All-season tyres disadvantaged in summer conditions – Gute Fahrt test

It was no mistake that Gute Fahrt published just half a new all-season tyre test in its August issue. The German motoring magazine for fans of Volkswagen Group vehicles decided to focus on tyre performance relevant to summer driving in the current magazine, and is making its reader wait until September to find out how lower temperatures and the presence of snow and ice alter the story.

The Gute Fahrt team fitted seven brands of size 235/55 R18 all-season tyres to a VW Tiguan for testing in dry and wet conditions. They also evaluated rolling resistance, comfort and noise levels.

Continental leads the field at the halfway point, with its AllSeasonContact the only tyre from the seven to gain Gute Fahrt’s top ‘very good’ rating. Gute Fahrt tyre tester Dirk Vincken reports that the Continental tyre behaves “almost like a summer tyre.” And when he says “almost,” what Vincken means is that all-season tyres “definitely can’t compete with good summer tyres” when it comes to stopping distances. “With braking distances of around 38 metres on dry asphalt (from 100 km/h), all-season tyres are quite clearly inferior to pure summer tyres, which today tend to take around 34 to 35 metres,” states Gute Fahrt. With stopping distances in the dry of between 37.7 metres (AllSeasonContact) and 39.0 metres (Nokian Seasonproof SUV), this handicap applies to all seven test candidates.

“Physics cannot be tricked,” comments Vincken in regards to this “known and undisputed” disadvantage of all-season tyres, which on the one hand results from their “hybrid summer-winter rubber compound” and on the other from their “numerous tread grooves” that provide grip in winter but “impede a sporty, exact summer driving experience.”

Rated very good

But Gute Fahrt nonetheless characterises the Continental tyre as “safe to drive and interactive in the wet and on dry roads.” In addition, the AllSeasonContact is comfortable, quiet and also has low rolling resistance. For this reason, Gute Fahrt considered the tyre an “all-rounder” and rated it the only tyre tested to offer “balanced” summer performance.

Rated good+

Close behind in the wet and dry testing was the Bridgestone Weather Control A005 Evo and Goodyear Vector 4Seasons Gen-3. Both of these tyres earned a ‘good+’ rating for this first half of the test. The first of these performed better than the AllSeasonContact in the wet braking, lateral aquaplaning and rolling resistance tests but was beaten in the other disciplines. The Goodyear tyre also did well in the lateral aquaplaning tests but delivered just an average result in the wet braking test.

Rated good-

The Pirelli Cinturato All Season SF2 received Gute Fahrt’s ‘good-‘ rating after gaining top marks in the rolling resistance and dry braking tests, a result tempered by “only average” performance in the wet.

Rated satisfactory+

Next came two ‘satisfactory+’ tyres, the Falken EuroAll Season AS210 and Vredestein Quatrac Pro. Gute Fahrt reports that the Falken tyre outshone all the others in dry handling disciplines with sporty, nimble driving characteristics, but otherwise gave a rather “mixed overall picture” with weaknesses seen in the dry braking and rolling resistance tests. The Vredestein tyre gave a respectable account of itself in the wet handling and dry braking disciplines as well as in the comfort/noise tests, but its performance wasn’t best in test.

Rated Satisfactory-

The lowest rating in the Gute Fahrt test so far is the ‘satisfactory-‘ result achieved by the Nokian Seasonproof SUV. Average performance across the spectrum of summer test disciplines pushed the Nokian tyre into seventh place behind competitor products that were “a nose ahead.”