It’s always nice to have a tyre test from British Magazine, and this week the Auto Car have provided us with not one, but two excellent tests.

Testing both 205/55 r16 tyres on a FWD VW Golf and 225/45 r17 tyres on a RWD Mercedes C280, Auto Car visited Uvalde test track in Texas, USA to put the chosen tyres through seven different disciplines.

On test were tyres from Bridgestone, Continental, Dunlop, Goodyear, Michelin and Vredestein echoing Auto Cars message from 2008 - budget tyres aren’t worth the risk, especially in a wet climate like the UK.

Thinking back over my history with tyres, one moment sticks in the mind - the first time I had a set of Michelin Pilot Sports fitted. The aggressive tread design was a work of art, and the performance, at least in the dry, was mind bending. My first set of Pilot Sports lasted an impressive 12,000 miles of pure abuse and were replaced with a set of the then-new, Pilot Sport 2’s. These were just as good in the dry, and even better in the wet but thanks to serious alignment issues with my car, the shoulders were showing canvass just 3000 miles later.

It might still be August, but after an unusually snowy start to 2010 talk has already turned to winter tyres in the UK.

While we’re waiting for the magazines to put together their 2010 winter tyre tests, here’s one of the more interesting articles from 2009. This test is particularly good as it uses a powerful RWD car (Mercedes SLK350) which wears relatively wide 225/45 r17 performance tyres.

Each of the 8 tyres were tested in the snow, on wet roads and in the dry with the scoring emphasis bias towards wet weather and snow performance (these are winter tyres after all!)

While regular car tyres have to balance wet and dry performance, 4x4 tyres have even more to do as they have to potentially cope with high speeds and massive loads on rough terrain.

With this in mind Auto Zeitung have taken 8 of the latest high performance 4x4 tyres and tested their wet, dry and offroad performance. To ensure of the off road performance tests are through, the BMW X5 test vehicle found itself in a mud pool, on sand, skidding over lose dirt and sliding about on wet grass!

Read on...

Providing an enjoyable change from the usual Ultra High Performance tyre tests, Auto Zeitung have rated 10 Premium Touring tyres across the usual range of wet and dry tests. As with its other 2010 tyre tests, they have included a rolling resistance test ensuring the fuel economy of the tyre is included in the final score.

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Mix eleven 235/35 r19 ultra high performance summer tyres, one 300bhp Ford Focus RS and a large dose of German attention for detail and you end up with one awesome tyre test!

In 2010 Sport Auto have tested 3 of the newest big brand tyres (Bridgestone Potenza S001, Continental Sport Contact 5P and the new Pirelli P Zero), Korea's latest darling (Hankook S1 EVO) and 7 other of the usual max performance contenders - it should be a good shoot out!

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We'll keep this brief! In 2010 Auto Zeitung have tested 9 ultra high performance summer tyres on a 200bhp VW Scirocco.

The magazine covers aquaplaning resistance (where sensors determine the speed at which a tyre floats in 7mm of standing water), braking (from 62mph in both the wet and dry), a timed lap in the wet and dry, and how the cars respond on the limit. Added for this year, Auto Zeitung also tested the rolling resistance of each tyre using a dedicated machine.

Key highlights include...

Click to read on

EVO magazine has a huge amount of respect in the industry, making their tyre test in 2007 one of the most talked about tyre tests of the year. Since 2007 the Germans have put out a number of excellent group tyre tests, but the pages of EVO have remained strangely devoid of the black boots. Thankfully this month that has all changed.

Feeling the high expectations the EVO writers selected 9 tyres to test and visited the Contidrome in Germany to put them through their paces over 9 different tests.

As EVO chose an MX5 as their test mule which has relatively small rear tyres (205/45 r17), the choice of high performance tyres was somewhat limited and the final mix a little bizarre.

Tyres on test:
- Bridgestone Potenza RE050A
- Continental Contisportcontact 3
- Hankook Ventus K12 EVO
- Kumho Ecsta LE Sport KU39
- Michelin Pilot Exalto PE2
- Uniroyal Rainsport 2
- Vredstein Ultrac Cento
- Yokohama Advan Neova AD08
- Zeetex HP103

Continue Reading...

The tyre reviews total tyre guide is now live. The guide is a collection of articles explaining everything about tyres, from how they are made, the meaning of all the side wall markings, right to the differences between summer and winter tyres and the best way to purchase them online!

In the past few years budget and mid range brands have taken the tyre market by storm. Tyres like the Falken FK452, Toyo T1R and Uniroyal Rainsport 2 have proven to be excellent performing and cost effective compared to some of the premium offerings. This year however, it seems the premium manufacturers have stepped up a notch and all released excellent updates to their ranges. The 2009 Auto Motor und Sport [AMS] tyre tests was dominated by premium brand tyres and AMS believe premium cars, like the Mercedes E-Class used in this tyre test, should be run with premium tyres.

Most tyre innovations come from the big 6 manufacturers and patents are quickly awarded stopping the budget manufacturers replicating their discoveries. Due to this, AMS decided to test tyres from what it considers to be the "top 10" premium manufacturers. The big 6 are Goodyear, Pirelli, Continental, Dunlop, Bridgestone and Michelin and also included in the test is Uniroyal who are part of Continental, Vredestein which have been recently been bought by the Indian giant Apollo Tires, Nokian who are an independent manufacturer from Finland and Hankook, a Korean "mid range" brand who are quickly moving into the premium sector.

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Price comparison websites are big news online, with sites like Kelkoo and Pricerunner generating hundreds of millions of pounds worth of business for their retailers each year.

Despite the success of these “shopping engines”, none have been able to feature tyres particularly well. This is partly due to the infancy of tyre retail online, and partly down to the very unique nature of tyre selling.

Recently typepriceadvisor.co.uk has made a good attempt at offering this service but with their results just driven by tyre size, not tyre models it’s not quite there. Thankfully things have just changed.

If you're interested in premium, ultra high performance sports tyres this is the tyre test to read. Germanys leading car publication Auto Bild has thoroughly tested no less than 7 premium ultra high performance road tyres on a 457bhp 6.3 litre Mercedes C63 AMG.

Click on to read the full tyre test

Nige (also affectionately known as wh00sher on pistonheads.com) does a few trackdays. 10,000 track miles in the last 2 years to be precise, which includes over 650 laps at the 'Ring. His weapon of choice is a 980kg, 160bhp FWD MK2 Golf.

After growing tired of receiving contradicting tyre information from the paddock he took it upon himself to try and find the best of the bunch and went through sets of Toyo R888, Yokohama A048, Dunlop DZ02's and Kumho V70a over a period of 2 years.

His writeup is excellent, so much so that we asked if we could reprint it here in all it's glory. He graciously agreed and here it is!

Keen to help tyre buyers select the best tyre for the 2010 warm season, the German auto club ADAC, Switzerland’s Touring Club (TCS) and Austrian magazine AMTC (Automobile, Motorcycle and Touring Club) have already published this years group summer tyre test. The usual dry and wet performance tests have been performed, along with scoring for fuel consumption, wear rates and tyre noise in this extremely comprehensive test.

Like the AMS tyre test the major brands have once again dominated the results table with Pirelli, Dunlop, Continental, Michelin, Bridgestone and Goodyear taking 10 of the top 12 positions.

Both Nokian and Hankook have once again proved their strength in the midrange category and finished the tests amongst the "big 6", where as the budget brands Goodride, Wanli and Sunny were described as being dangerous thanks to their woeful dry and wet performance.

Too good to be true? A tyre test with premium ultra high performance tyres, mid range performance AND trackday semi slick tyres. Australian MOTOR magazine has done just that! Follow the link below for the results of the test.

Is this the new high performance king? Read on to the 2009 Auto Zeitung Summer Tyre Test with some surprising results!