Winter Tyres Testing Overview

Snow tyres, studless friction tyres, extreme winter tyres, Nordic winter tyres. This is a category of tyre with many names but one design goal, to be the very best in snow and ice where studded tyres aren't appropriate or for people who just don't want to fit studded tyres. To find out which tyre is best in this category, I've taken seven of the most popular tyres available in both the North American and European markets and I'm going to be putting them through a full range of tests including ice, snow, wet and dry testing. rolling resistance, noise, comfort, to give you the best idea of what tyre is best at what, and hopefully which tyre is best overall. Also, to highlight exactly what the design goal of this type of tyre is, I've taken the very best Central European winter tyre, the Continental Winter Contact TS870, and one of the very best Nordic studded tyres, the Nokian Hakapelita 10, and I'm including them in this test as a reference to highlight the differences between the different categories of tyres. On test, we have the Continental Viking Contact 7. the cooper weathermaster s100 the federal himalaya iso the michelin x-ice snow the nokian hackerpleta r5 the prelli ice zero fr and the yokohama ice guard ig53 i am going to run this test from slippiest to grippiest and actually that could be a new channel slogan but before i tell you the results of ice which i'm starting with i want to explain to you just how difficult ice is as an example the first time i did ice testing it was going really well up until the very last set because when i was getting the tires changed the sun came out When I ran the control at the end of the test, the track had lost five seconds of time. Throw the results out. That was a waste of essentially a day. A little bit of snowfall, throw the results out. The track gets grippier. Too much temperature change, even without the sun, the ice changes. Throw the results out. In the end, I had to test into the night to get the best data possible. As for the results, well, none of the tires were actually bad. None of them were a disaster. There was one that was the worst, and that was the Federal. Now, this was about... 10% off the best, so it did have significantly lower grip, but it wasn't like threatening to throw me into a snowbank or anything. You were just slower, and the biggest issue with the tyre was the understeer. You had to be very, very careful on the throttle, because as soon as you looked at it, the car would be pushing off to the side. So, lower levels of grip for the Federal, but I think it is the cheapest tyre on test. Yokohama, Cooper, and Prelli were next. Now, again, none of these tyres bad to drive, considering this is a... Rough, semi-rough ice surface. It's definitely not polished and smooth. The levels of grip were all mega impressive. With these tyres, you just had to be a little bit more delicate with everything, as opposed to the regular amount of delicate you have to be on ice. Obviously, ice is very slippy. The top three tyres, all within a few percent of each other, were Nokian, Michelin and Continental. Now, Continental was actually the fastest of the three, but I'm going to say it was the most difficult to drive. It is not a difficult tyre to drive. It wasn't bad. but these are very small differences but the continental had very very good grip but once you passed the limit of grip it was just a little bit more sudden and a little bit more dramatic than the other two top tires the michelin was probably my favorite of the three to drive the michelin did give you the ability to really go into the corners hard and the nokian well the inventors of winter tires seem to know something about winter tire shock horror it was just a beautiful tire to drive in every direction, like the Michelin, like a lot of the tyres, but a little bit more. It was a really, really nice, balanced, safe-feeling, responsive tyre, and it had good grip. So, excellent. As for the Central European winter tyre, the Studded winter tyre, what an impressive tyre the Winter Contact TS870 is. It was almost as fast as the slowest winter tyre, which I think you're going to understand how impressive this is later in the video when we get to dry and wet testing. And it was just an easy tyre to drive consistently. The grip was less. It was slower than the Nordics. It's not designed to be run in such extreme winters. But wow. As for the studded winter tyre, now this was an interesting one. This is designed for ice. And it did feel exceptional traction and braking. But on this semi-rough, rough ice surface, in the corners, I was picking up a lot of understeer. Which is... harmful for your time around a lap like this. So it wasn't the fastest. Now this does sometimes happen, but I'm confident that the data is correct that on this rough ice surface, Nordic winter tyres, Nordic studless winter tyres, extreme winter tyres, are now that good on rough ice. It's incredible the grip they offer without pokey bits of metal going into the surface. However, I'm very confident The stud winter tyre will still have an advantage on smooth ice. And it did. A huge advantage with nearly twice the traction ability than the next best tyre, showing the advantages studs have. Nokian, Continental and Michelin were the best of the studless tyres in both ice traction and ice braking, with Cooper and Federal struggling a little bit more. The Central European tyre naturally was at a disadvantage to the rest of the tyres on test. Snow handling. Now because of the car and the fact it's quite a slow course here, a lot of the tyres are very close together. Which is great because it means all the tyres designed to do well in snow are actually quite good in snow. We'll see how that rolls on throughout the video. Yokohama, Cooper and Federal were at the back of the pack. Now like in the ice, they weren't bad. You just had to do things a little bit more slowly. They weren't dramatically shocking in any ways. but they just offered less grip the front four were within one percent of each other so incredibly close and that was michelin continental proly and nokian being the fastest of the top four like on ice the continental was probably a little bit more snappy with its grip between grip and no grip but had very good grip uh the michelin really really friendly tire to drive as was the nokian both the michelin and nokian were exceptionally wonderful easy I just really like them. But my favorite, by the tiniest of margin, was the Prelli. It just gave you a little bit more grace when sliding than the other three top tires, but all of them were exceptional. All of them were within 1% of each other, which is almost the margin for error. I mean, we calculate these things very carefully. We do laps and average them out, and that is as close as a test can be. The European winter TS870 again pretty much matched the worst of the extreme winter tyres in the snow. It's a very impressive result and again a nice easy tyre to drive. And this time the studded Hakapelita 10, which is a test winning studded winter tyre, was joint first with the Nokian Hakapelita R5. So technically Nokian won this test twice. Because everything's exceptionally close in this test. I'm actually going to do snow circle which isn't something I do very often and then we're going to talk about the traction and braking of the tires which is obviously a key safety test especially for an extreme nordic studless snow winter tire or whatever you want to call them. Yokohama jumped to the front of snow braking with an impressive result narrowly beating Nokian and Continental. With all the studless winter tyres covered by just over half a metre, the results were impressive for all the tyres. Snow traction was equally as close, this time with Nokian jumping to the front, a little ahead of Continental and Prelli. As in Snow Circle, the Central European winter tyres surprisingly beat three of the Nordic compound tyres, highlighting how good a tyre it really is. Okay, so usually this is the part where I sit in a car sliding around and tell you how the tyre's handling the wet and the dry. But given these tyres are so focused on winter ability, it seems a bit efficient. We don't want this video to be 25 minutes long so I'm trying to keep everything a bit shorter. That's not to say I've not done the wet and dry testing of course I have and I've even managed to test when the temperature was below 7 degrees which represents a bit more of realistic use for these types of tires and the results were awesome so let's go through them quickly now. Even though these tires are going to see a lot of snow and ice in their life wet is still very important. Of the seven Cooper was the slowest of the group and was difficult to drive with limited grip in just every direction. Yokohama was the next last. lowest this was the only tire that made the Golf have a very loose rear end and while oversteer is fun it wasn't what I'd call the best balance for the road. Federal for fifth it felt like it had much better grip than the previous two but the steering was a bit vague and numb and then the Nokian in fourth had great balance and what felt like excellent grip but it was one of only two tires in this group that felt like it was aquaplaning at multiple parts during the lap which was costing it time. The top three were very very close and were formed of Prelli, Michelin and Continental. All three of these tires were a joy to drive. If I had to give the win to one, it would be the Michelin by the smallest of margins in terms of balance and steering reactions. However, the Continental clearly had the most grip as it was the fastest of the three, while it had the same micro aquaplaning issues that slowed down the knock-in. So very impressive wet grip for the Continental. The aquaplaning test thankfully backed up my subjective thoughts with the knock-in and Continental having the worst aquaplaning performance over the straight and curved test with the Michelin proving to be the best in both of these water tests. Keep in mind this is very impressive considering Michelin did so well in wet handling and in my head this is probably going to be a good result for slush though I don't actually know that and slush is something that's very difficult to test. The all-important wet braking test was led by Federal with Continental, Nokian and Michelin all performing well. I'm really not sure how the Federal jumped so far up the order here. I knew what I was on when I was doing the braking test and it was definitely this good in braking so you've got to respect that result even if if it is at odds with the rest of the wet tests. If you've been looking at the data on screen, you may have noticed two things about the reference tires. Firstly, there's no data for the studded tire. That's because the test facility I conducted the braking and handling tests at didn't allow studded tires on the tracks due to track damage, which I totally respect. But more importantly, You should have noticed that the Central European Continental Winter Contact TS870 absolutely dominated the wet test. It wasn't even close. I actually wrote in my notes when testing this is how I imagine most people imagine going from a row tire to a slick tire would be only it's a bigger difference and it's still a winter tire. But then I also wrote yeet too so perhaps my notes aren't the best reference. There is a reason for this huge advantage the Central European tire has over the studless soft compound tire. To make a tire grip well on ice something has to give and sadly it's the wet performance of a tire. They just don't work together with today's technology. This is a solid reminder that you should pick the tire that's best suited to where you live and what conditions you'd expect as we've now proven scientifically that while a soft compound winter tire excels in snow and particularly ice there are drawbacks. So think carefully about what type of tire you're shopping for. Fortunately the dry handling data almost perfectly matched the dry braking data so I'll summarise them both together. The Continental was the best in both handling and braking with the Prelli close behind it in terms of grip and subjective handling. The Nokian was also excellent around the dry handling lap and was fourth in braking, closely followed by the Michelin. Like in the wet, the Federal, Yokohama and Cooper were the slowest over the lap with the Federal being particularly difficult to drive. And like in the wet, the Federal was much better in dry braking than dry handling. They must have tuned this tyre. just to stop a car and do very little else. If I've done my job properly by this point it should be no surprise that the Central European winter tyre held its wet advantage in the dry too, though certainly not as vast, but it was hugely noticeable still especially in braking so again keep that in mind. What about noise and comfort? The Nokian and Continental led the way in the internal noise measurements with the Central European winter tyre joint third with Michelin. The Nokian was also the most comfortable tyre subjectively, tying for points with the far noisier Federal and Yokohama, so if you want a quiet and comfortable tyre, the Nokian is probably the tyre to have because it sells in both those categories. The rolling resistance of the top four performing tyres was only split by 4%, which is a pretty insignificant difference in fuel use in the real world, maybe around 1%. But then the next group of tyres dropped 15% from the best, and the Federal was 32% behind. which you'd certainly notice when filling up your car. For the overall results, I'm gonna use a score weighting which matches these tires intended use, i.e. heavily in favor of the snow and ice performance of the tires. If you want to use a different score weighting, you can now alter all this data to your own taste on the Tire Reviews website linked in the description. Go check that out and leave a review of your tires while you're there, because it'll really help me out. Thank you. In last place was the Federal Himalaya ISO. And after the testing, I'm wondering if it's named that. because that's the sound you make when you hit ice. It's like ice, oh! As it did have the worst ice traction, braking, and handling by quite a margin. Its snow performance was a little better, but it still struggled in traction. And while it wasn't the grippiest tyre around the wet handling lap, it did perform extremely well in wet braking. It also did have exceptionally high rolling resistance, which leaves it in seventh place overall. The Cooper Weathermaster S100 finished in sixth. And while it didn't struggle on ice as much as the Federal, it did have more of an issue in the dry and the wet. In fact if we ignore the hydroplaning test results where it did finish a respectable third in straight and second in curved its best result was fifth of seven and had a string of sixth and seventh places. The Yokohama Iceguard IG53 peaked in snow braking where it had a surprise win but that was the only standout result. It had the longest braking in the wet and dry, it was mid pack on ice and was the noisiest tyre on test. It did however have one of the lowest rolling resistances on test. A tyre like this is certainly a better buy than a tyre like the Federal but it still sits behind the rest of the group in fifth. The Prelli i-Zero FR was a fun tire to drive and a well-deserved fourth overall. Its only weakness was snow braking, but that was only 3.3% off the best. It excelled in snow handling, being the fastest and nicest tire to drive. It had excellent snow traction. It was good on ice, and it was very good in the wet and the dry. I'm recommending the i-Zero FR as a good all-round tire. The best three tires in test, and this is in alphabetical order, not results order, I'll explain why in a second, is the Continental Viking Contact 7, Michelin Xi Snow and the new Nokia Hakkaplita R5. All three of these tyres are a clear step ahead of the rest of the tyres and in fact they're all so close on points I'm not sure I can call just one of them a winner as even small tweaks in the score weighting change the order it can reverse first to third. In fact their performances are so similar in all of the tests I've even found it hard to define where each tyre has the advantage but I'm gonna try. The Continental was the best in the dry and had a small advantage in the wet grip test, but did struggle in the deep water of the two aquaplaning tests. It was excellent in the snow and ice. It had the lowest internal noise and it was a comfortable tire. But of the top three tires, it did have the highest rolling resistance, but even that was just 3.1% off. The Michelin couldn't quite match the Continental in the dry, but was essentially the same in the wet and had the best hydroplaning resistance of all the tyres on test. It was a few percent behind the Continental in the snow, but equaled it on ice. It was also quiet and comfortable and had the best rolling resistance of all the tyres tested. The Nokian ever so slightly edged out the Michelin in the dry, matched it in the wet grip test, but was the worst in the hydroplaning test, but then was the best in the snow overall. It had the best traction on ice, but the Michelin had the better braking. and the Continental the best handling. So this is how close things are. The Nokian was also the most comfortable tire on test, had the joint lowest internal noise on test and the second lowest rolling resistance overall. As I explained, if I sound like I'm struggling to pick a winner, that's because I am. I think there's certainly an argument to say that the Nokian, who are a winter tire specialist, is the pick for the most extreme winter regions as across snow and ice, it was the best overall. But then you can't ignore the wet grip of the Continental or the hydroplaning resistance of the Michelin, or the dry grip of the Continental, or the rolling resistance of the Michelin, or the comfort of the Nokian. Send help, please. Basically, I'm copping out. All three tires are winners. Buy any of them, then tell me how you like them in the comments below or the reviews. Honestly, they are all fantastic soft compound winter tires. As for the reference tires, what do they teach us? Well, the studded Nokian Hakka Plita 10 might have been equaled on the slightly rough ice of ice handling. But it absolutely dominated ice braking and traction on the very smooth ice, which is the sort of ice you see at junctions. So it certainly highlights the value of studs in the real world in climates that see ice for a lot of the year. The Central European Continental Winter Contact TS870 shows us even more the importance of using the right tire for your climate. As this tire was by far the best in the dry and wet and while it wasn't a huge amount off in the snow, it was really lacking grip in the extreme testing of ice, especially on that smooth ice. Do not use a central European tyre in extreme winter regions, and do not use a soft compound studless winter tyre in central European type conditions. It's common sense, people. Please do this. You might as well fit budget tyres. They're that bad in the alternate conditions. And that is the end of this test. I hope you enjoyed it. Please hit like and subscribe if you haven't already. Let me know what your next set of tyres will be in the comments below. Go and review your tires over at TireReviews.com. It really helps the channel and the millions of people that use that website every month to find their tires. If you have any questions about this test, as always, ask below. And as always, again, safe motoring.

rolling resistance, noise, comfort, to give you the best idea of what tyre is best at what, and hopefully which tyre is best overall. Also, to highlight exactly what the design goal of this type of tyre is, I've taken the very best Central European winter tyre, the Continental Winter Contact TS870, and one of the very best Nordic studded tyres, the Nokian Hakapelita 10, and I'm including them in this test as a reference to highlight the differences between the different categories of tyres. On test, we have the Continental Viking Contact 7. the cooper weathermaster s100 the federal himalaya iso the michelin x-ice snow the nokian hackerpleta r5 the prelli ice zero fr and the yokohama ice guard ig53 i am going to run this test from slippiest to grippiest and actually that could be a new channel slogan but before i tell you the results of ice which i'm starting with i want to explain to you just how difficult ice is as an example the first time i did ice testing it was going really well up until the very last set because when i was getting the tires changed the sun came out When I ran the control at the end of the test, the track had lost five seconds of time.

Throw the results out. That was a waste of essentially a day. A little bit of snowfall, throw the results out.

The track gets grippier. Too much temperature change, even without the sun, the ice changes. Throw the results out.

In the end, I had to test into the night to get the best data possible. As for the results, well, none of the tires were actually bad. None of them were a disaster.

There was one that was the worst, and that was the Federal. Now, this was about... 10% off the best, so it did have significantly lower grip, but it wasn't like threatening to throw me into a snowbank or anything.

You were just slower, and the biggest issue with the tyre was the understeer. You had to be very, very careful on the throttle, because as soon as you looked at it, the car would be pushing off to the side. So, lower levels of grip for the Federal, but I think it is the cheapest tyre on test. Yokohama, Cooper, and Prelli were next.

Now, again, none of these tyres bad to drive, considering this is a... Rough, semi-rough ice surface. It's definitely not polished and smooth. The levels of grip were all mega impressive. With these tyres, you just had to be a little bit more delicate with everything, as opposed to the regular amount of delicate you have to be on ice.

Obviously, ice is very slippy. The top three tyres, all within a few percent of each other, were Nokian, Michelin and Continental. Now, Continental was actually the fastest of the three, but I'm going to say it was the most difficult to drive.

It is not a difficult tyre to drive. It wasn't bad. but these are very small differences but the continental had very very good grip but once you passed the limit of grip it was just a little bit more sudden and a little bit more dramatic than the other two top tires the michelin was probably my favorite of the three to drive the michelin did give you the ability to really go into the corners hard and the nokian well the inventors of winter tires seem to know something about winter tire shock horror it was just a beautiful tire to drive in every direction, like the Michelin, like a lot of the tyres, but a little bit more. It was a really, really nice, balanced, safe-feeling, responsive tyre, and it had good grip. So, excellent.

As for the Central European winter tyre, the Studded winter tyre, what an impressive tyre the Winter Contact TS870 is. It was almost as fast as the slowest winter tyre, which I think you're going to understand how impressive this is later in the video when we get to dry and wet testing. And it was just an easy tyre to drive consistently.

The grip was less. It was slower than the Nordics. It's not designed to be run in such extreme winters. But wow.

As for the studded winter tyre, now this was an interesting one. This is designed for ice. And it did feel exceptional traction and braking.

But on this semi-rough, rough ice surface, in the corners, I was picking up a lot of understeer. Which is... harmful for your time around a lap like this. So it wasn't the fastest. Now this does sometimes happen, but I'm confident that the data is correct that on this rough ice surface, Nordic winter tyres, Nordic studless winter tyres, extreme winter tyres, are now that good on rough ice.

It's incredible the grip they offer without pokey bits of metal going into the surface. However, I'm very confident The stud winter tyre will still have an advantage on smooth ice. And it did. A huge advantage with nearly twice the traction ability than the next best tyre, showing the advantages studs have.

Nokian, Continental and Michelin were the best of the studless tyres in both ice traction and ice braking, with Cooper and Federal struggling a little bit more. The Central European tyre naturally was at a disadvantage to the rest of the tyres on test. Snow handling.

Now because of the car and the fact it's quite a slow course here, a lot of the tyres are very close together. Which is great because it means all the tyres designed to do well in snow are actually quite good in snow. We'll see how that rolls on throughout the video. Yokohama, Cooper and Federal were at the back of the pack. Now like in the ice, they weren't bad.

You just had to do things a little bit more slowly. They weren't dramatically shocking in any ways. but they just offered less grip the front four were within one percent of each other so incredibly close and that was michelin continental proly and nokian being the fastest of the top four like on ice the continental was probably a little bit more snappy with its grip between grip and no grip but had very good grip uh the michelin really really friendly tire to drive as was the nokian both the michelin and nokian were exceptionally wonderful easy I just really like them. But my favorite, by the tiniest of margin, was the Prelli.

It just gave you a little bit more grace when sliding than the other three top tires, but all of them were exceptional. All of them were within 1% of each other, which is almost the margin for error. I mean, we calculate these things very carefully. We do laps and average them out, and that is as close as a test can be.

The European winter TS870 again pretty much matched the worst of the extreme winter tyres in the snow. It's a very impressive result and again a nice easy tyre to drive. And this time the studded Hakapelita 10, which is a test winning studded winter tyre, was joint first with the Nokian Hakapelita R5. So technically Nokian won this test twice. Because everything's exceptionally close in this test.

I'm actually going to do snow circle which isn't something I do very often and then we're going to talk about the traction and braking of the tires which is obviously a key safety test especially for an extreme nordic studless snow winter tire or whatever you want to call them. Yokohama jumped to the front of snow braking with an impressive result narrowly beating Nokian and Continental. With all the studless winter tyres covered by just over half a metre, the results were impressive for all the tyres.

Snow traction was equally as close, this time with Nokian jumping to the front, a little ahead of Continental and Prelli. As in Snow Circle, the Central European winter tyres surprisingly beat three of the Nordic compound tyres, highlighting how good a tyre it really is. Okay, so usually this is the part where I sit in a car sliding around and tell you how the tyre's handling the wet and the dry.

But given these tyres are so focused on winter ability, it seems a bit efficient. We don't want this video to be 25 minutes long so I'm trying to keep everything a bit shorter. That's not to say I've not done the wet and dry testing of course I have and I've even managed to test when the temperature was below 7 degrees which represents a bit more of realistic use for these types of tires and the results were awesome so let's go through them quickly now.

Even though these tires are going to see a lot of snow and ice in their life wet is still very important. Of the seven Cooper was the slowest of the group and was difficult to drive with limited grip in just every direction. Yokohama was the next last. lowest this was the only tire that made the Golf have a very loose rear end and while oversteer is fun it wasn't what I'd call the best balance for the road. Federal for fifth it felt like it had much better grip than the previous two but the steering was a bit vague and numb and then the Nokian in fourth had great balance and what felt like excellent grip but it was one of only two tires in this group that felt like it was aquaplaning at multiple parts during the lap which was costing it time.

The top three were very very close and were formed of Prelli, Michelin and Continental. All three of these tires were a joy to drive. If I had to give the win to one, it would be the Michelin by the smallest of margins in terms of balance and steering reactions.

However, the Continental clearly had the most grip as it was the fastest of the three, while it had the same micro aquaplaning issues that slowed down the knock-in. So very impressive wet grip for the Continental. The aquaplaning test thankfully backed up my subjective thoughts with the knock-in and Continental having the worst aquaplaning performance over the straight and curved test with the Michelin proving to be the best in both of these water tests.

Keep in mind this is very impressive considering Michelin did so well in wet handling and in my head this is probably going to be a good result for slush though I don't actually know that and slush is something that's very difficult to test. The all-important wet braking test was led by Federal with Continental, Nokian and Michelin all performing well. I'm really not sure how the Federal jumped so far up the order here. I knew what I was on when I was doing the braking test and it was definitely this good in braking so you've got to respect that result even if if it is at odds with the rest of the wet tests. If you've been looking at the data on screen, you may have noticed two things about the reference tires.

Firstly, there's no data for the studded tire. That's because the test facility I conducted the braking and handling tests at didn't allow studded tires on the tracks due to track damage, which I totally respect. But more importantly, You should have noticed that the Central European Continental Winter Contact TS870 absolutely dominated the wet test. It wasn't even close. I actually wrote in my notes when testing this is how I imagine most people imagine going from a row tire to a slick tire would be only it's a bigger difference and it's still a winter tire.

But then I also wrote yeet too so perhaps my notes aren't the best reference. There is a reason for this huge advantage the Central European tire has over the studless soft compound tire. To make a tire grip well on ice something has to give and sadly it's the wet performance of a tire.

They just don't work together with today's technology. This is a solid reminder that you should pick the tire that's best suited to where you live and what conditions you'd expect as we've now proven scientifically that while a soft compound winter tire excels in snow and particularly ice there are drawbacks. So think carefully about what type of tire you're shopping for. Fortunately the dry handling data almost perfectly matched the dry braking data so I'll summarise them both together. The Continental was the best in both handling and braking with the Prelli close behind it in terms of grip and subjective handling.

The Nokian was also excellent around the dry handling lap and was fourth in braking, closely followed by the Michelin. Like in the wet, the Federal, Yokohama and Cooper were the slowest over the lap with the Federal being particularly difficult to drive. And like in the wet, the Federal was much better in dry braking than dry handling.

They must have tuned this tyre. just to stop a car and do very little else. If I've done my job properly by this point it should be no surprise that the Central European winter tyre held its wet advantage in the dry too, though certainly not as vast, but it was hugely noticeable still especially in braking so again keep that in mind.

What about noise and comfort? The Nokian and Continental led the way in the internal noise measurements with the Central European winter tyre joint third with Michelin. The Nokian was also the most comfortable tyre subjectively, tying for points with the far noisier Federal and Yokohama, so if you want a quiet and comfortable tyre, the Nokian is probably the tyre to have because it sells in both those categories.

The rolling resistance of the top four performing tyres was only split by 4%, which is a pretty insignificant difference in fuel use in the real world, maybe around 1%. But then the next group of tyres dropped 15% from the best, and the Federal was 32% behind. which you'd certainly notice when filling up your car. For the overall results, I'm gonna use a score weighting which matches these tires intended use, i.e. heavily in favor of the snow and ice performance of the tires. If you want to use a different score weighting, you can now alter all this data to your own taste on the Tire Reviews website linked in the description.

Go check that out and leave a review of your tires while you're there, because it'll really help me out. Thank you. In last place was the Federal Himalaya ISO.

And after the testing, I'm wondering if it's named that. because that's the sound you make when you hit ice. It's like ice, oh! As it did have the worst ice traction, braking, and handling by quite a margin. Its snow performance was a little better, but it still struggled in traction.

And while it wasn't the grippiest tyre around the wet handling lap, it did perform extremely well in wet braking. It also did have exceptionally high rolling resistance, which leaves it in seventh place overall. The Cooper Weathermaster S100 finished in sixth. And while it didn't struggle on ice as much as the Federal, it did have more of an issue in the dry and the wet. In fact if we ignore the hydroplaning test results where it did finish a respectable third in straight and second in curved its best result was fifth of seven and had a string of sixth and seventh places.

The Yokohama Iceguard IG53 peaked in snow braking where it had a surprise win but that was the only standout result. It had the longest braking in the wet and dry, it was mid pack on ice and was the noisiest tyre on test. It did however have one of the lowest rolling resistances on test.

A tyre like this is certainly a better buy than a tyre like the Federal but it still sits behind the rest of the group in fifth. The Prelli i-Zero FR was a fun tire to drive and a well-deserved fourth overall. Its only weakness was snow braking, but that was only 3.3% off the best.

It excelled in snow handling, being the fastest and nicest tire to drive. It had excellent snow traction. It was good on ice, and it was very good in the wet and the dry.

I'm recommending the i-Zero FR as a good all-round tire. The best three tires in test, and this is in alphabetical order, not results order, I'll explain why in a second, is the Continental Viking Contact 7, Michelin Xi Snow and the new Nokia Hakkaplita R5. All three of these tyres are a clear step ahead of the rest of the tyres and in fact they're all so close on points I'm not sure I can call just one of them a winner as even small tweaks in the score weighting change the order it can reverse first to third. In fact their performances are so similar in all of the tests I've even found it hard to define where each tyre has the advantage but I'm gonna try. The Continental was the best in the dry and had a small advantage in the wet grip test, but did struggle in the deep water of the two aquaplaning tests.

It was excellent in the snow and ice. It had the lowest internal noise and it was a comfortable tire. But of the top three tires, it did have the highest rolling resistance, but even that was just 3.1% off.

The Michelin couldn't quite match the Continental in the dry, but was essentially the same in the wet and had the best hydroplaning resistance of all the tyres on test. It was a few percent behind the Continental in the snow, but equaled it on ice. It was also quiet and comfortable and had the best rolling resistance of all the tyres tested. The Nokian ever so slightly edged out the Michelin in the dry, matched it in the wet grip test, but was the worst in the hydroplaning test, but then was the best in the snow overall.

It had the best traction on ice, but the Michelin had the better braking. and the Continental the best handling. So this is how close things are.

The Nokian was also the most comfortable tire on test, had the joint lowest internal noise on test and the second lowest rolling resistance overall. As I explained, if I sound like I'm struggling to pick a winner, that's because I am. I think there's certainly an argument to say that the Nokian, who are a winter tire specialist, is the pick for the most extreme winter regions as across snow and ice, it was the best overall. But then you can't ignore the wet grip of the Continental or the hydroplaning resistance of the Michelin, or the dry grip of the Continental, or the rolling resistance of the Michelin, or the comfort of the Nokian.

Send help, please. Basically, I'm copping out. All three tires are winners.

Buy any of them, then tell me how you like them in the comments below or the reviews. Honestly, they are all fantastic soft compound winter tires. As for the reference tires, what do they teach us? Well, the studded Nokian Hakka Plita 10 might have been equaled on the slightly rough ice of ice handling.

But it absolutely dominated ice braking and traction on the very smooth ice, which is the sort of ice you see at junctions. So it certainly highlights the value of studs in the real world in climates that see ice for a lot of the year. The Central European Continental Winter Contact TS870 shows us even more the importance of using the right tire for your climate.

As this tire was by far the best in the dry and wet and while it wasn't a huge amount off in the snow, it was really lacking grip in the extreme testing of ice, especially on that smooth ice. Do not use a central European tyre in extreme winter regions, and do not use a soft compound studless winter tyre in central European type conditions. It's common sense, people. Please do this. You might as well fit budget tyres.

They're that bad in the alternate conditions. And that is the end of this test. I hope you enjoyed it.

Please hit like and subscribe if you haven't already. Let me know what your next set of tyres will be in the comments below. Go and review your tires over at TireReviews.com. It really helps the channel and the millions of people that use that website every month to find their tires. If you have any questions about this test, as always, ask below.

And as always, again, safe motoring.

Transcript for:Winter Tyres Testing Overview

Transcript for:
Winter Tyres Testing Overview