Premium Touring Tire Tests

This year Auto Express have tested six all season tires in the rather large (by all season tires standards) 225/45 R17.

Winter tires aren't exclusively reserved for two wheel drive vehicles, four wheel drive cars benefit too. This year AMS have tested ten winter tires in the popular 4x4 / SUV / Crossover size of 215/60 R17, which covers cars such as the Opel Mokka, Skoda Yeti, and the Volkswagen Tiguan.

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.

With the 2016 winter season fast approaching, the AMS all season tire test has been published, this time in the SUV / 4x4 size 215/60 R17.

Auto Motor Und Sport used a crossover Vauxhall Mokka to test four all season patterns, and compared them to a summer Continental Premium Contact 5 tire, and a winter Continental WinterContact TS850 P SUV.

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.

The 2016 Auto Bild All Season tire test has tested ten of the latest all season tires across the usual array of dry, wet, snow, comfort and economy tests using the industry standard VW Golf wearing 205/55 R16 sized tires.

For the second time this year, the summer-bias Michelin CrossClimate won the test overall by dominating in the dry, having the shortest wet braking and being good enough in the snow.

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.

The 2016 ACE magazine all season tire test covers ten all season tires in the popular 205/55 R16 tire size using a VW Golf, and includes a summer and winter tire as benchmarks.

Once again, the test highlights the fact that current all season tires, with the exception of the Michelin CrossClimate, should be considered as slightly tweaked winter tires and have all the drawbacks of the winter rubber in warm dry and wet conditions.

Off road vehicles don't always spend all their time off road, and the new generation of "soft-road" vehicles can go their entire lives without seeing so much as a muddy verge.

For this reason, the German "Off Road" magazine have chosen to test six 215/65 R16 tires on an Audi Q3, which are designed to spend 99% of their life on the road.

With SUV and 4x4 vehicles quickly becoming the most popular vehicle type in Europe, more and more magazines are providing dedicated tire tests for SUV sizes.

This year, Auto Motor und Sport have tested nine SUV tires in the crossover 215/60 R17 size using a VW Mokka.

This year the German magazine "Gute Fahrt" have tested nine all season tires in 205/55 R16 using a VW Golf, plus summer and winter tire for comparison.

While the full results are summarised below, we thought it would be interesting to take a closer look at how the all season tires compared to the summer Continental EcoContact 5 and winter Dunlop WinterSport 5 included in the test.

This year the German AutoBild magazine have taken the 15 best tires from their 205/55 R16 50 tire braking shootout through to the full test, and the result is another impressive win for Hankook!

One VW Golf wearing 205/55 R16 tires, 50 different tire patterns, and a lot of wet and dry braking tests gives us a good overview of the market in 2016. The dry test was braking from 62 mph, and the wet from 50 mph.

Much like the 225/45 R17 test ADAC published at the same time, the ADAC 185/65 R15 tire test looks at sixteen premium and mid range tires, but this time has selected tires intended to be fitted to smaller town and city cars.

The biggest surprise of the test was this time delivered by Vredestein, with the Sportrac 5 dominating the test, and beating the wet weather master Continental Premium Contact 5 in the wet tests. The Vredestein must have gone through a life cycle update, as in 2015 the best result it could manage was fifth overall, and over placed near the bottom of the tests it took part in.

Continuing the year of all season tire tests, French magazine L'Argus have released their first all season tire test, which included both the new Michelin CrossClimate, the new Nokian Weatherproof, and the new Nokian WR D4 as the reference winter tire.

Testing five of the latest all season tires in 205/55 R16 on a VW Golf, L'Argus put the all the tires through a full complement of winter and summer tests, in both an Austrian Autumn at a warm 15c, and a Finnish winter where the temperatures were as low as -15c.