Winter Premium Touring Tire Tests

While the four wheel drive systems and extra weight of large SUVs can give you a traction advantage in snow and ice over "normal" cars, you have roughly the same braking and turning ability as any other car on the road, which makes winter tires a sensible option for anyone with an SUV requiring safe, year round motoring.

This year, Auto Bild have tested eight winter tire patterns in 255/55 R18 using a BMW X5 in Northern Finland, across the usual array of dry, wet and snow tests, all while looking at the tires comfort, rolling resistance and noise levels.

Issue 1,443 of the weekly UK publication Auto Express contains their excellent 2016 winter tire test! This year Auto Express have tested eight winter tire patterns in 205/55 R16 using a VW Golf, and like other publications have included an all season and summer tire for comparison.

Each year, the German automotive publication Autobild trump all the other European magazines by putting out a huge winter tire test, and this year is no different.

Starting out with fifty winter tire patterns, Autobild tested all the tires wet braking performance. Once the wet braking order was set, Autobild took the twenty seven patterns which stopped the car within 20% of the best through to snow braking, then the top twenty wet and snow braking results combined this, the full tire test.

Most magazines look to test around ten different tire patterns each test, with some pushing up to fifteen different tires. Auto Bild like to go a step further and this year, have tested test fifty sets of 205/55 R16 winter tires.

Once again in 2016, the German Magazine Auto Zeitung have provided one of the most exciting winter tire tests we've covered. Testing thirteen of the latest winter tires in 205/55 R16, including the Continental WinterContact TS860, Dunlop Winter Sport 5, Goodyear UltraGrip 9 and Nokian WR D4, Auto Zeitung have also included the Michelin CrossClimate summer-bias all season tire as a comparison.

Based on a combined snow and wet braking performance, this year Auto Bild have taken the best eightteen 185/60 R15 winter tires through from their 2015 Winter Tire Shootout, and one all season tire, the Pirelli Cinturato All Season.

From the fifty tires tested, there were some surprise drop outs. The Vredestein Snowtrac 5, Yokohama W.Drive, Toyo Snowprox S943 and Avon Ice Touring were a few of the 32 tires which failed to make the grade. Equally, tires like the Semperit Speed Grip 2, Barum Polaris 3, Gislavel Euro Frost 5 and Viking Snow Tech II were are few surprise inclusions, it will be interesting to find out if they can live up to the established competition in the full winter tire test.

The 2015 winter tire test season is here, and as usual the German magazine Auto Bild have done an excellent job of giving us an overview of this years contenders.

Testing 51 tires in 185/60R15, Auto Bild put each tire through a wet braking test, then took the top 28 tires through to the snow braking test. Once the snow braking results were in, the magazine combined the wet and snow distances to give an over all result, taking the top 15 tires through to their full 2015 Winter Tire Test.

In previous years Auto Express have been slow to publish their tire tests online, but not this year - Auto Express have done such a great job on their website, there's nothing left for us to add!

 In 2014 Auto Zeitung have tested eleven 205/55 R16 premium winter tires. 

The 2014 Auto Motor Und Sport tire test was carried out in Sweden and Germany, and covered ten winter tires in 205/55 R16. 

The 2014 Auto Bild winter tire test tested sixteen 225/50 R17 winter tires across fifteen disciplines, covering snow grip, wet grip, dry grip, rolling resistance and comfort. 

Starting with fifty different tire models, Auto Bild put every tire through a winter tires toughest test - wet braking. Auto Bild then took the top twenty winter tires from wet braking through to snow braking, and once it had combined the wet and snow braking distances for the top twenty, it chose the top sixteen tires  for this more thorough "full" test.