test as the Tire Reviews 16" summer tire test.

As eight of the ten tires on test match tires we used in our test, but the overall results differ in places, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to look into what's different, and why that might be.

Do you want to know what tire is best for every day, real world driving? In this test we take eleven of the very best 205/55 R16 tires on the market, plus a well regarded budget tire, to see exactly what tire performs best in the dry, wet, comfort, noise and rolling resistance tests!

The Goodyear Eagle F1 SuperSport RS, Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 R and Pirelli P Zero Trofeo R are regarded as three of the fastest road-legal track day tires in the world. To find out which of these three semi slick tires reigns supreme, I've borrowed a 991.2 Porsche 911 GT3 RS, and have use of Michelin's tire test facility in central France to run my own testing program.

Not being satisfied with just running dry handling, I'm going to test the tires in wet handling, dry and wet braking, and of course the all important dry handling, to find out which tire is fastest in which conditions.

Tire Reviews is a big fan of two wheels, and we gladly cover new motorbike tire launches whenever we're invited to them. Sadly, our driving is better than our riding, which is why we leave the high risk motorcycle tire testing to people who aren't highly likely to destroy the bikes and themselves trying to do a fast lap.

Luckily for us riders, the excellent British magazine Fast Bikes has tested five of the very fastest extreme performance / track tires, using a Suzuki GSX-R1000R, wearing 120/70 R17 and 200/60 R17 "hoops".

Tire testing is incredibly complicated to conduct, and one of the most difficult parts of testing is good repeatability.

Take for example wet braking. To get the wet braking distance of a tire, you don't just do the braking run once, you do it 6-8 times, delete the outliers then average out the results. Even on the most expensive test facilities in the world, with the most perfect sprinkler systems and perfect tarmac, you rarely get the same distance twice as there are so many variables, which means when you use a less than state of the art facility, results can be surprising.

This brings us on to this test by the Italian publication "al volante". 

Here at Tire Reviews, we receive many different questions about tires, but one question that comes up more than most asks if modern retreaded tires, sometimes called "retread" or "remoulds", any good?

While we've not been able to test ourselves, tests from many years ago indicate that retreaded tires don't perform as well as even a budget tire. Car tires typically aren't designed to be retreaded (commercial bus and lorry tires are), so the retreading process can leave you with not only poor performance, but a product that could be classified as unsafe.

Naturally in the past few years there have been improvements in the car retreading process, and one brand in particular, King Meiler, has established a name for itself as "the" retreading brand.

To find out whether a modern retread can match a premium, or even a budget tire, the Polish magazine "Motor" have tested the King Meiler HPZ against the premium Continental PremiumContact 6, and a much cheaper Debica Presto HP.

The excellent Swedish publication ViBilagare has just released their 2020 summer SUV tire test. Testing seven of the most popular on-road 225/60 R18 tires, ViBilagare also included the the mild all-terrain Continental CrossContact LX2 tire as a very useful benchmark as to how much on-road performance you lose out on by fitting one of the very best mild off-road tires on the market.

If you like detailed and confusing tire tests, you're in for a treat! The 2020 Sport Auto tire test has tested ten 245/35 R19 tires, using a Mercedes AMG A45 S, and is confusingly amazing!

Why is this confusing? Well, they've tested three different types of tires in the single test! The first group is the more "regular" ultra high performance tires, which includes the Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 5, Nokian PowerProof, Vredestein Ultrac Vorti, Toyo Proxes Sport, and strangely, the Continental SportContact 6. They've also tested two "UUHP" tires, the Michelin Pilot Sport 4S and the new Goodyear Eagle F1 SuperSport (which is the group we believe the Continental SportContact 6 should be included in as the PremiumContact 6 is the rival to the Asymmetric 5), and three track day tires, the Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2, the unreleased Bridgestone Potenza S007 RS, and the Giti GitiSport GTR3.

Each year, the wonderful Swedish publication Teknikens Värld performs a summer tire test in Sweden. Their 2020 test covers ten 225/50 R17 summer tires, including the first test of the brand new Goodyear EfficientGrip Performance 2!

The unique Swedishness of the test means they don't perform dry handling, but instead the "moose test" which involves a sharp lane change at speed. Sadly, we can't database this, but you can see the results of the test in the commentary at the bottom of the page.

For 2020, the German publication Gute Fahrt has tested eight 215/50 R18 SUV tires using a VW T-Roc.

As with the 18" test in 2019, Gute Fahrt have chosen not to publish their handling data, instead grading each tires handling subjectively as "very good", "good" or "satisfying". Sadly as this doesn't really work with how the Tire Reviews database system is set up, we're representing each of the ratings as a number, with 3 being "very good", 2 "good" and 1 as "satisfying".

The 2020 Auto Motor und Sport summer tire test tested eleven 225/45 R18 ultra high performance tires using a BMW 3 Series.

While the group overall was extremely close, the winning Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 5 and second placed Michelin Pilot Sport 4 were almost inseparable overall, with the Goodyear narrowly taking the overall win.

Ultra high performance tire tests always make us happy, and Auto Bild do some of the best. For 2020, AutoBild have tested nine sports tires in the staggered 245/35 R19 and 265/35 R19 sizes using a Mercedes Benz C63 AMG.

Like our UHP tire test in 2019, Auto Bild have tested the very three best UHP tires on the market, the Continental SportContact 6, Goodyear Eagle F1 SuperSport, and Michelin Pilot Sport 4S, along with some of the other well know UHP tires from Hankook, Vredestein, Falken and other brands.

The 2020 Auto Bild AllRad SUV / 4x4 tire test has looked at the popular 255/55 R18 tire size. While the tire patterns included in the test are aimed at "soft roaders", which spend 99% of their time on normal roads, Auto Bild still went to the effort of testing the handling and traction on gravel of all ten tires, along with traction on grass, mud and even sand!

Off-road performance is often an opposing quality to on-road grip, with dedicated off-road tires performing well in loose surfaces such as gravel and mud, but poorly on-road in the dry and wet.  It's worth noting, as we found out with our off-road tire test, repeatable off-road testing is extremely difficult, especially in mud, so these figures should only be used as a broad guide.