SUMMER TYRE TEST TEST WINNER Nokian Wetproof and 205/55 R 16 The tyre size 205/55 R16 is matter whether it’s a VW Golf, Hankook and Nokian. the most popular one in compact cars. On a closed an Opel Astra or a Ford Focus; The tyre dimension we chose is test track, the testers who cares if it’s a hatchback or a “development size” for many determine lateral grip and a combi: they have to be spacey tyre manufacturers anyway. braking distances among and not too expensive! This means that it’s this size that other things. They have something else in the tyre engineers keep fiddling common though in addition to about, trying to find the perfect these requirements: you can fit profile and the right mixture. The No matter whether on a dry the tyre size 205/55 R16 to nearly test drivers then rack up millions or wet surface: the tyres all of the compact cars (see page of kilometres all over the world. have to stick to the ground 18). This makes the dimension We couldn’t run quite so many as much as possible. Only one of the most popular ones on test kilometres; however, we still then the braking distances the German market. Based on tried to cover all the everyday are short and the car can our search criteria (top speed of situations during a busy week. The stop in front of an obstacle 240 km/h, load capacity: 615 kg), tyres had to show what they could in emergency situations. The more than 350 variants can be do in twelve disciplines. Parti- mixture cannot be too soft found on an online platform. cular attention was paid to their either though; otherwise Together with the GTÜ (German performance on wet roads: this the rubber would be smeary Society for Technical Supervision) accounted for 80 out of 170 points and the tyres would run and our Austrian partner club in the ACE Summer Tyre Test. It’s down after a few rounds in ARBÖ, we chose nine models for exactly when a heavy rain shower threshold ranges. testing in a price range between surprises the driver and he or she THE TYRES FIT THE FOLLOWING MODELS: Audi A3 (from 2013) BMW 1 Series (from 2011) Ford Focus (from 2011) Hyundai i30 (from 2012) Mercedes-Benz A-Class (from 2012) Opel Astra (from 2004) Peugeot 308 (from 2007) Renault Mégane (from 2003) Škoda Octavia (from 2013) VW Golf (from 2003) Summer tyres for compact cars ull of great things making just under 70 and 100 euros. suddenly cannot see anything Four lives better – let’s get the There are no cheap tyres this when things can get dangerous. weekend feeling...,” banged the time. We had already noticed in In these situations, short braking 1990s yoghurt ad from the TV, earlier tests that the alleged chart distances can be lifesaving; but About grip and feeling leaving an earworm in the heads climbers couldn’t keep pace with they are not everything. What of many viewers even in these high-end products. We decided is a short braking distance good For spectacular images Tested: Nine current summer tyres having the popular compact days for sure. What you couldn’t instead to include tyres by the for if the tyre starts floating in of our tyre tests see our car dimension 205/55 R16 with a price lower than 100 euros. see back then was the car of the big market players Bridgestone, an aquaplaning situation and the Youtube film at: The quality of the test tyres is convincing; however, only three family of three though. It was like- Continental, Dunlop, Goodyear, adhesion suddenly gets lost? Or if www.ace.de/reifentest models achieved the best rating. ly a compact car. As in spite of the Michelin and Pirelli and supple- the tyre is perfect on wet roads but SUV boom compact cars are still ment them with the established only delivers second-class results popular with families. It doesn’t but less known brands Falken, on dry ones? Those who want to the Conti PremiumContact 6 has a roads, is extremely challenging on are not bad; however, they are still Leichte faltbare similar braking performance, it can’t wet roads, switching between unde- pretty far from the best rating. Elektromobile quite keep pace in aquaplaning in rsteering and oversteering. As such, For those who mainly look at the flexibel. mobil. kompakt. curves. This is on the other hand it is hard to predict how it would price tag: the Hankook and Falken what the Dunlop Sport BluRe- behave in dangerous situations. tyres are ahead here. The average sponse is at home at; however, in On wet roads, it is the Bridgestone price of a set is lower than 300 euros braking on wet roads it was clearly and Conti tyres which are at the top. It according to the BRV (Associati- outperformed by the other two. The is the Conti which provides sufficient on of German Tyre Retailers). The The “side aspects” are Nokian and Conti tyres need just reserves – even if it sometimes goes Michelin tyres cost 100 euros more. increasingly important under 32 meters to stop from 80 around the curve faster. It is also The market is subject to significant in tyre development as This is how different the be convincing in everyday situations rer Nokian managed to produce the km/h; the Dunlop tyres on the other easily controllable for less experienced fluctuations though. If you want to well: how much noise conditions can be: first a and in our tests need to manifest by far best rain tyre. In addition to hand need almost one vehicle len- drivers. In threshold ranges it rather save money when buying new tyres, does the tyre produce high grip on hot asphalt, good properties in all the disciplines. very short braking distances on wet gth more (35.8). Only the Goodyear has a tendency to understeer, pushing it is worth to compare the prices, and how large is the then standing water on This year, the quartet of Bridgesto- roads, the tyre started floating only (37.1) and Falken (37.4) tyres did slightly outward over the front axle, obtain a few quotes and then go for rolling resistance? We the track; a good summer ne, Continental, Dunlop and Nokian late during the aquaplaning test worse than that. always giving a safe feeling though. the best one. Four tyres should fit measure both on the test Joystick-Steuerung tyre has to handle both. was the most successful. There is and its wet handling is very convin- As for the handling course, there The differences on dry roads are thus into most compact combi cars. And track and in the lab. The beidseitig montierbar just a one-point difference between cing thanks to a nearly perfect la- are already significant differences meanwhile only minor. contrary to weekly grocery shopping, values often don’t have these candidates. A bit surprising is teral grip. It is thus really worthy of in the middle class. An example: A bit surprising is this year’s overall new tyres make for a perfect feeling much in common with the the fact that with their brand new its name, representing a benchmark the Hankook Ventus Prime3, which low rating of the two big names: not just for a brief moment. tyre labels. “Wetproof”, the Finnish manufactu- on wet roads this year. Even though is very easily controllable on dry Michelin and Pirelli. Both the tyres Constantin Hack Manufacturer Max. Nokian Dunlop Continental Bridgestone Falken Goodyear Efficient Hankook Michelin Pirelli Tyre Type points Wetproof Sport BluResponse PremiumContact 6 Turanza T005 ZIEX ZE310 Ecorun Grip Performance Ventus Prime3 Primacy 4 Cinturato P7 WET SAFETY Wet braking 30 28 20 28 20 17 18 22 20 22 Wet handling (measured value) 5 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 4 3 Jetzt anrufen , Wet handling (subjective) 10 8 8 7 8 7 8 6 6 6 morgen zu Hause Wet circuit 5 3 3 4 4 3 3 2 3 2 Longitudinal aquaplaning 20 15 18 14 16 18 14 13 17 15 testen! Lateral aquaplaning 10 8 10 5 8 10 9 5 7 4 THIS IS HOW WE TESTED Chapter evaluation 80 66 63 62 60 59 56 51 57 52 DRY SAFETY Vor Ort To perform this summer tyre test, we went Dry braking 30 26 25 27 27 24 24 26 24 23 Probefahren to the Bridgestone test track in Italy in the Dry handling (measured value) 15 10 12 12 12 12 12 11 9 8 Testen autumn of 2018. Since the conditions on Dry handling (subjective) 15 9 12 12 12 12 9 12 10 9 the test track keep constantly changing Chapter evaluation 60 45 49 51 51 48 45 49 43 40 and could have an impact on the results, ENVIRONMENT/COST EFFECTIVENESS Mieten oder 10 8 7 7 6 7 8 10 8 7 we repeated all the tests several times Pass-by noise kaufen Rolling resistance 20 17 18 17 18 15 19 16 17 16 Mieten and used reference tyres repeatedly as Chapter evaluation 30 25 25 24 24 22 27 26 25 23 well. For instance to measure the braking SUMMARY OF TECHNICAL PROPERTIES 170 136 137 137 135 129 128 126 125 115 distance on wet roads, the cars were approx. price for 4 tyres in euros 304 344 368 344 296 340 292 392 336 Sichern Sie sich accelerated to 80 km/h ten times, and then Price rating 20 17 15 14 15 17 15 17 12 15 Ihren MovingStar full braking was performed with an acti- OVERALL RATING Kaufen 190 153 152 151 150 146 143 143 137 130 vated ABS.