With the promise of one tyre to work in all conditions, all season tyres are a rapidly growing market segment.
To find out which of these all season tyres is best, and whether they can match a summer and winter tyre, the 2020 Tyre Reviews all season tyre test has tested nine of the best 225/45 R17 all season tyres on the market, and included a summer and winter tyre as reference.
Each set of tyres will be tested for their levels of grip in the dry, wet and snow, have their noise and comfort levels assessed, and their rolling resistance measured, meaning this test should be a complete overview of a tyres performance.
Unfortunately we were unable to conduct wear testing for this test, but it's something we will be working on for next years testing.
The overall score weighting was based on 30% wet, 25% dry, 25% snow, 10% noise and comfort, and 10% rolling resistance. Further details of the breakdown can be found in the video.
Dry
The biggest negative quality of any all season tyre is usually the dry performance, as a softer compound combined with more blocks and sipes means less grip, and this has proven to be the case again.
The "summer optimised" Michelin CrossClimate+ delivered on its promise and proved to be the best of the all season tyres in the dry, both objectively and subjectively, but still stopped the VW Golf 1.2 meters behind the summer tyre during dry braking testing.
Another 1.4 meters back was the next best all season tyre, totalling 2.6 meters behind the summer tyre.
The summer tyre also had a significant lead during dry handling, being the only tyre to break the 100 second mark. The rest of the all season tyres were extremely close to each other, with just 1.4 seconds separating the group.
Subjectively, the summer tyre felt the best during dry handling.
Wet
Wet braking is a key safety quality for an all season tyre, and three of them proved to be more effective than the summer tyre, even at the high test temperatures.
The Bridgestone, Hankook and Goodyear all stopped the car within 0.4 meters of each other, with the next best all season tyre 1.4 meters further on.
Wet handling returned the advantage to the summer tyre, but the margin was small, with the Bridgestone, Hankook and Goodyear trio staying in the top three places.
While the Michelin couldn't match the grip of the best all season tyres, it did feel excellent subjectively.
Continental, Hankook and Cooper all performed well in the deep water aquaplaning testing.
Snow
The snow testing really highlighted just how poor a summer tyre is in adverse weather, with the summer tyre performing dangerously in all three tests.
While none of the all season tyres could match the winter tyre on snow, the Giti, Continental and Goodyear all performed extremely well during snow braking.
Goodyear, Continental and Giti confirmed their straight grip advantage by also claiming the top three for snow traction.
Pleasingly, the snow handling test kept the Giti, Goodyear and Continental in the top three, but the winter tyre could really show its design advantage, offering much more grip when cornering and beating the all season tyres by a significant margin.
Comfort
The subjective comfort of all the tyres on test was extremely close, with only Bridgestone having a small advantage over the group.
All the all season tyres proved to have higher comfort levels than the summer tyre, which is well regarded as a comfortable summer tyre.
Noise testing was conducted on two surfaces, at different speeds, with the dB curves averaged out.
Cost
The new Goodyear narrowly beat the Bridgestone for the lowest rolling resistance of the all season tyres, however if rolling resistance is your priority, the summer tyre has a significant advantage.
The premium summer tyre was cheaper than the cheapest all season tyre, with the Michelin proving to be the most expensive.
Good in the dry, best on test in the wet, very low rolling resistance, highest levels of comfort, low noise.
Low grip in the snow for an all season tyre, average aquaplaning resistance.
The WeatherControl A005 excels in the dry and wet, and has the highest levels of comfort. It is the all season tyre to pick if you live in a climate which sees very little snow.
Best on test in the dry with good handling and short dry braking.
Average wet braking, most expensive tyre on test, higher levels of noise.
The CrossClimate+ excels in the dry and is fine in the snow, but couldn't match the latest generation of all season tyres in the wet. The CrossClimate 2 will be coming to market in 2021.