Which? magazine have just published their test on winter tyres . One of the sizes they tested was 205/55 16 - which is the size fitted to my Auris 1.33TR. The test included: wet and dry handling and braking; braking on, traction on, and cornering on snow; barking and cornering on ice; fuel economy; wear.
The three 'best buys' are: Continental Wintercontact TS830 (score 72%); Goodyear Ultragrip 7+ (69%); and Michelin Primacy Alpin PA3 (68%). The Maloya Davos and the Dunlop SP Winter Sport 3D scored just below a best buy at 66%, and the Vredstein Snowtrac 3 scored 64%.
14 tyres were tested in this size. The worst scoring tyre was the Kenda Polar Trax KR19, which scored just 11%.
The other tyre size tested was 175/65 14. Best buys in this size were: Continental Wintercontact TS800 (75%); Michelin Alpin A4 (72%); Dunlop SP Winter Response (67%). The Maloya Davos was fourth (64%) and the Vredstein Snowtrac 3 fifth (61%). 11 tyres were tested in this size. The worst performer being the Falken Eurowinter HS439 which scored 29%.
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Well, I bought the Continental TS830s last winter, in a 205/55 16", but they fall well short of the Michelins on wear. I have a Saab 9-5 Aero estate (heavy, powerful, FWD). I got one winter out of the Continentals, and three out of the Michelin PA3s, with no significant difference in grip. I really can't see how the Continentals keep coming out on top. I agree that grip is probably more important than wear, but in real life they are pretty similar.
Incidentally, I thought the PA3s had been superseded by PA4s?
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>> Well, I bought the Continental TS830s last winter, in a 205/55 16", but they fall
>> well short of the Michelins on wear. I have a Saab 9-5 Aero estate (heavy,
>> powerful, FWD). I got one winter out of the Continentals, and three out of the
>> Michelin PA3s, with no significant difference in grip.
>>
That's pretty heaver wear. I'm on my fourth winter with the Goodyear UltraGrip 7+ on a FWD diesel with over 300ft lb torque. Last year they went on in September and didn't come off until June due to my summer wheels being away getting cleaned up.
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>>and cornering on snow; barking and cornering on ice; fuel economy; wear<<
Ya gotta be to buy em, some would say!
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There's always many winter tyre tests here. They all throw up different results, but the well known european brands are always at the top, and the chinese, stomils, falken, polar, and every other brand you've never heard of, are always at the bottom. The midfield is nearly always far east brands (excluding chinese).
The problem with testing is all the different types of snow, slush and ice. Wet, dry, worn etc. One test even put a non-studed tyre on par with a studded tyre in the ice test. This pleased the authorities no end, as they are pushing everyone to dump studded tyres due to road wear and dust produced on dry roads. However, the testers then realised that the studded tyres had been tested on virgin ice, and the non studded on ice that had been roughed up by the studded tyres. When they re-did the test with both on virgin ice, the studless weren't anywhere near as good, which all other tests have found.
The government road safety people carried out a study and found that you were something like 50% more likely to get killed or seriously injured driving on winter roads with studless tyres. They believe that studless tyres accounted for something like an extra 20 road deaths each winter. Yet still the road people are still pushing studless tyres.
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>> The other tyre size tested was 175/65 14. Best buys in this size were: Continental
>> Wintercontact TS800 (75%); Michelin Alpin A4 (72%);
Had the Alpin A4's on wifey's Jazz (175/65R15) for the last month. So far, so good.
Last edited by: Bill Payer on Sat 17 Dec 11 at 22:50
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Hallo
I’m editor-on-chief of Russian tyre portal Colesa.ru, and I have a little request about results of the latest tyre test by magazine Which? Unfortunately, they don’t allow online registration from Russia, so we have no possibility to tell our readers about result of that test. It seems that in all Internet you have most information about the test, so please, could you send us results or at least ‘%’ of all tyres. Whole Russia will thank you))) Winter tyres are especially important for us as you may know…
Thank you
Denis Berintsev
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Which? test of winter tyres - Mike H
