Summer Passenger Car Tire Tests

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.

The Swedish news paper Aftonbladet have tested thirteen 205/55 R16 touring summer tires using a VW Passat.

Sadly the data is a little lacking in this test, but as the driving was done by the experts at Test World, you can be sure it was a proper tire test.

The ACE / GTU tire test is always a funny one, as they go to a lot of effort to test the tires, but then provide no data at all, only the overview scores.

For this reason, we always keep the commentary low, but it's important to have the test results on Tire Reviews, as the more tests published the better right?

Finnish magazine Moottori have recently compared eight 205/55 R16 tire patterns that sit in the midrange price category!

While midrange tires are cheaper than their premium rivals, they're not the cheapest tires available on market, so in theory should still provide a reasonable level of performance, just offering better value.

Auto Bild's second summer tire test of 2019 has tested eleven 245/45 R18 tire patterns using a BMW 5 Series. This tire and vehicle combination isn't an often tested setup, and has yielded some interesting results!

The Pirelli P Zero PZ4 (Sports Car variant) dominated the testing, with the shortest dry and wet braking, fastest wet handling lap and second fastest dry handling lap.

For 2019, Sport Auto Magazine has tested eight ultra high performance summer tires in 245/30 R20 using a Civic Type R.

Sadly the new Goodyear Eagle F1 SuperSport wasn't included in the test, and instead the twice replaced Asymmetric 2 was left representing Goodyear. This meant the Continental SportContact 6 and Michelin Pilot Sport 4S could fight it out for the top spot overall.

This is going to be a long test! The German publication Auto Bild often perform the most thorough tire tests of any of the traditional publications, and 2019 is no exception. After taking fifty three 225/45 R17 tire patterns through wet and dry braking testing to establish the top twenty available in the market, Auto Bild have run the best of the 17" tires through an extremely thorough full test, and even included the often omitted wear test!

For 2019, the German publication Gute Fahrt has tested ten 225/40 R18 summer tire patterns using a VW Golf, but unlike in 2018 where they included all season tires in the test, this year they've included a 17 and 19 inch comparison tire.