Tire Reviews Tire Tests

For the 2022 ADAC tire test, the German publication have chosen the small 185/65 R15 tire size usually fitted to city cars and hatchback vehicles.

Sadly, as usual there's no actual data provided behind the scores, but ADAC have graded and commented on all the tires in detail which you can read below.

For the 2022 ADAC tire test, the German publication have tested a crossover SUV size of 215/60 R16 (this test) and a smaller 185/65 R15 tire size which can be read here.

It's the first Tire Reviews SUV tire test, and as usual, we're trying to do this as properly as possible!

We have 8 of the most popular SUV tires in 235/55 R18, including the Michelin Primacy 4, the brand new Goodyear EfficientGrip 2 SUV, the extremely popular Uniroyal RainSport 5, the new Hankook Ventus S1 Evo3 SUV, the Nokian WetProof SUV, the Vredestein Ultrac Satin, the Avon ZX7, the BFGoodrich Advantage SUV, and a budget tire.

It seems like every year there's a tire test that doesn't follow the norm, and this year it's the ACE / ARBÖ / GTÜ summer tire test. 

The test starts out as a regular summer tire test, there's nine tire patterns in the popular 225/45 R17 size, and they tested using a VW Golf which is the standard test car. However, once you get into the results, things get a little confusing.

Firstly, no data is provided by the testers, just a points system which makes an accurate analysis of the results difficult. Secondly, the test gives weighting to the price of the tires, but doesn't test wear, which means a tire which is cheap to purchase scores well, even if it has a lower overall value due to high wear.

But strangest of all are the overall results. 

Following on from the massive 53 tire braking test, Auto Bild have taken the best twenty 205/55 R16 tires through to further testing, which includes wet and dry handling, aquaplaning, rolling resistance, noise, and a rarity in tire testing, wear!

As the 2021 Tire Reviews summer test is covering UHP and SUV sizes, this will be the most complete reference we have this year for the 16" summer tire market, however if you'd like to watch a 16" summer tire test, you can check out ours from last year here.

For the 2021 Sport Auto summer tire test, the German publication have tested eleven tires in the relatively small 195/55 R16 tire size. As this tire size is intended for smaller vehicles such as the Audi A1, Ford Fiesta, Peugeot 208 and other similar sized cars, Sport Auto used a Seat Ibiza for testing, and placed all eleven sets of tires through the usual dry, wet and environment based tests.

The 2021 Auto Bild All Rad SUV test has tested ten SUV tires in the popular 215/60 R17 size. While the German publication used a Jeep Renegade for testing, this size is also fitted to vehicles like the Nissan Qashqai, VW Transporter, Renault Kadjar, Toyota C HR and many other popular crossover SUVs.

As always Auto Bild have done a great job testing, as not only have they tested in the dry and wet, they've also conducted FIVE off-road tests. Given these sort of vehicles rarely see any activity outside of the school run, the tests have a low weighting in the overall results, but it's certainly excellent data if you ever plan to take your crossover SUV on grass, gravel, sand or mud!

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.

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!

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". 

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.

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.

The 2020 Auto Zeitung summer tire test has been published, and as usual they've tested a really interesting mix of twenty tires in the popular 225/50 R17 size.

As 225/50 R17 tires generally bias towards comfort rather than outright sporty performance, AZ tested with the new brand BMW 3 Series, and performed the usual array of  thirteen dry, wet, comfort and economy tests.

The talented guys at ACE Europe have just released their first summer tire test for 2020, and interestingly they've tested nine 215/55 R17 summer tires from the mid range sector of the market!

Having already looked at the 2020 ADAC 18" UHP summer tire test, the SUV version in 235/55 R17 is more of the same.

Of the twelve tires tested in this popular crossover SUV size, Michelin once again take the top spot with the Primacy 4, thanks to an excellent all round balanced performance.