The Best All Season Tyres for 2024

For the longest time the Michelin CrossClimate 2 has been the best all season / all weather tyre on the market, winning more tests than any other tyres in its category, including my tests for the last 3 years!

However, since last year's test there have been not one, not two, but three new premium all season tyres launched, all looking to dethrone the CrossClimate 2 from its category top spot. 

Naturally I had to find out whether any of these new tyres from Bridgestone, Continental and Pirelli can match the Michelin, so as usual I'll be testing everything, including wear, to see which is best! And I've also thrown in a couple of tyres Dunlop and Yokohama, because why not.

Can any of these new tyres really challenge the CrossClimate 2, or are they all going to be left wanting for more? Read on to find out!

Wet

I say it every year, but the wet performance of an all season tyre is the most important performance.

As always I've thrown in a budget tyre , and this time it's exceptionally bad. I don't recall ever having to concentrate so hard to stay on the track, and this is on a 1.4 golf. On a RWD vehicle this would be fully impossible.

As for the rest, they were all pretty good in wet handling. Yokohama and Michelin were the slowest of the bunch, both exhibiting quite a lot of understeer and the yokohama having a particularly soft steering feel, but they were fine.

A small amount ahead was the Bridgestone and dunlop, and it turns out not only does the Bridgestone look like the Michelin, but at least in wet handling it behaves like the Michelin too as it had more understeer than the tyres ahead. Great levels of grip, but just not the best balance for track, but nice and safe for the road. 

The Dunlop is the only asymmetric tyre of the group, and it has the word sport in its name so it's is noticeable different to the rest? Well, not really. It was lovely to drive, and predictable, but didn't feel like the sports tyre of the group.

The final two essentially tied for the win, which was the new Pirelli and Continental. The Pirelli did feel like the sports tyre of hte group, but by tiny margins. It was a great steering tyre with a nice neutral balance, the negative compare to the Conti was it just didn't have quite the detail at the very limit.

The Conti was excellent, a really well rounded tyre around the lap, and while it wasn't as quick to steer as the pirelli it did give you a little more notice of where things were.

 

What about the all important braking? Bridgestone performed extremely well, with nearly a meter to second place, which was the new Continental, which was over a meter to third placed Pirelli. Very impressive from Bridgestone.

The budget was again terrifyingly bad, and where the Bridgestone had you stopped, you were still doing 45.1 km/h, that's braking from JUST 80 km/h. Over half the speed.

 

None of the tyres really had any aquaplaning issues during wet handling, but once again Pirelli was at the front in the aquaplaning test with a clear margin, followed by Bridgestone and Michelin.

Dry

As these are 16" all season tyres, out and out laptime isn't the most important factory for them in the dry, braking is way more important, but I have spent a lot of time doing steering response testing and aggressive lane changes to see how they handle in more normal use. Plus of course the dry handling lap as it's fun.

The slowest on the lap was the fronway. During the lane changes it actually felt pretty good, feeling more direct than the others but once you got it on track it had some wonderfully comical noisy understeer.

The rest of the tyres were pretty close in handling and lane changes. Yokohama and Michelin were a little more understeer bias around the lap, but the michelin did have some of the best sub limit steering. 

The Bridgestone was a little vague around centre which I didn't like, but once you were turning it felt reactive and sporty, which I liked. I'm not sure if overall it was my favourite but a very good tyre, and fast around the lap with good brakes.

The Continental and Dunlop matched overall on laptime. The Asymmetric pattern of the Dunlop reacted quickly which was lovely, but the tyre seemed to take a second to settle on the sidewall. The Continental was a joy to drive, one of only two tyres you felt like you were really in control on the handling lap as the car reacted well to steering and throttle inputs well, really impressive lap and good during sublimit too.

But the quickest, and my favorite around sublimit was the Pirelli. Not only was this the most stable during the lane change and has some of the nicest steering, it also felt the most summer like during the lap, which is what I really want from an all season tyre. Great job Pirelli, this new SF3 is shaping up really nicely, but also great job to Conti, Dunlop and Bridgestone.

Dry braking reconfirmed the Pirelli was the best in the dry as it had over a meter lead to the next best, which was the Bridgestone. This meant the usual dry braking master, the Michelin could only place third, with a bit of a gap to the last four tyres. Like in the wet, the residual speed calculation told a stark story, with the worst tyre of the group still going nearly 40 km/h when the best had stopped.

Snow

The good news is that once again all the all season tyres performed well in the snow, apart from maybe the Dunlop. It wasn't terrible, but as I've already mentioned it's the only non-directional tyre of the group you can really see why all these tyres are going directional now - asymmetric tyres struggle in the snow. It was the slowest around the lap and gave the usually very stable golf a quite wandery rear end. It was the most fun if you want a challenge but not the best balance for the road.

Next up was the Bridgestone. This felt very comfortable over the snow which is weird, and once again the steering was very light. The balance was very good, the rear was planted, but it just didn't quite have the grip of the best. Snow and wet are VERY hard to do well in a single tyre, and the big advantage it has in wet braking seems to have cost it some snow performance.

The Yokohama was another step up in grip. You never really felt like you were going quickly as it was all undramatic, but it felt really good during traction and braking. A good tyre in the snow.

Fourth and third places were tied by the new Continental and the budget Fronway! While the times were all but identical, the Continental was the more predictable to drive and felt better out of the corners. Obviously the big difference is that the Conti worked well in the dry and wet too, whereas the fronway was simply horrible, THIS is the difference between a cheap tyre that does one thing well and a premium tyre that does everything well.

Second place went to the new Pirelli, and like in the dry and wet it was really fun to drive. It was the happiest when turning, but also did a really good job of traction and braking while turning. I really enjoyed this tyre, it was second best in lap time and almost my favourite to drive in the snow.

However, once again the Michelin CrossClimate 2 was the best in snow handling. As always I was testing blind and about half way round lap 1 of set 4 I was wondering if it was the Michelin as it was just awesome in the snow. Strong braking, very good transient grip, safe balance, it did it all. While it might have been surpassed in the dry and the wet, it seems the Michelin is still the king of the snow.

Snow Handling

How does all this line up with the objective tests, traction, braking and snow circle? Pretty well. The Conti and Yoko were joint best in snow traction, the Michelin and Yoko were joint best in snow braking, and of course the Michelin was the best in snow circle. 

Ice

In a rare change of pace, I actually had the time to test ice. The Pirelli was the best in ice traction with the Continental very close behind, and the budget Fronway again doing well. At this point I'm assuming the Fronway as simply a winter compound molded into an all season pattern.

Ice braking had the Yokohama performing very well, with the Continental again extremely close, and the Michelin third. That means on average, the Continental was the best on ice, though none of these tyres will have been designed with ice in mind.

Value

The wear results for this test again come from a real world convoy test, which is the gold standard in wear testing and provides more accurate results compared to machine testing. Sadly it's also very expensive, so the budget tyre wasn't included.

The results had the new Continental as best of the group, projected to cover nearly 50,000 kilometers before reading 1.6mm. When you consider how good the grip of the tyre has been thats very impressive. The surprise result was the new Bridgestone in second place! In recent years Bridgestone have nearly always underperformed in wear tests, but this new tyre did incredibly well and hopefully a trend that will continue. If you're from north america you might be confused at the Michelin CrossClimate 2 in third as your tyre has a 60,000 mile warranty, don't fret, this is the EU version that has much lower rolling resistance, but a lower starting tread depth. 

When you compare wear against purchase price you get a value metric, which the Continental also led, with the Yokohama sliding into second place thanks to good wear and a low purchase price. The real losers were the Michelin thanks to its high purchase price, and the Pirelli as it underperformed in the wear test.

 

Michelin had the lowest rolling resistance, closely followed by the Dunlop, and the Yokohama lost some of its value points with the highest rolling resistance, over 30% more than the best.

Comfort

Finally I didn't get a chance to properly dig into comfort, but these are a 16" tyre and they were all pretty smooth. The external noise test was all very close, and my gut says the Bridgestone, Dunlop or Michelin would be the most comfortable in general.

Results