Premium Touring Passenger Car Tyre Tests

For the launch of the new Bridgestone Turanza AllSeason 6, Bridgestone had the independent test body TÜV SÜD Automotive GmbH conduct a comprehensive test of the new all season tyre, and compare it to the leaders in the all season category, the Continental AllSeasonContact, Goodyear Vector 4Seasons Gen-3, and Michelin CrossClimate 2.

While this isn't a traditional magazine test, it is interesting data, and as many of you have questions about the performance of the new Turanza AllSeason 6, we believe it's worth including on the site.

The Polish Motor Magazine recently conducted a premium touring tyre test. The test included eight different tyre brands, all in the popular size of 205/55 R16, which is commonly used in compact and some larger car models. The brands tested were Continental, Goodyear, Dunlop, Bridgestone, Hankook, Pirelli, Michelin, and Vredestein. The test was comprehensive, covering various aspects of tyre performance including wet and dry handling, rolling resistance, noise, and comfort.

Times are hard, and now more so than ever people are asking me what the best budget tyre they can buy is. As these have never been tested against each other properly, I usually don't have an answer, but all that is about to change!

Sadly I've not been able to test every budget available, there are literally hundreds of tyre brands coming out of the far east, most of them from just a handful of factories. In fact, I've got over 300 tyre brands on the tyre reviews website, and as much as I love big tests, even that's too much for me.

Instead, I've bought eight of the most common and cheapest tyres available I could find, and because I've never tested a retread tyre, I bought one of those too. Naturally they'll all be going through a full tyre reviews tyre test to see which is best.

It's the 50th anniversary of the ADAC tyre test, and to celebrate the German automotive body have tested fifty summer tyres in the popular 205/55 R16 tyre size, and have included wear testing for every tyre!

There's a lot to unpack in this test, so we'll dive straight in! Headline notes, there are two Michelin tyres in this test, the Michelin Primacy 4+ and the energy saving Michelin e.Primacy, the Continental on test is not the new PremiumContact 7, it's the previous model, the Continental PremiumContact 6, and Continental also have the new Continental UltraContact in the test, which is meant to be a lower rolling resistance and higher mileage tyre for those who drive a lot of distance!

In this test, we'll be finding out what the best premium touring summer tyres on the market are!

I'm going to try and keep this as condensed as I possibly can as we have 13 sets of tyres in this test including the newest and best from Continental, Michelin, Hankook, Pirelli, Bridgestone, Vredestein, Kumho, Toyo, Nankang and more! This should also be the world's first test of the Continental PremiumContact 7!

Auto Bild tests are always amongst the best in the industry, and this year Auto Bild have taken things a step further. Not only did Auto Bild start with 25 all season tyres in the popular 195/55 R16 size and test them in dry and wet braking to get the best 15 for the full test below, they've also tested things Tyre Reviews was unable to test in the Tyre Reviews 2022 all season tyre test, including real world fuel use, the all important wear test, and new for this year, they tracked the abrasion of the tyres to see which tyre gives off the least particulates to the environment, which is separate from projected tyre life!

Snow tyres, studless friction tyres, extreme winter tyres, nordic winter tyres. This category of tyre goes by many names, and they have one design goal, to be the very best on snow and ice for harsh winter climates, where studded tyres aren't appropriate, or for people who don't want studs.

To find out which is the best, Tyre Reviews has taken 7 of the most popular tyres available to both the North American and Nordic markets, and will be putting them through a full range of tests, including ice, snow, wet and dry testing to find out which is best at what. Also, to help you understand where these tyres fit in the market, I'm also including the very best of the central european and studded winter tyres, the Continental WinterContact TS870 and the studded Nokian Happapelliita 10.

For 2022, the excellent German test organisation ADAC have tested 15 winter tyres in 185/65 R15 and 15 crossover SUV winter tyres in 215/60 R16.

The results below are for the 185/65 R15 test, where we have no real surprises in the overall results. 

For 2022, the excellent German test organisation ADAC have tested 15 crossover SUV winter tyres in 215/60 R16 and 15 winter tyres in 185/65 R15.

The results below are for the 215/60 R16 test, where we have a few interesting quirks in the overall results. 

For this year's Tyre Reviews winter tyre test, we've got nine sets of the most popular winter tyres, half of which are brand new tyres for this year!

As always I'll be testing in the snow, wet and dry, and looking at rolling resistance, noise and comfort, to ensure you get the best overview of all the new winter tyres!

Once a year, the wonderful people at the German publication Auto Bild take a huge number of all season tyres through a wet and dry braking, to find the very best to include in their full test.

Fortunately, this year is no different, and below you'll find the wet and dry braking results of thirty five all season tyres, and a summer and winter reference tyre, with the top fifteen going through to the full test which will be on the site next week.

All season tyres are trying to be one tyre for every situation, but as we know no tyre can excel in every category, meaning tyre manufacturers often take away from one area to be better in another.

So, which all season tyre is best for YOUR own needs? To find out Tyre Reviews has ten of the most popular all season tyres on the market, and will be testing them in the snow, dry and wet, noise, comfort and rolling resistance!

The tyre size I'm testing is massively popular 225/45 R17, and while there might not be any new names in the test this year, a different size and different testing location means we're likely to get some interesting results! The Michelin Crossclimate 2 stormed to victory last year in 16", will this year be any different?

If like me you've been wondering exactly how low rolling resistance / eco / EV tyres differ from their regular counterparts, this is the test for you!

The wonderful people at the Swedish publication ViBilagare have tested ten sets of tyres in the popular 205/55 R16 size, and included "normal" AND "eco / EV" tyres from Continental, Michelin and Nokian. This means we have the Continental PremiumContact 6 vs EcoContact 6, Michelin Primacy 4 vs e.Primacy and Nokian Hakka Blue 3 vs Green 3 (these are the Nordic specific versions of the Nokian WetProof.)

Why no eco / low rolling resistance / EV tyres from Goodyear and Bridgestone? This test highlights the different approaches of certain tyre manufacturers, and while Tyre Reviews isn't sure on Bridgestones philosophy, Goodyear firmly believe that EV specific tyres aren't needed if you make all your tyres EV Ready, by focusing on low fuel consumption and excellent grip in all conditions for every tyre.

The 2022 AutoBild summer tyre is here! As usual, the test started out as a wet and dry braking test of fifty sets of tyres in the popular 215/55 R17 size, with the best twenty one moving through to this full test. Not only have AutoBild managed to test the new Hankook Ventus Prime 4 and Kumho Ecsta HS52, they've also put all twenty one sets of tyres through a wear test, and included an (unnamed) all season tyre as a reference in the grip tests!

The Goodyear EfficientGrip Performance 2 won the test by combining good grip in the dry and wet, very low rolling resistance and the best wear on test. Even though it wasn't the cheapest tyre, when AutoBild divided the purchase price by the projected mileage it also proved to be the best value tyre on test, a very impressive showing from Goodyear.

For the 2022 ADAC tyre test, the German publication have chosen the small 185/65 R15 tyre size usually fitted to city cars and hatchback vehicles.

Sadly, as usual there's no actual data provided behind the scores, but ADAC have graded and commented on all the tyres in detail which you can read below.

We're a little late posting this so there won't be much commentary, but hopefully someone will find it useful in 2022! In 2021, Moottori performed an excellent studded tyre test, and included 8 of the best studded winter tyres, including the new Nokian Hakkapeliitta 10 which goes on to win the test, with the Michelin X-Ice North 4 also performing really well. 

For the 2021 Auto Express winter tyre test, Auto Express tested eight 225/45 R17 winter tyres using a VW Golf.

As usual we'll keep commentary to a minimum, instead encouraging you to head over to the Auto Express website to check out the full test.

The tyres included were very similar to the 2020 Auto Express winter tyre test, with Bridgestone winning the test again, with the new Continental second.

If you live in a part of the world that sees an extreme winter such as the Northern USA, Canada, and the Northern parts of Europe, you'll know that regular central European winter tyres just don't cut it. 

Winters which see snow on the roads for many months and lots of ice need extreme winter tyres, and there are two types to choose from. The original is the studded winter tyre, a tyre which has studs (pieces of metal) inserted into the soft winter compound allowing the tyre to really bite into the snow and ice below. 

Sadly, as great as studs are, they're damaging to the roads which is why tyre companies invented a category of winter tyre called studless friction winter tyres. While these don't have studs, they do have a vastly improved ability on snow and ice when compared to a "normal" winter tyre, and with advances in compounding technology they are quickly becoming an excellent alternative for all but the most extreme climates.

The 2021 Auto Bild winter tyre test started its life as a fifty tyre wet and snow braking test, with the best performing twenty tyres proceeding to this test. This means the twenty tyres in this test are some of the best winter tyres for 2021 on the market!

Additionally Auto Bild have included the usual reference summer tyre, but also a budget winter tyre. It wasn't clear from the article how this tyre was chosen, but I imagine it was one of the worst tyres from the fifty tyre braking test intended to highlight just how bad cheap tyres can be. The results confirm the theory, with the cheap winter tyre performing well below average in nearly all tests.

The results, as always, were close at the top, with the new Continental WinterContact TS870 narrowly beating the Michelin Alpin 6. The new German tyre had a very consistent test, performing well in nearly all categories, and having the best wear on test!

For the 2021 autumn season, Auto Bild have tested thirty two all season tyres in the popular 225/50 R17 size in dry and wet braking.

The top sixteen of these tyres will feature in the full Auto Bild all season tyre test which will be on the site in the next few days.

For now, check out all the other latest all season tyre tests on Tyre Reviews!