Menu

Summer VS Winter tires - Warm weather performance

Jonathan Benson
Written by Jonathan Benson
2 min read Updated

Summer VS Winter tires - Warm weather performance

There's no arguing that winter tires offer more grip than summer in temperatures below 5-7c, and that below 0c that performance gap is even wider, but how do winter tires perform when the sun is out and the temperature is high?

To answer this we've used the 2010 Auto Bild All Season tire test which was conducted during the summer months. Primarily an all season tire test, Auto Bild were kind enough to include a summer and winter tire for comparative purposes.

The results

Unsurprisingly the summer tires won the dry and wet tests, but the winter tire averaged just over 10% behind it's summer counter part which is closer than expected. During the snow test, the summer tire had less than 50% of the grip.

The all season tire had similar properties to the winter tire, offering a little more grip in the dry and wet, and a little less grip in the snow. This just goes to prove the naming terms the tire industry use are too generalised, as we're quite confident another brand of ??all season tire?? would mirror the summer tires performance.

Our advice? If you commute during the winter and rely on your car to get to work, winter tires will give superior grip on cold mornings without sacrificing more than 10% of summer tire performance during the odd freak warm day.

The summer tires were the Bridgestone ER300, the all season tires the Vredestein Quatrac 3 and the winter tires the Dunlop Winter Sport 3D

Your thoughts and comments are welcome below.

Discussion

11 comments
  1. Roger Dearden archived

    Your graph of the tire results needs a key of the colours. Without that it is meaningless.

    #1838
  2. Aaron Carter archived

    I'm glad you guys tested this. I have always wondering how effective different tires are. I think all season tires would be perfect for me.

    Aaron | http://www.jensentireandaut...

    #1176
  3. Ultrasonic archived

    I realise this is a rather old test, but any idea what temperature these 'warm weather' tests were carried out at?

    #1044
    1. TireReviews Ultrasonic archived

      Sadly we never found out.

      Recent data from Michelin shows quite a swap at around 8c with winters improving and summers getting worse for every degree the temperature drops.

      #1045
      1. Ultrasonic TireReviews archived

        Thanks for the quick reply! I expect you aren't able to publish it but the Michelin data would be an interesting addition to this site.

        I'm not about to do this myself, but I'm curious from the point of view of people who decide to use winter tires all year round. I've yet to find any sort of data on how bad winter tires would be compared to summer tires at 20°C or even 30°C.

        #1046
        1. TireReviews Ultrasonic archived

          The Michelin data peaked at about 10c so it wasn't much use.

          We're looking at doing some very warm weather winter tire running to test just this, however it would be on a BMW M3 which is a pretty extreme test. Still, results should be interesting.

          #1049
  4. dallastexas21 archived

    Thanks for showing the difference in performance of these tires. I have been debating on whether or not to get winter tires in Edmonton for my truck. She is pretty lightweight for a truck, and she doesn't have four wheel drive (a sore spot with me). How do I know what size of tires to get?

    #714
  5. Anentropic archived

    I'd like to know if winter tire affect fuel economy?

    #692
    1. TireReviews Anentropic archived

      Modern winter tires are very close to summer tires, with the new tire labelling showing us it is not unusual for a winter tire to score a C or E in rolling resistance, the same as its summer counter parts.

      #693
  6. Gareth archived

    Do you have a link to the the 2010 Auto Bild All Season tire test?

    #216