Developing a tire to perform well in snow conditions is actually relative easy for the tire manufacturers. Lots of edges, a nice wide tread pattern and you have a reasonable snow performance. It's the balance between snow and wet performance which is extremely important to a lot of European countries, where the cold wet conditions far out weigh the snowy or icy driving conditions, and where a lot of cheaper winter tires fail.
The Big Test
The average budget winter tires sacrifices too much wet performance to be considered a sensible option for the UK climate.
To highlight this, Auto Bild have taken 42 sets of winter tires, from premium to budget, and put them through a wet and snow braking "shoot out", to see which 15 tires go through to their group tests.
Also included in the test is a summer and all season tire to give a balance to the market overview.
As you'd expect the summer tire stops the shortest in the wet from 80kph, taking just 39.2 meters to stop. The best winter tire, the Semperit, is less than a meter behind in 40.1. While the gap between braking in the wet is extremely close, the results are somewhat different on snow. Where the Semperit takes 34 meters to stop from 50kph on snow, the summer tire which enjoyed a 0.9 meters advantage in the wet, skids up in 69.5 meters - a huge 35.5 meters longer than the winter tire!
This test also highlights the poor performance of budget winter tires in the wet. Using the Semperit as our benchmark, the worst winter tire took 56 meters in wet braking, stopping 15.9 meters, or 52 foot after the Semperit tire had stopped the car.
The all season tire, a Goodyear Vector 4Seasons kept honest to its name by winning neither test, but doing well in both disciplines, stopping the car in 46.4 meters in the wet and 38.4 meters in the snow, which would have the tire placed around 20th in the overall results.
Auto Bild will be taking the top 15 tires through to the shoot out due next month, conditionally recommend places 16 to 26, and do not recommend places 27 to 42, something we completely agree with.
The average budget winter tires sacrifices too much wet performance to be considered a sensible option for the UK climate.
The Braking Results
Please note: Auto Bild considered places 27-42 so dangerous they did not test them in the snow. Our results show 1 meter for formatting reasons
Total: 72.2
Wet
41.2
Snow
31
Total: 74.1
Wet
40.1
Snow
34
Total: 74.6
Wet
41.8
Snow
32.8
Total: 76
Wet
42.3
Snow
33.7
Total: 76.8
Wet
40.2
Snow
36.6
Total: 76.9
Wet
43.2
Snow
33.7
Total: 76.9
Wet
42.4
Snow
34.5
Total: 77
Wet
43.4
Snow
33.6
Total: 77.2
Wet
44.7
Snow
32.5
Total: 77.4
Wet
43
Snow
34.4
Total: 77.8
Wet
45.3
Snow
32.5
Total: 78.8
Wet
46.2
Snow
32.6
Total: 79.3
Wet
45
Snow
34.3
Total: 80
Wet
45.3
Snow
34.7
Total: 80.1
Wet
47.8
Snow
32.3
Total: 80.2
Wet
44.9
Snow
35.3
Total: 80.7
Wet
46.5
Snow
34.2
Total: 80.8
Wet
45.9
Snow
34.9
Total: 80.8
Wet
45.9
Snow
34.9
Total: 80.9
Wet
47.8
Snow
33.1
Total: 81.4
Wet
41.7
Snow
39.7
Total: 81.6
Wet
47.1
Snow
34.5
Total: 84.9
Wet
47.4
Snow
37.5
Total: 85.2
Wet
47.8
Snow
37.4
Total: 86.2
Wet
46.4
Snow
39.8
Total: 87.4
Wet
47.6
Snow
39.8
Total: 87.7
Wet
47.1
Snow
40.6
Total: 49.5
Wet
48.5
Snow
1
Total: 49.8
Wet
48.8
Snow
1
Total: 49.9
Wet
48.9
Snow
1
Total: 50
Wet
49
Snow
1
Total: 51.3
Wet
50.3
Snow
1
Total: 52.2
Wet
51.2
Snow
1
Total: 52.9
Wet
51.9
Snow
1
Total: 53.1
Wet
52.1
Snow
1
Total: 53.6
Wet
52.6
Snow
1
Total: 53.8
Wet
52.8
Snow
1
Total: 55.8
Wet
54.8
Snow
1
Total: 55.8
Wet
54.8
Snow
1
Total: 56.1
Wet
55.1
Snow
1
Total: 56.2
Wet
55.2
Snow
1
Total: 56.4
Wet
55.4
Snow
1
Total: 57
Wet
56
Snow
1
Excellent job with the testing of numerous brands and compiling the data. Don't listen to haters, trolls, laptop gangstas and complainers; they're all bums!
If this is supposed to be a test of winter tires why did they test the Vredestein Snowtrac 3 and not the Wintrac Xtreme?
The Wintrac Xtreme is Vredesteins winter tire in the larger sizes. The snowtrac covers the smaller sizes, which includes the 205/55 R16 in this test.
Why have you only picked one test within the Auto Bild winter tire test? Nokian Tires were the overall winners of the Auto Bild , Auto Motor Sport and AUTOStraßenverkeh winter tire test 2012. They were declared the "Best Winter Tire" by Auto Bild. Nokian tires had over 20 test wins in the winter tire tests in car magazines in Germany and Europe last winter. They came first in over half of the tests. Nokian winter tires were also test winners in the 2011 winter tire tests. In 97 test reports from autumn 2011 to spring 2013, Nokian tires were test winners 54 times.
See another article http://www.tiretechnologyin...
Not sure what you mean.
http://www.tirereviews.co.u...
Nokian didn't win overall, they placed 9th:
http://www.tirereviews.co.u...
The selection of tire manufacturers is not really good actually..
We were quite impressed with 42 manufacturers subjected to a single test! Have you seen better?