Auto Bild Allrad

The future belongs to all-season tyres, comments Auto Bild Allrad in the preamble to its 2021 test. It adds that these products have evolved into a true alternative to dedicated summer or winter tyres. This year, the German magazine for 4x4 and SUV enthusiasts evaluated ten brands of all-season tyre in size 215/65 R17. Top honours went to the Hankook Kinergy 4S2 X, a tyre that Auto Bild’s testers declared an “exemplary compromise” for safe driving in all weather conditions.

After carrying out no less than five comparative tyre tests for various Auto Bild titles, specialists Dierk Möller and Henning Klipp have a solid understanding of which all-season and winter tyres they’d gladly recommend, and which they wouldn’t. Auto Bild summarises Möller and Klipp’s findings for the current season in its 42/2021 issue and at the same time names its leading manufacturers in the all-season and winter categories. Three brands occupy the podium’s upper step.

More than a year after its counterpart for conventional saloons came to market, Goodyear is introducing the UltraGrip Performance+ SUV. This addition to the range covers the growing SUV and crossover market by offering consumers a “technology-packed winter tyre that increases the versatility and contributes to the safety of their vehicles.”

In its 2021 summer test, Auto Bild Allrad looks at ten brands of SUV tyres, from a premium product costing £450 for a set of four to a budget tyre almost half the price. On the whole, the test team was impressed with the candidates’ performance and declared six of the ten products either ‘exemplary’ or ‘good’. They declined to recommend just one tyre.

Introducing its 2020 test, Auto Bild Allrad comments that all-season tyres weren’t always highly regarded. Their reputation was one of compromise, of products best suited to drivers who demanded little from their tyres. In the words of the specialist 4x4 and SUV magazine, an all-season tyre “used to be a bad summer tyre and then, in the second half of the year, a bad winter tyre.” But its latest test shows that the story is a very different one these days.

An absence of alps, infrequent sub-zero temperatures and scant snowfalls make winter tyres a hard sell in the UK. And as we’re not legally required to fit our cars with them, we generally don’t. A minority of British motorists nevertheless fit winter tyres for a range of reasons, and when purchase time comes around it is important for them to make informed choices. European tyre tests are a useful source of knowledge here.

Auto Bild has examined the braking test results from recent tyre tests and calculated an average percentage value for these. Based upon these values, it has determined which products are “the best tyres for the cold season”.

It's another tyre test success for Apollo. The Apollo Aspire XP Winter, 4th placed tyre in Auto Bild’s test of 53 winter tyres, is victor in Auto Bild Allrad’s winter tyre test.

All-season tyres have come of age in the past couple of years. Nevertheless, purists still view them as a jack of all trades. But is this always the case? German car magazine Auto Bild Allrad doesn’t think so – its current test of seven SUV tyres in size 235/55 R19 opines that all-season products are no longer a “lazy compromise”.