Passenger Car Tyre Tests

Following on from the 52 set braking shootout, the full Autobild summer tyre test has taken the best twenty tyres to the full set of testing, with some interesting highlights!

There are two interesting stories. Firstly, is the rise of the Chinese tyres, with both Linglong and Sailun performing really well in the grip tests. Does this mean Chinese tyres are now fighting with the premium manufacturers? Well, sort of.

There's a new comfort bias summer tyre to market, the Pirelli Cinturato C3! To see how good the new tyre really is, I've tested it against some of its key rivals from Michelin and Continental. I've also added some new tyres I've not tested before. 

As usual, all the tyres in this test will be tested in the dry and wet, and I'll be assessing the comfort, noise, and rolling resistance (energy use) of the tyres to give you a complete overview of which tyre is best.

The 2025 Auto Zeitung summer tyre test has tested ten ultra high performance 225/45 R18 patterns in the dry and wet, and this year included wear!

The wear test has added some interesting highlights, which we'll discuss below.

The 2025 ADAC summer tyre test has been published, and it follows this years trend of testing in the sporty 225/40 R18 tyre size!

As always with ADAC they sadly don't give us all the data for the test, but they do give us some interesting insights, including wear, and they do a great job summarising each tyres performance overall.

So it begins, the 2025 summer tyre test season is upon is, and it's going to be an interesting year!

To start things off, Autobild have published their annual 52 tyre shootout, where they test the wet and dry braking of pretty much every tyre they can get their hands on to work out the best 20 to take through to the full tyre test.

Top Tyre Review has put six Asian-market ultra-high performance tyres through a comprehensive test for 2024/25. The lineup includes five standard UHP tyres - Continental MaxContact MC7, Michelin Pilot Sport 5, Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 6, Toyo Proxes TR1, and the Chinese-made RoadX RXMotion U11. Adding an interesting comparison, Hankook's EV-focused iON evo was included to see how a dedicated electric vehicle tyre performs against traditional UHP options.

Vi Bilägare has completed their latest winter tyre test, evaluating seven dedicated Nordic friction tyres and one all-season tyre in size 225/45 R17. The reigning champion, Continental VikingContact 7, has been replaced by the VikingContact 8, which is tested against competitors from Goodyear, Michelin, Nokian, and Hankook. The test also included two budget tyres, Radar and Greenmax.

The excellent magazine Vi Bilagare tested seven studded tyres and one friction (non-studded) winter tyre - the Nokian Hakkapeliitta R5. Testing was conducted in various locations across Finland and Sweden, using a Volkswagen Golf for most tests.

This is the data from the 2024 EVO Summer Tyre Test.

Below is the data from the Sport Auto all season tyre test. Their test vehicle was a sporty Hyundai i20N, and they included named reference summer and winter tyres, which is always nice (even if the summer tyre was the Asymmetric 3, a tyre originally launched over 10 years ago!)

Another key point is that the wet tests were done at cold conditions, "significantly below ten degrees", and around 7c for wet braking. Many of the all season tyres out performed the summer tyre, however as the summer tyre is not current it's hard to say whether a modern summer tyre would have performed better.

These are the result from 2024 Auto Express All Season Tyre Test.

These are the result from 2024 Auto Express Winter Tyre Test

As with this years Tyre Reviews winter tyre test, Auto Bild Sportscars conducted a winter tyre test in the 235/35 R19 size. 

While we had a slightly different test field, the good tyres were still good, which is always nice. The cheap tyres in this test, a Radar and Auto Green, again prove that you get what you pay for, with both tyres doing well in one category (snow) but then being complete disasters in the dry and wet.

Auto Bild AllRads's 2024 SUV All Season Tyre Test tested 12 all-season tyres in size 245/45 R18, alongside summer and winter reference tyres. The test revealed significant performance gaps between the best and worst all-season tyres across various conditions, while also highlighting the compromises these tyres make compared to specialized seasonal options.

In dry conditions, the top-performing all-season tyres approached the capabilities of the summer reference tyre, but couldn't quite match its grip or balance. The Pirelli Cinturato All Season SF3 demonstrated the shortest dry braking distance among all-season tyres at 37.7 meters, though still 2.4 meters behind the summer reference. In contrast, the poorest performing Minerva All Season Master required an additional 5.7 meters to stop. Dry handling tests showed similar trends, with the best all-season tyre, the Hankook Kinergy 4S2, achieving an average speed just 1.1 km/h slower than the summer reference, while the slowest Nexen N Blue 4Season 2 lagged by 5.3 km/h.

Below is all the glorious data from the Auto Bild full winter test, in 205/55 R16. These are the top 20 tyres that made it through the 53 tyre shootout, so they're all essentially good tyres, they're just different shades of good.

Auto Zeitung, a German automotive publication, has conducted a tyre test comparing the performance of all-season and winter tyres. The test features 10 premium touring tyres in size 215/55 R17, including three all-season and seven winter options, across various driving conditions.

The test results highlight the difference differences between all-season and winter tyres. In dry conditions, all-season tyres consistently outperformed their winter counterparts, demonstrating shorter braking distances and faster handling times. This showcases their versatility in warmer weather.

The gap between all-season and winter tyres narrowed in wet conditions. While some all-season tyres still excelled, certain winter tyres, notably the Bridgestone Blizzak LM005, showed impressive wet performance, sometimes surpassing their all-season rivals.

As expected, winter tyres generally dominated in snowy conditions. However, the test revealed that some high-quality all-season tyres could compete effectively with winter tyres in light to moderate snow, particularly in traction and lateral grip tests.

As usual, no one does it better than AutoBild. Since revealing the best 15 all season tyres in wet and dry braking, they put the victors through to their full barrage of tests, which includes wear testing!

It's a really fascinating in depth look at the best of the all season tyres in the popular 225/50 R17 size, check out all the data below. The Bridgestone was the best in the pre-test, best in both dry and wet braking, but can it continue its dominance now that there's 15 more categories to grade? 

Here is the 17" version of the excellent ADAC 2024 winter tyre test! As with the 16" ADAC test, there's no huge surprises from the data, it's an impressive showing from Goodyear Dunlop to take the top two places, and Vredestein continues to impress in winter tyre tests with the Wintrac Pro (not the new Plus version.)

Continental will be surprised that its second tier brand Semperit out performed the TS 870 P, and the Davanti Wintoura + manages to offer the worst wet grip and snow grip, which is impressive in its own right. Unusually, there was no Michelin in this test.

The 2024 winter tyre test conducted by Teknikens Värld, a Swedish automotive magazine, evaluated 18 different tyres across various categories, including studded, Nordic non-studded, and Central European winter tyres. The test also included two used tyres to demonstrate how performance changes over time. 

The magazine crowned an overall winner, which we feel is a bit of an odd choice given the differing target requirements. The overall winner of the test was the Continental ContiVikingContact 8, a Nordic non-studded tyre that demonstrated excellent all-round performance. It maintained the strong winter capabilities of its predecessor while significantly improving wet performance and rolling resistance. This proved manufacturers are working to address the traditional weaknesses of Nordic non-studded tyres, particularly in wet conditions.

TireRack, America's leading direct tyre retailer and most trusted source of tyre testing data, has completed their latest Ultra High Performance All-Season test. Using their impressive test facility and a 2024 BMW 330i xDrive, TireRack's expert test team evaluated nine leading tyres across road comfort, noise, and wet and dry track performance.