One VW Golf wearing 205/55 R16 tyres, 50 different tyre 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.
Pirelli win the test with what must be an updated Cinturato P7 Blue, beating the next best tyre with a huge margin under wet braking. Hankook take second, narrowly beating the Pirelli in the dry and Semerit score a strong third, with Uniroyal once again proving it is an excellent tyre in the wet to take fourth place.
Other notable results are Bridgestone tying with Continental in eighth, Nexen having a solid price VS performance ratio and finishing twelfth, Debica managing to place sixteenth, ahead of some stiff competition, and Toyo finishing dead last, but with a tyre which has since been replaced by the Proxes CF2.
The bottom ten tyres were deemed unsafe by AutoBild, and not recommended for use. The top fifteen scoring tyres go through to the full Auto Bild summer tyre test, which we will have the results of shortly.
Update: The full test of the top 15 tyres can be found here.
Results
I don't understand some things here. How can Semperit, with C on EU label for wet braking, be better than all the premium tires (exept Pirelli). Even than many times spoken wet experts Conti PC5 and GY EGP. And Pirelli's dominance is also strange. Hankook almost on par with Pirelli and much better than all other tires?
Yes, indeed, surprising first results in this summer test. Nevertheless with conclusions wait for remaining disciplines being published on 24 March or other tests to come. Not necessary to buy always a winner but good to stay with let's say top 5-top 10 overall.
It's an interesting question.
The most likely answer is that Semperit have recently updated the Speedlife 2 for improved label scores, which is still currently filtering to market.
It's not unusual for tyres to go the "mid lifecycle updates" to improve label scores, it's a shame this information isn't properly communicated to the customers.
Well, does that perhaps tell you something about the EU Labelling? And, the PC5 and the EGP are far from the best tyres from those manufacturers (where 'best' temporarily means 'highest performance').
The P7 blue has had good reviews before, when people have been bothered to test it, as opposed to one of the other variants of the P7 theme. This is the first time I've seen the K125 tested, so let's wait to see how it does in the other disciplines, but that is really a promising result. The RS3 has the predicted good wet result, but, again, wear might be its downfall.
The real surprise for me is to see that Toyo NanoEnergy 2 way down there - it probably was never going to threaten for a podium, but it is below some real stinkers, AFAICT. Probably a case of the 'design for fuel saving and let everything else go hang' approach to tyre design?
The NanoEnergy is been replaced by the CF2, so at least it's not a current tyre from Toyo.
So far I know, Toyo NanoEnergy 2 was replaced by Nanoenergy 3 which is currently being sold in many shops in Europe...
That's what we would have assumed, but the statement from Toyo said CF2?!
All odd as the cf2 has been around a few years now and replaced the cf1, as said above the nanoenergy is a different 'model' of tyre...
"And, the PC5 and the EGP are far from the best tyres from those manufacturers"
What other tyre GY makes in that dimension? And Continental, I know ecocontact5 but it should be worse than PC5, specially on wet.
Indeed, i take the labelling with a pinch of salt for this very reason, its still nowhere near an exact science and relatively open for interpretation by manufacturers especially the budget ones...
Good news for Cint P7 blue....how do we know if we have the new formulation?...
You would have to speak to Pirelli to get the latest DOT code or ean / ipc code, then request these from your tyre retailer
One wonders how these braking tests are performed - are the tyres given just one shot each, best of 3? - or average of a number of runs? If more than one run is performed, do we know how consistent the results are for each tyre?...
Usually the tests involve around 5 stops then the distances are averaged to produce a mean figure in the middle of the range, this is the distance given for the results.
Pirelli Customer Services are not aware of any recent reformulation . . .
Don't know when tyrereviews will cover the final test, but I just saw the Autobild magazine online. Hankook wins the test in front of all the premiums. Pirelli 2nd, Continental 3rd, Goodyear 4th, Dunlop 5th, Fulda 6th, Michelin 7th, Vredestein 8th, Bridgestone 9th....
Hi Igor,
Thanks for the update, interesting results!
We'll have the final article up on Tuesday :)
The full results can be found here: http://www.tyrereviews.co.u...
very intresting this new hankook k125,and is very cheap, worth to try this tyre?
The latest generation of Hankook tyres are excellent, well worth a try!
'...full Auto Bild summer tyre test, which we will have the results of shortly.'
or not so shortly
Touche!
We've been waiting for Auto Bild to publish the test online, the full test should be up on Tuesday, and you can see the overview of the results below from the comment by Igor :)
Here are the full results: http://www.tyrereviews.co.u...
what's the difference between P7 Blue and P7 ecoimpact?
Nothing, it's our mistake. We'll merge the reviews!
On UK lanes we often have loose gravel on the tarmac. I'm interested to know which type of tread is better for stopping in those situations. Particularly with the unique tread of the Rainsport 3 - I think it might be worse for gravel but better for snow than others with the standard linear tread pattern?