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: