Who likes tyre tests? Continental does, and with good reason. Continental products have won seven of the nine European passenger vehicle tyre tests that we’ve encountered in recent weeks and achieved a none too shabby second place in the eighth. As for the ninth test, no Continental tyre took part, giving other brands a chance to get acquainted with the podium.
Unusually, two tyres won this year’s Tyre Reviews winter tyre test – both the Michelin Alpin 5 and the Bridgestone Blizzak LM005. According to Tyre Reviews founder and head tester Jonathan Benson, “technically the Michelin Alpin 5 did pip the Bridgestone, but it was such a tiny margin I am calling them both test winners.”
In the last part of our series of analyses of the leading tyre websites in the UK, we turn our attention to the subject of tyre comparison web sites. The leading tyre comparison sites in the UK based on third-party traffic data for June 2023, found that Tyrereviews.com attracted by far the most page views. Congratulations to them for that! WhatTyre.com is second-place.
Continental’s new SportContact 7 won its first independent tyre test when Tyre Reviews made it the winner of its 2022 Ultra High-Performance test. The new model improves on the sixth generation SportContact with braking distances eight per cent shorter in the wet and six per cent shorter in the dry. Peter Robb, marketing director at Continental, said: “What a win for the SportContact 7! With the success of its predecessor, this result is evidence of Continental’s commitment to producing class-leading high performance tyres. We are thrilled with the win, especially as it is the first tyre test for the new tyre.”
Tyre comparison website Tyre Reviews has put ten popular tyres for performance cars to the test, making the brand-new Continental SportContact 7 a winner in its first outing on the independent assessment circuit. Reviewer Jonathan Benson fitted the ten tyre combinations to a BMW-powered Toyota Supra in sizes 255/35 R19 (front) and 275/35 R19 (rear) for the test, which he conducted over nine disciplines at Conti’s Contidrom facility. Given that the tyre was proven at the circuit, and is at least 12 months newer than any other product in this test, it is perhaps a little unsurprising that the SportContact 7 prevailed, but with reasonably comfortable first-place finishes in the dry and wet handling and braking tests, Tyre Reviews concludes that the tyre sets “a new standard for the UUHP segment.”
The results of comparative tyre tests are a familiar site on the pages of Tyrepress.com during the autumn, with numerous motoring associations and publications releasing the results of their all-season and winter tests at this time of year. Hankook was present in many of these and victorious in two, the Auto Bild Sportscars winter test and Auto Bild Allrad all-season evaluation. UK site Tyre Reviews also gave the Hankook entrant is editor’s recommendation, exclaiming that the brand seems “to be on a roll at the moment.”
Goodyear’s new Vector 4Seasons Gen-3 sealed two more test victories for the manufacturer that has more all-season test wins than any other. German magazine Auto Bild and British website Tyre Reviews made the tyre their number one in their most recent tests for the rapidly expanding segment. “It’s great to see wins with the Vector 4Seasons Gen-3 product so soon after its launch into the market. We are particularly thrilled to be recognized by prestigious publications such as Auto Bild and Tyre Reviews,” said Mike Rytokoski, chief marketing officer for Goodyear Europe.
Tyre Reviews has made the newly released Goodyear Vector 4Season Gen-3 its 2020 All Season 17” Test winner. Putting nine all-season tyres in size 225/45 R17 through their paces at Goodyear’s testing facilities in Finnish Lapland and the south of France, tester Jonathan Benson gave additional recommendations to four further tyres: Hankook’s Kinergy 4S2 (second place) and the Continental AllSeasonContact (third) were given the review website’s Highly Recommended rating, while the Bridgestone Weather Control A005 (fourth) and Michelin CrossClimate+ (fifth) were Recommended. The weighting of different conditions is particularly relevant to all-season tyre tests, given the promise of functionality in a wide range of climate and road surface conditions. Tyre Reviews opted to award overall scores based on 30 per cent wet, 25 per cent dry, 25 per cent snow, 10 per cent noise and comfort, and 10 per cent rolling resistance. See below for the Tyre Reviews video of the 2020 All Season 17” test, and for additional comments on each of the nine tyres tested.
The world’s top-selling tyre size, 205/55 R16, has been given the Tyre Reviews treatment. The site prodded and poked a dozen specimens to find out which ones deliver safety, comfort, efficiency and value – and which tyres don’t. The results have been distilled into 17 minutes of highly informative video.
A first for Tyre Reviews with its ‘full video’ tyre test, and a first for Goodyear. The 2019 Tyre Reviews UHP Summer Tyre Test is a cracking good watch and makes a refreshing change from the standard, text-heavy test format. It features eight brands of performance rubber, including what the UK-based site calls the “holy trinity of UHP tyres” – the Michelin Pilot Sport 4 S, Continental SportContact 6 and Goodyear’s latest, the new Eagle F1 Supersport.
Consumers are increasingly likely to research their tyres online pre-purchase, regardless of whether they complete an e-commerce transaction. Peer review website Tyre Reviews has therefore become an influential destination in the car tyre market: discussing Tyre Reviews’s audience, owner, Jonathan Benson, states that 94 per cent of Tyre Reviews visitors are engaged in the tyre buying process, with its users predominantly “high earning, well educated, male automotive enthusiasts looking for the best possible product for their vehicle.” In 2017, the site delivered 25 million pageviews to tyre buyers, and claims to have influenced around “one-sixth of UK tyre sales.”
TyreReviews.co.uk has built an influential position within the growing online tyre business sector over the last half-decade. The site’s core focus of user-generated tyre reviews gives visitors the opportunity to present feedback on their experiences with more than 2,500 products; this has resulted in what Tyre Reviews quantifies as “3 billion miles” of motorist feedback. This mileage has helped it to reach around 2.8 million monthly page views (based on March 2016), and as a result the site now claims to influence, via online research, “more than a sixth” of tyre sales in the UK every month. In 2016, the site’s owner, Jonathan Benson, began to publish video tyre reviews himself in addition to the site blog, the most recent of which could be a world first (see video below/on Tyrepress.com). Given the site’s claim to influence such a large proportion of UK tyre sales, Tyres & Accessories also asked Benson for his views on how tyre manufacturers and distributors can increase their own online engagement to capture more of this currently growing market.
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