Tire Reviews Tire Tests

Following on from the 195/65 R15 winter tire test, the excellent German publication Auto Bild have tested ten UHP winter tires in 245/45 R18.

The biggest shock in the test is the winner - it's the brand new Vredestein WinTrac Pro. This new tire from Vredestein proved to have Continental like qualities, displacing the Continental WinterContact TS850 P from it's usual top spot and performing well in the dry, wet and snow tests. The Continental WinterContact TS850 Pl, which has now been replaced by the Continental WinterContact TS860 S, proved that it's still a quality option and finished a very close second place.

The weekly UK publication Auto Express has just published their 2018 winter tire test! This year Auto Express have tested eight winter tire patterns in 205/55 R16 using a VW Golf.

As in 2017, the German club ACE have tested all season and winter tires in exactly the same tests! On test are nine 185/65 R15 winter tire patterns, and three all season tires in the same size, and they used an Opel Corsa as the test vehicle.

All twelve tires were put through identical dry, wet and snow testing, and to further highlight the point that most all season tires are interchangeable with winter tires, the all season tires finished second, fifth and ten places overall.

Following on from the 51 winter tire braking test, the excellent German publication Auto Bild have promoted the best 20 tires to their full winter test, which covers every aspect of the winter tires performance.

As always, an (unnamed) summer and all season tire have been included as reference, and to make a change from the past few years, it isn’t the remarkable Continental WinterContact TS860 taking the top spot overall…

This year the German motoring orginisation ADAC have tested winter tires in 175/65 R14 and 205/55 R16.

Both tests continue Continentals winter dominance, with two win for the Continental WinterContact TS860. 

This year the German motoring orginisation ADAC have tested winter tires in 205/55 R16 and 175/65 R14. 

Both tests continue Continentals winter dominance, with two win for the Continental WinterContact TS860. 

Second and third places were taken by the sisters brand Goodyear and Dunlop, with all three of the leading tires proving to offer an excellent balance of winter performances.

This year AutoBild have placed 51 195/65 R15 winter tires through wet braking tests, with the top thirty tires also being tested for snow braking performance. Only the top twenty have gone through to the full Auto Bild winter tire test!

With the best winter tire on test stopping the VW Golf in 34.3 meters, and the worst tire on test at 49.8 meters, you can see why it's extremely important to judge a winter tires performance as much on wet grip as it is snow grip.

While studded tires aren't suitable for the UK climate, they are the best way of staying mobile in extreme winter conditions. Each tire can have hundreds of studs, which bite into ice with far more grip than a studless friction winter tire can give. There are of course drawbacks to studded tires, they're very noisy, and they give up a lot of dry and wet performance when compared to a European winter tire, but in climates such as Russia and the Nordic countries where you are likely to be driving on ice for weeks at a time, there's little alternative.

We're a little bit late with this one, as it's likely the UK has had most of its bad weather for winter 2017/18, however we can't resist covering a winter ultra high performance tire test, especially when they use a RWD Toyota GT86 as the test car!

For this test, Sport Auto magazine fitted the GT86 with ten different patterns of 225/40 R18 sports winter tires, and put the tires through the normal dry, wet and snow testing.

For 2017, the "All Road" edition of the German publication Auto Bild has tested ten 225/55 R17 winter tires. This size is commonly used by compact crossovers, such as the BMW X1 used in this test.

The biggest interest in this test was the Chinese budget winter tire from Pace. With the most expensive set of winter tires costing 660 euros at time of test, the budget Pace tires were a full 400 euros cheaper, at just 260 euros. Are the savings worth the performance drop? Read on below to find out.

For 2017 the Polish publication AutoCentrum has tested eight studless winter tires in 185/65 R15. As with the other winter tire tests we've featured across 2017, AutoCentrum tests the winter tires in the dry, wet and snow, but also includes ice testing, a first for 2017.

Six of the tires on test are European winter tires which are available to the UK market, and two of the tires (Debica Frigo 2 and Sava Eskimo Ice) are full nordic friction winter tires, so it should give us a good overview of how these two different types of tires perform, and why Nordic winter tires aren't suitable for the UK market.

Fifty winter tires have been put through wet braking tests, with the top thirty also tested for snow braking performance. Only the top twenty have gone through to the full Auto Bild winter tire test!

The 2017 Auto Bild winter tire test started with fifty 225/50 R17 winter tire patterns which Auto Bild tested for wet braking performance, and then dropped the worse twenty tires from the test.

The next phase was testing the remaining thirty patterns for snow braking, which was then combined with the wet braking distances to allow the ten worst tires to be dropped. This left twenty winter tires which Auto Bild regarded as the best winter tires on the market, and deemed worthy enough to take through to the full testing.

As ever with Auto Bild testing, they undertake all the usual dry, wet and snow testing, but also including important factors such as wear and cost per 1,000 km, which a lot of tests are unable to include.

The results as closer than ever, and you'd be hard pressed to classify any of the top 10 tires as bad tires, but three in particular rose to the top.

Sadly there's very little data available for this 235/55 R17 SUV tire test conducted by the European motoring bodies ACE / ARBO / GTU, nor are Michelin featured, but it's still worth a read if you drive a crossover vehicle such as the Ford Kuga or Volkswagen Tiguan which uses this tire size.

This year the German motoring orginisation ADAC have tested winter tires in 195/65 R15 and 215/65 R16.

Unusually for a winter tire test, Continental faulter in this 215/65 R16 SUV tire size, only finishing seventh overall. This leaves the door open for Dunlop to take first place with the Winter Sport 5 which proves to have a very balanced all round performance with no glaring weaknesses.

BF Goodrich finished in a very strong second place, winning the majority of the test categories but missing out on the top spot due to a slightly weak wet performance, where as the third placed Goodyear UltraGrip Performance Gen-1 proved to be extremely strong in the wet, but a little disappointing on snow.

This year the German motoring orginisation ADAC have tested winter tires in 195/65 R15 and 215/65 R16.

The 195/65 R16 winter tire test continues Continentals winter dominance, with another win for the Continental WinterContact TS860. 

Issue 1,495 of the weekly UK publication Auto Express contains their 2017 winter tire test!

This year Auto Express have tested eight winter tire patterns in 225/45 R17 using a VW Golf in the dry and wet, and an Audi A3 in the snow. 

Auto Express have previously asked us to keep our coverage of their tests to a minumum, so below is a summary of what went on. The full results can be found on the Auto Express website, which we will link as soon as they're online.

Overall, with just 3.9% covering the eight tires on test, it's getting closer every year at the top.

The first winter tire test of 2017 has been published! The German publication Auto Motor und Sport [AMS] have tested ten ultra high performance winter tires in 225/40 R18. This extremely popular 18" tire sizes is fitted to performance saloons such as the Audi A4, Skoda Octavia VRS, and the 232 bhp BMW 430i Grand Coupe used for this testing.

Winter tires aren't exclusively reserved for two wheel drive vehicles, four wheel drive cars benefit too. This year AMS have tested ten winter tires in the popular 4x4 / SUV / Crossover size of 215/60 R17, which covers cars such as the Opel Mokka, Skoda Yeti, and the Volkswagen Tiguan.

This year Sport Auto magazine have tested six performance winter tires in 235/40 R18.

Due to the limited number of patterns in the test, and no all season or summer comparison, we'll forgo the usual commentry and just present the results below.