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Summer VS Winter tyres - Warm weather performance

Jonathan Benson
Written by Jonathan Benson
2 min read Updated

Summer VS Winter tyres - Warm weather performance

There's no arguing that winter tyres offer more grip than summer in temperatures below 5-7c, and that below 0c that performance gap is even wider, but how do winter tyres perform when the sun is out and the temperature is high?

To answer this we've used the 2010 Auto Bild All Season tyre test which was conducted during the summer months. Primarily an all season tyre test, Auto Bild were kind enough to include a summer and winter tyre for comparative purposes.

The results

Unsurprisingly the summer tyres won the dry and wet tests, but the winter tyre averaged just over 10% behind it's summer counter part which is closer than expected. During the snow test, the summer tyre had less than 50% of the grip.

The all season tyre had similar properties to the winter tyre, 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 tyre industry use are too generalised, as we're quite confident another brand of ??all season tyre?? would mirror the summer tyres performance.

Our advice? If you commute during the winter and rely on your car to get to work, winter tyres will give superior grip on cold mornings without sacrificing more than 10% of summer tyre performance during the odd freak warm day.

The summer tyres were the Bridgestone ER300, the all season tyres the Vredestein Quatrac 3 and the winter tyres the Dunlop Winter Sport 3D

Your thoughts and comments are welcome below.

Discussion

11 comments
  1. Roger Dearden archived

    Your graph of the tyre results needs a key of the colours. Without that it is meaningless.

    #1838
  2. Aaron Carter archived

    I'm glad you guys tested this. I have always wondering how effective different tires are. I think all season tires would be perfect for me.

    Aaron | http://www.jensentireandaut...

    #1176
  3. Ultrasonic archived

    I realise this is a rather old test, but any idea what temperature these 'warm weather' tests were carried out at?

    #1044
    1. TyreReviews Ultrasonic archived

      Sadly we never found out.

      Recent data from Michelin shows quite a swap at around 8c with winters improving and summers getting worse for every degree the temperature drops.

      #1045
      1. Ultrasonic TyreReviews archived

        Thanks for the quick reply! I expect you aren't able to publish it but the Michelin data would be an interesting addition to this site.

        I'm not about to do this myself, but I'm curious from the point of view of people who decide to use winter tyres all year round. I've yet to find any sort of data on how bad winter tyres would be compared to summer tyres at 20°C or even 30°C.

        #1046
        1. TyreReviews Ultrasonic archived

          The Michelin data peaked at about 10c so it wasn't much use.

          We're looking at doing some very warm weather winter tyre running to test just this, however it would be on a BMW M3 which is a pretty extreme test. Still, results should be interesting.

          #1049
  4. dallastexas21 archived

    Thanks for showing the difference in performance of these tires. I have been debating on whether or not to get winter tires in Edmonton for my truck. She is pretty lightweight for a truck, and she doesn't have four wheel drive (a sore spot with me). How do I know what size of tires to get?

    #714
  5. Anentropic archived

    I'd like to know if winter tyre affect fuel economy?

    #692
    1. TyreReviews Anentropic archived

      Modern winter tyres are very close to summer tyres, with the new tyre labelling showing us it is not unusual for a winter tyre to score a C or E in rolling resistance, the same as its summer counter parts.

      #693
  6. Gareth archived

    Do you have a link to the the 2010 Auto Bild All Season tyre test?

    #216