2019 Auto Bild Winter 17 inch Tyre Test

It's winter testing time, and as always, Auto Bild are leading the way! Following on from the 53 winter tyre shoot-out, Auto Bild have taken the top twenty 225/45 R17 tyres through to the full test, along with a summer tyre as reference. Each set of tyres has been tested in the dry, wet and snow using a RWD BMW 1 Series, and Auto Bild are one of the few publications which test for wear. It's an exciting test! (if you're into tyres...)

The Top Three

After finishing just fifth in the braking shootout, you'd be forgiven for thinking Continental have some serious opposition for the TS860 dominance, but now all aspects of the tyres performance has been tested, they're back on top with another win for the TS860. As with previous tests, the Continental excelled with an all round performance, while having the second lowest wear on test! An impressive feat, and another sign that the high wear Continental tyres have experienced in the past are firmly behind them.

The new Goodyear UltraGrip Performance+ finished in second place, again with a very well balanced performance and low wear, with the new Michelin Alpin 6 close behind it. As usual, the French tyre displayed the best wear on test, combined with an excellent all round performance, but as with all three tyres, it came at a price, with the top three tyres having some of the highest purchase prices on test. 

The Rest

This time, the "best of the rest" award goes to Apollo, with the Aspire XP winter proving to have an excellent blend of winter qualities, and a very low purchase price, leaving it as the fourth best value tyre on test (a metric dividing purchase price with tread wear!)

Bridgestone couldn't hold onto the win from the braking test, struggling a little in the snow testing, but it is still an excellent result for the LM005, and a tyre that looks to be well suited to the British style winters thanks to a very strong dry and wet performance.

Vredestein once again put on an impressive performance finishing sixth place overall, with the Wintrac Pro noted as a sporty feeling winter tyre. Like the Bridgestone, it coped better in the dry and wet than it did the snow, so a good candidate for the UK market.

The final notable performances are Dunlop finishing in sixteenth, and Pirelli finishing eighteenth place. Buying premium doesn't always guarantee you a premium performance, with the Pirelli having both poor grip, and very high wear.

Read on for all the data below.

Dry

As is the case with siped tyres, and the main reason you shouldn't run winter tyres year round, all the winter tyres lagged behind the summer reference during dry testing, with the best on test (Pirelli) a full 6 meters behind the summer.

There was a smaller, but still significant gap during dry handling testing.

Wet

The Bridgestone LM005 was the only winter tyre which beat the summer tyre during wet braking, while the Michelin could only match the summer tyre.

The Goodyear UltraGrip Performance+ was the best winter tyre during the wet handling lap.

There was over 15 Km/H difference in straight aquaplaning testing.

Snow

The snow testing was separated by 2.4 meters, with all tyres having an acceptable performance for most of the UK.

Snow handling showed the well priced Kleber to have the best all round balance of snow performances.

Environment

The Nokian SnowProof had an incredibly low rolling resistance, with nearly all the winter tyres having lower fuel use than the summer reference.

The Nexen and Continental were the quietest tyres on test during the external noise testing.

Cost / Wear

Michelin is always strong in wear testing, and it continued its dominance by having a big advantage. Continental and Apollo also proved to have really strong wear characteristics, while Uniroyal, Kleber, Pirelli and Kumho wore out nearly 15,000 km sooner than the Michelin.

The "Value" score is simply the price of the wear in Euros, per 1000 km. In this test, the lower priced tyres proved to be the best value, with even the excellent wear of the Michelin unable to offset its higher purchase price.

Results