13 tires ‘life-threatening’ in major tire test
April is coming and that means those winter tires from under your car really need to be removed. Are you ready for new summer tires: we tested a new batch of summer tires in size 205/55 R16, starting with 55 tires and continuing with 20 tires after a selection. Of the 35 dropouts, 13 were even life-threatening according to the tire testers. The three best performers are the Michelin Primacy 4, the Continental PremiumContact and the Bridgestone Turanza 6.
Anyone who wants new tires for his or her car and searches on Google for ‘summer tires in size 205/55 R16’ will see a huge number of hits and offers. Also in AutoWeek’s tire comparator. After all, this tire size has been an absolute bestseller for years, because many compact middle class cars are equipped with it. Models such as the Volkswagen Golf, Opel Astra, Peugeot 308 or the Toyota Corolla. Even people who know about car tires can lose perspective due to the overwhelming selection.
Huge differences in emergency braking at 100 km/h
Our large summer tire test separates the wheat from the chaff in a first safety check. We map the safety margins on special asphalt strips in the ATP test center in Papenburg, Germany (just across the border with Groningen), based on the braking distances on dry and wet road surfaces. The enormous differences that come to light are downright shocking: there is a difference of just less than two car lengths between the best and the worst braking tires during a simulated emergency stop with an initial speed of 100 km/h on dry road surfaces. On wet roads, at an initial speed of 80 km/h, the difference even increases to more than 16 meters! An emergency stop at the end of a traffic jam would result in a collision with the vehicle in front at more than 50 km/h.
Thirteen summer tires even disqualified
Tires with names such as Ceat SecuraDrive, Fortuna Ecoplus or Lassa Driveways were among the thirteen tires that were even disqualified after the emergency braking section at 100 km/h on dry surfaces and 80 km/h on wet surfaces. In the PDF from our magazine that you can download for free as a logged in user, you can see which other tires marked in red have been tested as very dangerous. The tires marked in orange are not qualified as such, for example Semperit Speed-Life 3, Goodride ZuperEco Z-10 and Apollo Aspire 4G, although they were not allowed to participate in the further test components.
Driving behavior, braking, aquaplaning, noise, but also costs and lifespan
The further test components include driving behavior, lateral grip and braking on a wet road surface, as well as hydroplaning and hydroplaning in bends. On dry surfaces, the remaining 20 tires had to demonstrate their performance in braking, noise and handling. Good performance alone was not enough for the remaining summer tires. Costs and lifespan are also included in the scoring.
Michelin Primacy 4, the test winner.
Top ten best summer tires 205/55 R16:
- Michelin Primacy 4+ 91 V
- Continental PremiumContact 7 91 V
- Bridgestone Turanza 6 94 V
- Goodyear EfficientGrip Perform. 2 91 V
- Kumho Ecsta HS52 91 V
- Firestone Roadhawk 91 V
- Falken Ziex ZE310 Ecorun 91 V
- Hankook Ventus Prime 4 91 V
- Toyo Proxes Comfort 94 V
- Dunlop Sport BluResponse 91 V
View on tires.autoweek.nl what the tires cost.
For all results, read the PDF from the magazine that you can download for free as a logged in user with this article.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl