Premium Touring Passenger Car Tire Tests

For the launch of the new Bridgestone Turanza AllSeason 6, Bridgestone had the independent test body TÜV SÜD Automotive GmbH conduct a comprehensive test of the new all season tire, and compare it to the leaders in the all season category, the Continental AllSeasonContact, Goodyear Vector 4Seasons Gen-3, and Michelin CrossClimate 2.

While this isn't a traditional magazine test, it is interesting data, and as many of you have questions about the performance of the new Turanza AllSeason 6, we believe it's worth including on the site.

The Polish Motor Magazine recently conducted a premium touring tire test. The test included eight different tire brands, all in the popular size of 205/55 R16, which is commonly used in compact and some larger car models. The brands tested were Continental, Goodyear, Dunlop, Bridgestone, Hankook, Pirelli, Michelin, and Vredestein. The test was comprehensive, covering various aspects of tire performance including wet and dry handling, rolling resistance, noise, and comfort.

Times are hard, and now more so than ever people are asking me what the best budget tire they can buy is. As these have never been tested against each other properly, I usually don't have an answer, but all that is about to change!

Sadly I've not been able to test every budget available, there are literally hundreds of tire brands coming out of the far east, most of them from just a handful of factories. In fact, I've got over 300 tire brands on the tire reviews website, and as much as I love big tests, even that's too much for me.

Instead, I've bought eight of the most common and cheapest tires available I could find, and because I've never tested a retread tire, I bought one of those too. Naturally they'll all be going through a full tire reviews tire test to see which is best.

It's the 50th anniversary of the ADAC tire test, and to celebrate the German automotive body have tested fifty summer tires in the popular 205/55 R16 tire size, and have included wear testing for every tire!

There's a lot to unpack in this test, so we'll dive straight in! Headline notes, there are two Michelin tires in this test, the Michelin Primacy 4+ and the energy saving Michelin e.Primacy, the Continental on test is not the new PremiumContact 7, it's the previous model, the Continental PremiumContact 6, and Continental also have the new Continental UltraContact in the test, which is meant to be a lower rolling resistance and higher mileage tire for those who drive a lot of distance!

In this test, we'll be finding out what the best premium touring summer tires on the market are!

I'm going to try and keep this as condensed as I possibly can as we have 13 sets of tires in this test including the newest and best from Continental, Michelin, Hankook, Pirelli, Bridgestone, Vredestein, Kumho, Toyo, Nankang and more! This should also be the world's first test of the Continental PremiumContact 7!

Auto Bild tests are always amongst the best in the industry, and this year Auto Bild have taken things a step further. Not only did Auto Bild start with 25 all season tires in the popular 195/55 R16 size and test them in dry and wet braking to get the best 15 for the full test below, they've also tested things Tire Reviews was unable to test in the Tire Reviews 2022 all season tire test, including real world fuel use, the all important wear test, and new for this year, they tracked the abrasion of the tires to see which tire gives off the least particulates to the environment, which is separate from projected tire life!

Snow tires, studless friction tires, extreme winter tires, nordic winter tires. This category of tire goes by many names, and they have one design goal, to be the very best on snow and ice for harsh winter climates, where studded tires aren't appropriate, or for people who don't want studs.

To find out which is the best, Tire Reviews has taken 7 of the most popular tires available to both the North American and Nordic markets, and will be putting them through a full range of tests, including ice, snow, wet and dry testing to find out which is best at what. Also, to help you understand where these tires fit in the market, I'm also including the very best of the central european and studded winter tires, the Continental WinterContact TS870 and the studded Nokian Happapelliita 10.

For 2022, the excellent German test organisation ADAC have tested 15 winter tires in 185/65 R15 and 15 crossover SUV winter tires in 215/60 R16.

The results below are for the 185/65 R15 test, where we have no real surprises in the overall results. 

For 2022, the excellent German test organisation ADAC have tested 15 crossover SUV winter tires in 215/60 R16 and 15 winter tires in 185/65 R15.

The results below are for the 215/60 R16 test, where we have a few interesting quirks in the overall results. 

For this year's Tire Reviews winter tire test, we've got nine sets of the most popular winter tires, half of which are brand new tires for this year!

As always I'll be testing in the snow, wet and dry, and looking at rolling resistance, noise and comfort, to ensure you get the best overview of all the new winter tires!

Once a year, the wonderful people at the German publication Auto Bild take a huge number of all season tires through a wet and dry braking, to find the very best to include in their full test.

Fortunately, this year is no different, and below you'll find the wet and dry braking results of thirty five all season tires, and a summer and winter reference tire, with the top fifteen going through to the full test which will be on the site next week.

All season tires are trying to be one tire for every situation, but as we know no tire can excel in every category, meaning tire manufacturers often take away from one area to be better in another.

So, which all season tire is best for YOUR own needs? To find out Tire Reviews has ten of the most popular all season tires on the market, and will be testing them in the snow, dry and wet, noise, comfort and rolling resistance!

The tire size I'm testing is massively popular 225/45 R17, and while there might not be any new names in the test this year, a different size and different testing location means we're likely to get some interesting results! The Michelin Crossclimate 2 stormed to victory last year in 16", will this year be any different?

If like me you've been wondering exactly how low rolling resistance / eco / EV tires differ from their regular counterparts, this is the test for you!

The wonderful people at the Swedish publication ViBilagare have tested ten sets of tires in the popular 205/55 R16 size, and included "normal" AND "eco / EV" tires from Continental, Michelin and Nokian. This means we have the Continental PremiumContact 6 vs EcoContact 6, Michelin Primacy 4 vs e.Primacy and Nokian Hakka Blue 3 vs Green 3 (these are the Nordic specific versions of the Nokian WetProof.)

Why no eco / low rolling resistance / EV tires from Goodyear and Bridgestone? This test highlights the different approaches of certain tire manufacturers, and while Tire Reviews isn't sure on Bridgestones philosophy, Goodyear firmly believe that EV specific tires aren't needed if you make all your tires EV Ready, by focusing on low fuel consumption and excellent grip in all conditions for every tire.

The 2022 AutoBild summer tire is here! As usual, the test started out as a wet and dry braking test of fifty sets of tires in the popular 215/55 R17 size, with the best twenty one moving through to this full test. Not only have AutoBild managed to test the new Hankook Ventus Prime 4 and Kumho Ecsta HS52, they've also put all twenty one sets of tires through a wear test, and included an (unnamed) all season tire as a reference in the grip tests!

The Goodyear EfficientGrip Performance 2 won the test by combining good grip in the dry and wet, very low rolling resistance and the best wear on test. Even though it wasn't the cheapest tire, when AutoBild divided the purchase price by the projected mileage it also proved to be the best value tire on test, a very impressive showing from Goodyear.

For the 2022 ADAC tire test, the German publication have chosen the small 185/65 R15 tire size usually fitted to city cars and hatchback vehicles.

Sadly, as usual there's no actual data provided behind the scores, but ADAC have graded and commented on all the tires in detail which you can read below.

We're a little late posting this so there won't be much commentary, but hopefully someone will find it useful in 2022! In 2021, Moottori performed an excellent studded tire test, and included 8 of the best studded winter tires, including the new Nokian Hakkapeliitta 10 which goes on to win the test, with the Michelin X-Ice North 4 also performing really well. 

For the 2021 Auto Express winter tire test, Auto Express tested eight 225/45 R17 winter tires using a VW Golf.

As usual we'll keep commentary to a minimum, instead encouraging you to head over to the Auto Express website to check out the full test.

The tires included were very similar to the 2020 Auto Express winter tire test, with Bridgestone winning the test again, with the new Continental second.

If you live in a part of the world that sees an extreme winter such as the Northern USA, Canada, and the Northern parts of Europe, you'll know that regular central European winter tires just don't cut it. 

Winters which see snow on the roads for many months and lots of ice need extreme winter tires, and there are two types to choose from. The original is the studded winter tire, a tire which has studs (pieces of metal) inserted into the soft winter compound allowing the tire to really bite into the snow and ice below. 

Sadly, as great as studs are, they're damaging to the roads which is why tire companies invented a category of winter tire called studless friction winter tires. While these don't have studs, they do have a vastly improved ability on snow and ice when compared to a "normal" winter tire, and with advances in compounding technology they are quickly becoming an excellent alternative for all but the most extreme climates.

The 2021 Auto Bild winter tire test started its life as a fifty tire wet and snow braking test, with the best performing twenty tires proceeding to this test. This means the twenty tires in this test are some of the best winter tires for 2021 on the market!

Additionally Auto Bild have included the usual reference summer tire, but also a budget winter tire. It wasn't clear from the article how this tire was chosen, but I imagine it was one of the worst tires from the fifty tire braking test intended to highlight just how bad cheap tires can be. The results confirm the theory, with the cheap winter tire performing well below average in nearly all tests.

The results, as always, were close at the top, with the new Continental WinterContact TS870 narrowly beating the Michelin Alpin 6. The new German tire had a very consistent test, performing well in nearly all categories, and having the best wear on test!

For the 2021 autumn season, Auto Bild have tested thirty two all season tires in the popular 225/50 R17 size in dry and wet braking.

The top sixteen of these tires will feature in the full Auto Bild all season tire test which will be on the site in the next few days.

For now, check out all the other latest all season tire tests on Tire Reviews!