2017 Winter Tire Tests

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First winter tire test (of 225/45 R18 performance winters) I have seen this season comes from the German magazine Auto Motor und Sport. I don't think ice traction was tested, only snow, wet, and dry. Shina Guide (Russian) has a good summary here:

https://shina.guide/press/11922/#more-11922

Of the ten tires tested, the Continental WinterContact TS850P was scored #1

The Copper Weather Master SA2+ was scored at 10th place.

The Dunlop Winter Sport 5 was scored at 2nd place

The Michelin Pilot Alpin 4 was scored at 4th place

https://translate.google.com/translate?s...&edit-text=

Quote:
...All test events were held in Ivalo (Finland) in the spring of 2017 at an air temperature of -2 ° C to -10 ° C. As a test car used the BMW 430i Grand Coupe with an engine power of 252 hp...

...Unlike other participants of AMS tests, which performed well only in certain test disciplines, the Continental TS850P did not compromise anywhere, and therefore the high overall result of the model in the test made it an excellent option for use in the countries of Central Europe, characterized by a mild winter with a predominance wet and dry roads….
 
Interesting. Looks like a nice and fairly comprehensive test. Thanks for posting!
 
Unfortunately while interesting, most of those tires are not available here so its moderately useless to North America.
 
Originally Posted By: Miller88
I'm in America- I don't need snow tires, just AWD with bald tires!

True, that is a predominant attitude. A friend's daughter traded away a perfectly good FWD car so she could get a 4WD Toyota something or other since she drives 25 miles one-way to work here in southeastern Wisconsin. I tried telling her and her dad that if she got a set of good winter tires for her "old" car that it would be vastly superior to nearly any vehicle with 4 all-seasons. The end result is that my old rear-wheel drive BMW with four winter tires is better in the snow than her new 4WD with all-seasons.
 
Originally Posted By: Miller88
I'm in America- I don't need snow tires, just AWD with bald tires!

lol.gif
Right on the nose!
 
Originally Posted By: Miller88
I'm in America- I don't need snow tires, just AWD with bald tires!

No $h1t, just pass the SALT, please.
 
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The European market has different tires than the North American one, but some are the same. Even here, there are different tire compounds for sale here in Canada that you can't buy in the US, and vice versa.

I am quite happy with my Continental ExtremeWinterContacts but winter tires are very local weather related. Someone in North Dakota won't want the same winter traction features as someone in upstate New York and then there's the Pacific Northwest. All different conditions, and it matters.
 
Originally Posted By: SubLGT
I'm not sure why AMS tested the older Conti TS850P instead of the latest TS860. There is also a TS860S.

https://www.continental-tires.com/car/media-services/newsroom/20170913-new-wintercontact-ts-860-s

Continental has tradition of bumping old model to performance category, kind of tried and proven to segment where mistakes are less forgiving.
While TS850 (had that tire on my car in Europe, hardly anything comes close to that) was go to tire, for performance category TS830P was go to tire and available here in the U.S. I can only hope they will bring TS850P in the U.S. and it will be available for my BMW, as I would by it immediately.
 
Originally Posted By: Miller88
I'm in America- I don't need snow tires, just AWD with bald tires!

As long as it is:
1. Jeep
2. Subaru
3. Pick up truck
 
Originally Posted By: edyvw
Originally Posted By: Miller88
I'm in America- I don't need snow tires, just AWD with bald tires!

As long as it is:
1. Jeep
2. Subaru
3. Pick up truck


I have a Jeep and a Pickup, both 4x4!

I'm all set haha.

Both are horrible in the snow. I'll stickwith my Focus and snow tires
 
My 1999 Wrangler is running BFG All-Terrain KOs; in all but the deepest snow I rarely engage four wheel drive...
 
Originally Posted By: Rand
Unfortunately while interesting, most of those tires are not available here so its moderately useless to North America.


If you want only American market tires to be tested, then you are limited to Consumer Reports annual tires tests, and the occasional testing from C&D, and the tests from Tire Rack. But none of them have winter testing that is as comprehensive as the ones from European and Scandinavian sources.

CR is the worst at testing winter tires, only testing snow acceleration and slow speed braking on ice. All other tests are done under warm conditions. This year they have tested SUV and Pickup tires.

https://www.consumerreports.org/tires/top-truck-and-suv-tires/

Quote:
Consumer Reports experts evaluated 52 tire models for trucks and SUVs from Bridgestone, Continental, Falken, Firestone, Goodyear, Michelin, Nokian, Pirelli, Yokohama, and other manufacturers in our latest round of testing. While many fared well, two brands stood out.
 
Originally Posted By: MCompact
My 1999 Wrangler is running BFG All-Terrain KOs; in all but the deepest snow I rarely engage four wheel drive...


Mud tires and an automatic locker, here . It's downright dangerous.
 
Originally Posted By: SubLGT
Originally Posted By: Rand
Unfortunately while interesting, most of those tires are not available here so its moderately useless to North America.


If you want only American market tires to be tested, then you are limited to Consumer Reports annual tires tests, and the occasional testing from C&D, and the tests from Tire Rack. But none of them have winter testing that is as comprehensive as the ones from European and Scandinavian sources.

CR is the worst at testing winter tires, only testing snow acceleration and slow speed braking on ice. All other tests are done under warm conditions. This year they have tested SUV and Pickup tires.

https://www.consumerreports.org/tires/top-truck-and-suv-tires/

Quote:
Consumer Reports experts evaluated 52 tire models for trucks and SUVs from Bridgestone, Continental, Falken, Firestone, Goodyear, Michelin, Nokian, Pirelli, Yokohama, and other manufacturers in our latest round of testing. While many fared well, two brands stood out.


Of course, the US-based testing isn't as good as the US doesn't have a site for winter testing where due to weather, test conditions can be better controlled. They only thing they can do is ice skating rink testing.

Ivalo, Findland is a popular test center for winter tire tests for a reason, due to its location and thus weather.

Also, CR doesn't allow manufacturers to cheat in their test samples, as they actually go out and buy their test samples locally, versus requesting manufacturers to send samples
 
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