Tire Reviews Tire Tests

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 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.

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.

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.

Following on from the fifty tire braking shootout, Auto Bild have more thoroughly tested the best twenty 245/45 R18 summer tires using a RWD BMW 5 Series.

The top three tires should come as no surprise, with Continental, Goodyear and Michelin proving to be the most rounded tires on test. 

The Continental Premium Contact 6 and Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 5 drew for first place. As we found with our video comparison, both the Continental and Goodyear tires offer sporty handling, good levels of comfort, and short wet braking. Both tires also topped the Wear testing, and thanks to a reasonable purchase price, offered some of the best value on test.

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!

While ADAC doesn't provide its readers with raw data from their testing, their yearly tire tests are some of the most influential in the world. This year they've tested sixteen 225/40 R18 car tires, and twelve 235/55 R17 crossover SUV sizes. For the 225/40 R18 test, there are few surprises.

Continental and Michelin tie for first place with the PremiumContact 6 and Pilot Sport 4, two tires we've seen perform extremely well in all testing. It's worth noting that the Continental and Michelin both scored the same in the wear testing, once again showing Continental have got on top of wear.

Every year the German publication Auto Bild performs the industries most comprehensive tire test by putting a huge number of tires through wet and dry braking, to find the best twenty tires to progress through to a full tire test.

For the 2020 summer season, Auto Bild have tested fifty tires in 245/45 R18, which gives us an excellent overview of the UHP market for 2020.

The excellent UK automotive magazine EVO always seems to publish their summer tire test late in the season, but it shouldn't be ignored as it's one of the best in Europe if you care as much about steering feel and feedback as you do ultimate grip.

This year, EVO have tested seven 225/40 R18 UHP tires using a VW Golf GTI at the Pirelli test facility in Vizzola, Italy, and while the volume of tires is surprisingly small for such a common size, the breath of testing was as vast as any European tire test.

Track day tire tests are always a welcome read, as those of us who use our cars on track are often super switched on to the differences the tires can make. This year AutoMail.Ru have tested four track day tires in 225/45 R17 using a Mazda MX5 Cup car, and included the Continental PremiumContact 6 as a reference "normal" tire.

It's worth remembering the MX5 is a light, relatively low powered car, so the results from this test might be different on something heavier.

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!)

The Norwegian AutoMobile Federation (NAF) has tested seven summer tire patterns in 205/55 R16, and included a premium winter tire for comparison.

The winter tire performed surprisingly well during the wet braking testing, which was tested between 18 and 25c, beating the Dunlop and Bridgestone summer tires. Wet handling showed a little more weakness, with the winter tire finishing last, but it was still within a few percent of the summer tires.