Nearly one in every three tyres sold across Europe these days is an all-season tyre, with more and more motorists discovering the advantages of tyres that can handle winter snow while providing decent performance throughout the summer. To determine which products are best for the job, European motoring clubs ACE and ARBÖ joined forces with testing and certification specialist GTÜ to examine nine all-season tyres in size 215/50 R18.
In its latest joint winter tyre test, motoring association Auto Club Europa (ACE) describes the Bridgestone Blizzak LM005 as being “close to the perfect winter tyre,” having displayed “more than rock solid performance” in all test disciplines. The Bridgestone tyre was the only product to gain ACE’s ‘very recommendable’ rating. The association gave a ‘recommendable’ rating to six tyres and ‘conditionally recommendable’ to one product but declared a further two ‘not recommendable’.
Sometimes a tyre test resembles a day with the mean kids at school, with a low-priced budget tyre invited to hang out – only to be later mocked as vastly inferior to its peers. But not the latest comparative evaluation from European motoring associations ACE, ARBÖ and GTÜ – while everybody doesn’t win a prize, all present are commended for one characteristic or another.
Safe, efficient motoring shouldn’t be the preserve of the wealthy, and anyone seeking excellent value can find this amongst the compact cars available today. The same applies when it comes to the tyres that these cars wear. To help drivers find good but affordable footwear, European motoring associations ACE and ARBÖ, together with vehicle monitoring organisation GTÜ, looked at the popular small car tyre dimension 195/55 R16.
Tyre tests published in the run-up to summer show that the majority of mainstream tyres available in the UK are of a high or very high standard. Europe’s major car magazines and motoring associations recommended most products during the recent spate of testing. Of the 134 individual tyres put through their paces, only a handful weren’t recommended or were found to have serious issues. A further 13 were deemed merely ‘adequate’ or were conditionally recommended.
For its 2018 winter tyre test, German vehicle inspection organisation GTÜ evaluated nine winter tyres together with German motoring organisation ACE and Austrian counterpart ARBÖ. For good measure, it also tested three all-season tyres alongside the winter rubber. The result? An all-season tyre took second place in the winter test.
Every now and then a tyre test throws a surprise our way. We saw that in the ADAC test published last month, in which the affordably-priced Esa-Tecar Spirit 5 HP was found to be “surprisingly good” and was one of the five top-rated tyres. Then there are unpleasant surprises, such as the one Michelin must have received when finding out the results of a new SUV tyre test released by German technical monitoring agency GTÜ together with German and Austrian motoring clubs ACE and ARBÖ. The Michelin Latitude Tour HP ended the test of 11 tyres in last place, behind premium, value and budget competitors alike.
Falken has announced the launch of its latest ultra-high performance tyre for high-end vehicles, the Azenis FK510. The tyre is the company’s response to the continuously growing demand for UHP tyres. The new flagship Falken tyre has already received a ‘Highly Recommended’ rating from testers at German auto magazine, Autozeitung (Issue 6/2016). The German association of technical inspectors, GTÜ, also gave the tyre ‘Highly Recommended’ status.
Three Chinese-made tyres were deemed to have “failed” the wet braking component of the latest summer tyre test jointly released by German motoring magazine Auto Zeitung and GTÜ, the country’s largest officially-recognised independent vehicle inspection organisation. The maker of one of the trio has issued a statement regarding the results.
As a way of introducing its 2016 summer tyre test, German vehicle inspection organisation GTÜ poses the question: Is expensive really better when purchasing tyres? To provide an answer, GTÜ – together with car magazine Auto Zeitung – evaluated 14 size 225/45 R 17 summer tyres that ranged in price between €210 and €430 per set. The test candidates included recent releases from Dunlop, Goodyear, Falken and GT Radial, as well as several products described as “budget tyres from the Far East.”
Having reduced a field of 51 to 19, Auto Bild announced that three of the winter tyres tested had made it all the way to the top of the German magazine’s rankings, picking up “exemplary” ratings. Continental’s WinterContact TS 850, Pirelli’s Winter Snowcontrol Serie 3, and the Barum Polaris 3 were the best performers, according to Auto Bild’s testers, who ranked the tyres based on their performance on snowy, wet and dry roads and their cost. The tests were performed on a VW Polo, with the tyres sized 185/60R15 T.
In its annual winter tyre performance survey, German motoring publication AutoBild narrows a wide field of 49 winter tyres and two all-season tyres with wet and snow braking measurements before conducting a full test of a range of characteristics. 19 tyres made it through to the 2015/16 season test, conducted using the tyre size 185/60 R15.
German vehicle inspection organisation the Gesellschaft für Technische Überwachung (GTÜ) has released one of the season’s first winter tyre tests, and the result are mostly positive. The test of eight size 225/50 R17 H/V tyres was jointly carried out with the Autoclub Europa (ACE), using a BMW 320i as test vehicle. The tyres were subjected to the usual snow, ice and wet tests.
A commonly held view is that Germans are very punctual, and even prone to showing up early. This is certainly the case when it comes to summer tyre tests this year. GTÜ, the German government-accredited vehicle inspection organisation, has published a comparative test of a dozen tyres in the popular compact class size 205/55 R16. What the testers found is that its worth paying for good tyres, and that in general the quality of most tyres continues to improve. Test winner was the Goodyear EfficientGrip Performance, while other premium brands received a “highly recommended” rating from GTÜ. Even the lowest-ranked tyres in the test were given a “conditionally recommended” rating.
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Stephen Goodchild