Premium Touring Passenger Car Tyre Tests

The ACE / GTU tyre test is always a funny one, as they go to a lot of effort to test the tyres, but then provide no data at all, only the overview scores.

For this reason, we always keep the commentary low, but it's important to have the test results on Tyre Reviews, as the more tests published the better right?

The weekly UK publication Auto Express has just published their 2019 all season tyre test! This year Auto Express tested nine all season tyre patterns in 205/55 R16 using a VW Golf.

As in previous years, Auto Express have included a summer and winter tyre as reference. Shockingly, the summer Continental PremiumContact 5 was the best in dry overall, near the best in wet, and fell apart in snow. Things get more interesting when we compare the winter Continental WinterContact TS860 to the all season tyres on test.

While studded tyres don't have much use in the UK, for parts of the Nordic countries they are essential for safe mobility.

To find out which of the latest studded winter tyres are worth fitting, Swedish magazine Vi Bilagare have tested seven studded winter tyres in 225/50 R17, and included a studless nordic friction winter tyre as a comparison.

Winter tyre buying can be a confusing challenge, as there are now six types of tyre you can realistically fit to your car. But which is best? To find out, I test summer, all season, all weather, winter, extreme winter and studded tyres in dry, wet, snow and ice testing, covering handling, braking and grip.

Following on from the All Season tyre market overview, Auto Bild have published their winter version of the shootout style braking test.

For the winter test, Auto Bild have tested 53 winter tyres in 225/45 R17 in wet and snow braking. The two braking distances are combined, and the top twenty tyres go through to a full test covering all aspects of a tyres performance.

This year the German motoring organisation ADAC have tested sixteen winter tyres in the popular 185/65 R15.

With summer sadly coming to an end, now is a great time to start thinking about switching to all season or winter tyre options.

To help this purchase decision, the excellent German publication Auto Bild publish the results of their pre-tests, in order to select the best all season tyres to send through to their full all season tyre test.

This year Auto Bild have tested 31 all season tyres in 225/45 R17 in wet and dry braking, and the top ten will go through to the full test due next month.

It's never a bad thing when a magazine goes to the effort of testing summer AND all season tyres in the same test, as it gives the motorist a good idea of the different balance of performances each tyre type has, so it's great to see Auto Navigator doing exactly this for their 205/55 R16 summer tyre test.

Not satisfied with just summer and all season tyres, Auto Navigator have included a "test winning" winter tyre, as well as worn summer and worn winter tyres (tread depth unknown!)

The Norwegian AutoMobile Federation (NAF) has tested seven summer tyre patterns in 205/55 R16, and included a premium winter tyre for comparison.

The winter tyre performed surprisingly well during the wet braking testing, which was tested between 18 and 25c, beating the Dunlop and Bridgestone summer tyres. Wet handling showed a little more weakness, with the winter tyre finishing last, but it was still within a few percent of the summer tyres.

The Swedish news paper Aftonbladet have tested thirteen 205/55 R16 touring summer tyres using a VW Passat.

Sadly the data is a little lacking in this test, but as the driving was done by the experts at Test World, you can be sure it was a proper tyre test.

The ACE / GTU tyre test is always a funny one, as they go to a lot of effort to test the tyres, but then provide no data at all, only the overview scores.

For this reason, we always keep the commentary low, but it's important to have the test results on Tyre Reviews, as the more tests published the better right?

Every year Auto Bild test over fifty tyres in wet and dry braking testing to decide which twenty tyres make it through to the full summer tyre test. In 2019 they have tested 53 patterns, using the popular 225/45 R17 summer touring tyre size.

The 2019 summer tyre test season is underway, and as always the first published is by the German motoring organisation ADAC!

This year ADAC have tested sixteen 185/65 R15 summer tyre patterns using a VW Polo, and interestingly included the Michelin CrossClimate instead of the Michelin Energy Saver+ as the Michelin "summer" tyre.

While studded tyres aren't suitable for the normal UK winter, Tyre Reviews does have a lot of international readers, which is why we're covering this excellent studded winter tyre test from the Swedish publications Vi Bilägare.

Why this one? Well, they've used a Volvo V30 to test seven studded tyres in the very common 205/55 R16 tyre size, and they've also included a friction studless nordic winter tyre.

As always, we keep our coverage of the Auto Express tyre tests to a minimum, instead encouraging you to go and see the full article on the Auto Express website (link in comments), but there is one aspect of the test we'd like to mention.

The 2018 Auto Motor und Sport [AMS] winter tyre test has tested eleven winter tyre patterns in the popular 205/55 R16 winter tyre size, using a Seat Ibiza.

Following on from the 27 all season tyre braking shootout, Auto Bild have published their excellent 2018 all season tyre test. Testing the best ten 195/65 R15 all season tyres from the braking test, Auto Bild have done an incredibly thorough job putting all the tyre patterns through the usual array or dry, wet and snow testing.

The weekly UK publication Auto Express has just published their 2018 winter tyre test! This year Auto Express have tested eight winter tyre patterns in 205/55 R16 using a VW Golf.

As in 2017, the German club ACE have tested all season and winter tyres in exactly the same tests! On test are nine 185/65 R15 winter tyre patterns, and three all season tyres in the same size, and they used an Opel Corsa as the test vehicle.

All twelve tyres were put through identical dry, wet and snow testing, and to further highlight the point that most all season tyres are interchangeable with winter tyres, the all season tyres finished second, fifth and ten places overall.

As with the Auto Bild winter tyre test, the excellent German publication have placed a large number of all season tyres through wet and dry braking tests in order to find the top ten tyres for the full all season tyre test, which will include broader wet and dry testing, plus the inclusion of snow running.

In total 27 all season tyre patterns were tested in the popular 195/65 R15 size, and the spread of best to worst proved to be worringly large!