Premium Touring Tire Tests

With the promise of one tire to work in all conditions, all season tires are a rapidly growing market segment.

To find out which of these all season tires is best, and whether they can match a summer and winter tire, the 2020 Tire Reviews all season tire test has tested nine of the best 225/45 R17 all season tires on the market, and included a summer and winter tire as reference.

This year Auto Express have tested ten 205/55 R16 summer tires using a VW Golf. You can be forgiven if this setup sounds similar, as it's almost the same test as the Tire Reviews 16" summer tire test.

As eight of the ten tires on test match tires we used in our test, but the overall results differ in places, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to look into what's different, and why that might be.

The 2020 ADAC SUV All season tire test has tested seven all season tires in the popular 235/55 R17, and include a summer tire in the dry and wet, and a winter tire during snow and ice testing.

ADAC usually hides all their data and just gives numeric scores, but this year have released braking distances for all four braking tests. This might be to back up their conclusion from this test, which is even the best all season tires are deficient compared to a summer and winter tire combination.

Do you want to know what tire is best for every day, real world driving? In this test we take eleven of the very best 205/55 R16 tires on the market, plus a well regarded budget tire, to see exactly what tire performs best in the dry, wet, comfort, noise and rolling resistance tests!

Tire testing is incredibly complicated to conduct, and one of the most difficult parts of testing is good repeatability.

Take for example wet braking. To get the wet braking distance of a tire, you don't just do the braking run once, you do it 6-8 times, delete the outliers then average out the results. Even on the most expensive test facilities in the world, with the most perfect sprinkler systems and perfect tarmac, you rarely get the same distance twice as there are so many variables, which means when you use a less than state of the art facility, results can be surprising.

This brings us on to this test by the Italian publication "al volante". 

As motorhome, van and commercial vehicle tire testing is new to the Tire Reviews website, we thought we'd start with the best of the best, and cover the 2020 Auto Bild 235/65 R16 C test, which used a VW Crafter van to test eight cargo rated all season tires, and included a summer and winter tire as reference!

As this is an all season tire test, Auto Bild not only tested the dry and wet performance of all eight tires, but also the snow ability of each pattern. Read on below for the full results of what is, another fascinating test by Auto Bild.

Each year, the wonderful Swedish publication Teknikens Värld performs a summer tire test in Sweden. Their 2020 test covers ten 225/50 R17 summer tires, including the first test of the brand new Goodyear EfficientGrip Performance 2!

The unique Swedishness of the test means they don't perform dry handling, but instead the "moose test" which involves a sharp lane change at speed. Sadly, we can't database this, but you can see the results of the test in the commentary at the bottom of the page.

For 2020, the German publication Gute Fahrt has tested eight 215/50 R18 SUV tires using a VW T-Roc.

As with the 18" test in 2019, Gute Fahrt have chosen not to publish their handling data, instead grading each tires handling subjectively as "very good", "good" or "satisfying". Sadly as this doesn't really work with how the Tire Reviews database system is set up, we're representing each of the ratings as a number, with 3 being "very good", 2 "good" and 1 as "satisfying".

The 2020 Auto Motor und Sport summer tire test tested eleven 225/45 R18 ultra high performance tires using a BMW 3 Series.

While the group overall was extremely close, the winning Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 5 and second placed Michelin Pilot Sport 4 were almost inseparable overall, with the Goodyear narrowly taking the overall win.

The 2020 Auto Bild AllRad SUV / 4x4 tire test has looked at the popular 255/55 R18 tire size. While the tire patterns included in the test are aimed at "soft roaders", which spend 99% of their time on normal roads, Auto Bild still went to the effort of testing the handling and traction on gravel of all ten tires, along with traction on grass, mud and even sand!

Off-road performance is often an opposing quality to on-road grip, with dedicated off-road tires performing well in loose surfaces such as gravel and mud, but poorly on-road in the dry and wet.  It's worth noting, as we found out with our off-road tire test, repeatable off-road testing is extremely difficult, especially in mud, so these figures should only be used as a broad guide.

The 2020 Auto Zeitung summer tire test has been published, and as usual they've tested a really interesting mix of twenty tires in the popular 225/50 R17 size.

As 225/50 R17 tires generally bias towards comfort rather than outright sporty performance, AZ tested with the new brand BMW 3 Series, and performed the usual array of  thirteen dry, wet, comfort and economy tests.

The talented guys at ACE Europe have just released their first summer tire test for 2020, and interestingly they've tested nine 215/55 R17 summer tires from the mid range sector of the market!

Having already looked at the 2020 ADAC 18" UHP summer tire test, the SUV version in 235/55 R17 is more of the same.

Of the twelve tires tested in this popular crossover SUV size, Michelin once again take the top spot with the Primacy 4, thanks to an excellent all round balanced performance.

The 2019 Auto Center winter tire test is both good and bad. The positive is that out of ten 205/55 R16 patterns, it only includes two premium manufacturers. This means we get a much better look at the midrange bracket of winter tires, which is great for those of us who want to save a little money, and all ten patterns on test have been tested for ice braking and traction which is now usually omitted from central European tire testing.

Are cheap winter tires safe? To find out, we travelled to Finland, twice, to do snow, ice, wet and dry testing.

All tests were done using two cars, a VW Golf wearing 205/55 R16 tires, and a heavier, larger Volvo S90 fitted with 245/45 R18 tires.

For the first time in 2020, Tire Reviews will be performing its own all season tire test, but until then, the Auto Bild all season tire test is the best you can get! Testing ten sets of all season tires in 225/45 R17 using a BMW 1 Series, and including a summer and winter tire as reference, Auto Bild have done as thorough a job as ever for their 2019 all season tire test.

The most notable performances follow the trends other tests have shown during 2019. The new Bridgestone WeatherControl A005 couldn't deliver on the foundations laid by the strong wet and dry braking performance in the shootout test, finishing ninth overall due to a very average snow performance, but more importantly for UK drivers, very high wear.

The 2019 Auto Express winter tire test has tested ten 225/45 R17 winter tires, and included a summer and all season product as a benchmark.

The newest winter tire from Goodyear is shaping up to be an excellent winter product. Thanks to a near perfect all round performance, it wins another tire test, narrowly beating the established king of winter motoring, the Continental WinterContact TS860.

The ACE / GTU tire test is always a funny one, as they go to a lot of effort to test the tires, but then provide no data at all, only the overview scores.

For this reason, we always keep the commentary low, but it's important to have the test results on Tire Reviews, as the more tests published the better right?

The weekly UK publication Auto Express has just published their 2019 all season tire test! This year Auto Express tested nine all season tire patterns in 205/55 R16 using a VW Golf.

As in previous years, Auto Express have included a summer and winter tire as reference. Shockingly, the summer Continental PremiumContact 5 was the best in dry overall, near the best in wet, and fell apart in snow. Things get more interesting when we compare the winter Continental WinterContact TS860 to the all season tires on test.

While studded tires don't have much use in the UK, for parts of the Nordic countries they are essential for safe mobility.

To find out which of the latest studded winter tires are worth fitting, Swedish magazine Vi Bilagare have tested seven studded winter tires in 225/50 R17, and included a studless nordic friction winter tire as a comparison.