Winter Premium Touring Passenger Car Tyre Tests

While studded tyres aren't suitable for the UK climate, they are the best way of staying mobile in extreme winter conditions. Each tyre can have hundreds of studs, which bite into ice with far more grip than a studless friction winter tyre can give. There are of course drawbacks to studded tyres, they're very noisy, and they give up a lot of dry and wet performance when compared to a European winter tyre, but in climates such as Russia and the Nordic countries where you are likely to be driving on ice for weeks at a time, there's little alternative.

For 2017 the Polish publication AutoCentrum has tested eight studless winter tyres in 185/65 R15. As with the other winter tyre tests we've featured across 2017, AutoCentrum tests the winter tyres in the dry, wet and snow, but also includes ice testing, a first for 2017.

Six of the tyres on test are European winter tyres which are available to the UK market, and two of the tyres (Debica Frigo 2 and Sava Eskimo Ice) are full nordic friction winter tyres, so it should give us a good overview of how these two different types of tyres perform, and why Nordic winter tyres aren't suitable for the UK market.

Fifty winter tyres have been put through wet braking tests, with the top thirty also tested for snow braking performance. Only the top twenty have gone through to the full Auto Bild winter tyre test!

This year the German motoring orginisation ADAC have tested winter tyres in 195/65 R15 and 215/65 R16.

The 195/65 R16 winter tyre test continues Continentals winter dominance, with another win for the Continental WinterContact TS860. 

Issue 1,495 of the weekly UK publication Auto Express contains their 2017 winter tyre test!

This year Auto Express have tested eight winter tyre patterns in 225/45 R17 using a VW Golf in the dry and wet, and an Audi A3 in the snow. 

Auto Express have previously asked us to keep our coverage of their tests to a minumum, so below is a summary of what went on. The full results can be found on the Auto Express website, which we will link as soon as they're online.

Overall, with just 3.9% covering the eight tyres on test, it's getting closer every year at the top.

Issue 1,443 of the weekly UK publication Auto Express contains their excellent 2016 winter tyre test! This year Auto Express have tested eight winter tyre patterns in 205/55 R16 using a VW Golf, and like other publications have included an all season and summer tyre for comparison.

Each year, the German automotive publication Autobild trump all the other European magazines by putting out a huge winter tyre test, and this year is no different.

Starting out with fifty winter tyre patterns, Autobild tested all the tyres wet braking performance. Once the wet braking order was set, Autobild took the twenty seven patterns which stopped the car within 20% of the best through to snow braking, then the top twenty wet and snow braking results combined this, the full tyre test.

Most magazines look to test around ten different tyre patterns each test, with some pushing up to fifteen different tyres. Auto Bild like to go a step further and this year, have tested test fifty sets of 205/55 R16 winter tyres.

Once again in 2016, the German Magazine Auto Zeitung have provided one of the most exciting winter tyre tests we've covered. Testing thirteen of the latest winter tyres 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 tyre as a comparison.

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

From the fifty tyres 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 tyres which failed to make the grade. Equally, tyres 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 tyre test.

The 2015 winter tyre 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 tyres in 185/60R15, Auto Bild put each tyre through a wet braking test, then took the top 28 tyres 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 tyres through to their full 2015 Winter Tyre Test.

In previous years Auto Express have been slow to publish their tyre tests online, but not this year - Auto Express have done such a great job on their website, there's nothing left for us to add!

 In 2014 Auto Zeitung have tested eleven 205/55 R16 premium winter tyres. 

The 2014 Auto Motor Und Sport tyre test was carried out in Sweden and Germany, and covered ten winter tyres in 205/55 R16.