Premium Touring Tire Tests

Once again in 2016, the German Magazine Auto Zeitung have provided one of the most exciting winter tire tests we've covered. Testing thirteen of the latest winter tires in 205/55 R16, including the Continental WinterContact TS860, Dunlop Winter Sport 5, Goodyear UltraGrip 9 and Nokian WR D4, Auto Zeitung have also included the Michelin CrossClimate summer-bias all season tire as a comparison.

The 2016 ACE magazine all season tire test covers ten all season tires in the popular 205/55 R16 tire size using a VW Golf, and includes a summer and winter tire as benchmarks.

Once again, the test highlights the fact that current all season tires, with the exception of the Michelin CrossClimate, should be considered as slightly tweaked winter tires and have all the drawbacks of the winter rubber in warm dry and wet conditions.

Off road vehicles don't always spend all their time off road, and the new generation of "soft-road" vehicles can go their entire lives without seeing so much as a muddy verge.

For this reason, the German "Off Road" magazine have chosen to test six 215/65 R16 tires on an Audi Q3, which are designed to spend 99% of their life on the road.

With SUV and 4x4 vehicles quickly becoming the most popular vehicle type in Europe, more and more magazines are providing dedicated tire tests for SUV sizes.

This year, Auto Motor und Sport have tested nine SUV tires in the crossover 215/60 R17 size using a VW Mokka.

This year the German magazine "Gute Fahrt" have tested nine all season tires in 205/55 R16 using a VW Golf, plus summer and winter tire for comparison.

While the full results are summarised below, we thought it would be interesting to take a closer look at how the all season tires compared to the summer Continental EcoContact 5 and winter Dunlop WinterSport 5 included in the test.

This year the German AutoBild magazine have taken the 15 best tires from their 205/55 R16 50 tire braking shootout through to the full test, and the result is another impressive win for Hankook!

One VW Golf wearing 205/55 R16 tires, 50 different tire patterns, and a lot of wet and dry braking tests gives us a good overview of the market in 2016. The dry test was braking from 62 mph, and the wet from 50 mph.

Much like the 225/45 R17 test ADAC published at the same time, the ADAC 185/65 R15 tire test looks at sixteen premium and mid range tires, but this time has selected tires intended to be fitted to smaller town and city cars.

The biggest surprise of the test was this time delivered by Vredestein, with the Sportrac 5 dominating the test, and beating the wet weather master Continental Premium Contact 5 in the wet tests. The Vredestein must have gone through a life cycle update, as in 2015 the best result it could manage was fifth overall, and over placed near the bottom of the tests it took part in.

Continuing the year of all season tire tests, French magazine L'Argus have released their first all season tire test, which included both the new Michelin CrossClimate, the new Nokian Weatherproof, and the new Nokian WR D4 as the reference winter tire.

Testing five of the latest all season tires in 205/55 R16 on a VW Golf, L'Argus put the all the tires through a full complement of winter and summer tests, in both an Austrian Autumn at a warm 15c, and a Finnish winter where the temperatures were as low as -15c.

The UK climate represents a difficult challenge for car tires. Warm enough to require a tire that works well at higher temperatures, but not warm enough to make a summer tire the best choice year round.

Until recently, tires have fallen into three distinct categories: summer, all season and winter tires. Traditionally, all season tires have been developed from a winter tire origins, which give them excellent snow performance but can impact dry and wet performance, especially in the warmer months. This year, Michelin have released the CrossClimate, which if the marketing is to be believed, promises to be a second type of all season tire, one which started life as a summer tire and has been gifted winter capabilities.

Is a summer and winter tire combination the only safe option? Has the second generation Goodyear all season moved the game on? Can the new Michelin CrossClimate live up to the marketing hype? That's what we're here to find out.

Based on a combined snow and wet braking performance, this year Auto Bild have taken the best eightteen 185/60 R15 winter tires through from their 2015 Winter Tire Shootout, and one all season tire, the Pirelli Cinturato All Season.

From the fifty tires tested, there were some surprise drop outs. The Vredestein Snowtrac 5, Yokohama W.Drive, Toyo Snowprox S943 and Avon Ice Touring were a few of the 32 tires which failed to make the grade. Equally, tires like the Semperit Speed Grip 2, Barum Polaris 3, Gislavel Euro Frost 5 and Viking Snow Tech II were are few surprise inclusions, it will be interesting to find out if they can live up to the established competition in the full winter tire test.

The 2015 Auto Bild all season tire test is here, and it's the first test to include the new Michelin CrossClimate and Goodyear Vector 4Seasons Gen-2.

The 2015 winter tire test season is here, and as usual the German magazine Auto Bild have done an excellent job of giving us an overview of this years contenders.

Testing 51 tires in 185/60R15, Auto Bild put each tire through a wet braking test, then took the top 28 tires through to the snow braking test. Once the snow braking results were in, the magazine combined the wet and snow distances to give an over all result, taking the top 15 tires through to their full 2015 Winter Tire Test.