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Continental has been awarded top spot in monthly car magazine, evo’s annual tyre test, published in its February edition. The evo performance tyre test, in its third year, measured such performance indicators as wet and dry handling, aquaplaning and braking using 225/40 R18 sized tyres on a range of high-end cars at MIRA. The magazine described Conti’s tyre as giving “an impressively complete performance”.
Uniroyal has reacted to its RainExpert tyre being awarded “best buy” status by Which? Car in the November 2011 edition. Praised across several areas such as wet grip and dry braking, the RainExpert in size 175/65 R14T achieved an overall rating of 67 per cent with Which? commenting: “The RainExpert does exactly what it says on the tin, providing top-of-the-class wet grip, with five stars for grip on the straight and in bends.”
Even though this winter has been relatively mild compared with the past couple of years, Michelin is expecting a strong increase in cold weather tyre sales in the UK. Staffordshire based newspaper The Sentinel reports the tyre maker is expecting sales of winter tyres to reach the half-million mark this season, some 50 per cent more than a year earlier and more than three times more than three years ago.
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company has received plaudits from American consumer magazine, Consumers Digest in its January/February 2012 issue. In the “All-Season Car Tires” category, Goodyear’s Assurance TripleTred All-Season was the editors’ selected Premium tyre, receiving “Best Buy” designation. The company’s Assurance ComforTred Touring was awarded a Best Buy label in the “Touring Car Tires” category.
Michelin’s product marketing manager, Steve Dolby has said that Which? magazine’s winter tyre tests – in which the manufacturer’s Alpin A4 and Primacy Alpin PA3 cold weather tyres were awarded “best buy” ratings – will help to raise awareness amongst consumers and educate them about the benefits of fitting cold weather tyres during the winter months.“There has been considerable interest from UK consumers in cold weather tyres this year,” Dolby said, “and sales so far are estimated to be more than half a million tyres – up nearly 50 per cent over the same period last year.”
Following the European authorities’ announcement of the latest tyre labelling regulations, Continental has also given more freshly released details of the labelling legislation, breaking them down into a more digestible form. As far as the wet braking category is concerned, vehicles with tyres in Class A stop are set to stop in the shortest distance from 50mph, whilst vehicles with tyres from Class B will take 3-6 metres longer. This trend continues for the subsequent values and results in a braking difference of over 18 metres from a vehicle in Class A to Class F.
You need to look carefully to spot the ‘+’ sitting alongside the familiar Marathon name, yet the addition of this symbol is said to represent a sizable decrease in rolling resistance and thus reduced vehicle operating costs. Goodyear has introduced its latest generation commercial vehicle tyre range, the Marathon +, and says rolling resistance in its new LHD II+ and LHS II+ drive and steer tyres is seven per cent lower than in their predecessors.
Four recent independent tests in Europe have recommended Goodyear’s UltraGrip 8 winter tyre. Tests conducted by Auto Motor und Sport; Germany's largest automobile club, Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club (ADAC); and its Austrian counterpart Österreichische Automobil-, Motorrad- und Touring Club (ÖAMTC) support similar conclusions drawn by previous 2011 tests by Germany’s AutoZeitung and GTÜ magazines. The UltraGrip 8 was launched in early 2011, and is Goodyear’s first directional tyre to use patented 3D-BIS (Block Interlocking System) Technology throughout the entire tread pattern.
Nokian’s new WR D3 winter tyre has been awarded victory in German car magazine Sport Auto’s winter tyre test 2011. The Finnish brand scored 99/100 for its snow performance and 68/70 in the dry. “Nokian is clearly ahead of the others with regard to winter properties. In the dry you can rely on it, too,” said Sport Auto. The tyre, priced at 169 euros, was the most economically priced tyre, with the most expensive tyre tested costing 57 euros more. Only premium winter tyres in the dimension 225/45-17 were tested.
Continental has won the 2011 Auto Express winter tyre test, published this week (12 October). A parallel test in Auto Express’s high performance sister publication Evo awarded Continental top marks. In both titles, Continental's ContiWinterContact TS830P 91 H took the top spot in this year’s winter tyre awards.
Including a Continental summer tyre, which was used as a reference point, and a Dunlop SP Winter Sport 4D that was curiously described as a “pre-production” product and was not rated, Auto Express tested 10 tyres. For reasons described above 8 were given ratings. Six were winter tyres, three all season and one summer. All were H – V rated 225/45 R17 sized products.
Just 0.7 per cent behind Continental’s winning score (100), second place was taken by Goodyear’s UltraGrip Performance 94 V. While no official mark was given, Auto Express explained that the Dunlop SP Winter Sport 4D would have come third if it was not a “pre-production” model. As it happens Pirelli’s Sottozero Winter 240 Serie II took third place with a score of 98.9. Michelin’s Alpin 4 94V came fourth and scored 98.7.
The annual Auto Express tyre test, published yesterday (8 September, 2011), awarded Goodyear’s Eagle F1 Asymmetric 2 top place and a “Best Buy 2011” endorsement. Michelin’s Pilot Sport 3 also received a “Recommended” rating, coming in second and scoring very highly all round. The magazine tested ten tyres from top-selling manufacturers, using the popular 225/45R17 size fitted to Volkswagen Golf GTIs. Ten tyres were supplied by each manufacturer, while Auto Express also bought two sets at random, to ensure fair testing. The tests, including wet and dry characteristics, cabin noise and rolling resistance, were completed at Bridgestone’s cutting edge testing facility in Aprilia, Italy.
A testing crisis may be looming at Pirelli. The Italian tyre maker’s motorsport director Paul Hembery shared with Autosport that he foresees future issues with the Toyota TF109 Pirelli currently uses for Formula One tyre tests. “We cannot get access to current cars, and nobody wants to seem to give us an answer or a solution,” Hembery commented. “As much as Toyota has done a good job, you can only go forward so far before we have no access to testing. We want to be a good partner for the sport and we want to try and deliver the best product, but until we can test and verify our own results it is becoming a little bit more difficult."
Linglong tyres have been described as the “dark horse” of tyre testing after finishing fourth in a study conducted by Finnish firm Test World Oy. The firm’s tyres reportedly left the experience test drivers of with a good impression “especially in aspects of driving behaviour on wet roads.” According to a news item on Linglong’s website, Test World’s 2011 Summer tyre test examined more than 12 brands including tyres from Goodyear, Continental and Bridgestone. Linglong entered its Green-Max product into the test.
Following its victory in the German PS motorcycle sports magazine tyre tests on 5 May, Bridgestone’s Battlax BT-016 Pro Hypersport is back on the podium again, singled out by Germany’s Motorrad magazine as the “best motorcycle sports tyre in the rain” and joint overall winner of its 2011 sports tyre test. Motorrad tested two 2011 newcomers, including the redesigned Battlax BT-016 Pro, against the best tyres from 2010 in a comparative evaluation of 180/55 tyres on a Honda CBR 600RR on the race circuit, open road and wet track.
The Falken Tyres brand is owned by Sumitomo Rubber Industries, the sixth largest manufacturer in the global tyre ranking with manufacturing facilities across Asia including plants in Japan, Thailand, Indonesia and China. It was created in 1983 and was first sold in the US and Europe some years later. While the brand has an active motorsport presence in events such as the prestigious 24 Hours at the Nürburgring, it argues that its knowledge acquired in that arena is transferred immediately to its road tyre R&D team in Japan. Tyres & Accessories interviewed Satoru Ushida, marketing director at Falken Tyre Europe.
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