What is best all season tire
9 of the BEST All Season Tyres For 2020 Tested and Explained
thanks to the promise of one tire being
able to do everything
all season tires otherwise known as all
weather tires in north america
are a rapidly growing market segment to
find out which all-season tire is
currently best
i've bought nine of the best tyres
available on the market
along with a summer and a winter tire
which should allow us to see whether an
all-season tire or even the best
all-season tire
really can do the job of two tyres or
whether it compromises in any area
we're going to start the testing here at
goodyear's amazing arctic test facility
in lapland
where we're going to be doing snow
testing then we'll move to the south of
france where we'll do dry
wet noise comfort rolling resistance
testing which should allow us to work
out which tire works best where
and whether all season tires really are
one tyre to do everything or a summer
and winter tire has advantages in
certain areas
as always i'm going to try and keep this
video a watchable lens so if you want
any more of the geeky data i'll leave a
link in the description to the tire
reviews website where you can pour over
all the data
and dig into each category further and
before we start testing
if you haven't already i'd really
appreciate you hitting that subscribe
button it'll allow me to keep on doing
these
rather expensive and time-consuming
tests for many years to come
on test we have the bridgestone weather
control a05 the continental all-season
contact
the cooper discover all season the gt
gt all season the brand new goodyear
vector 4 seasons generation 3
the hankook kinergy 4s2 everyone's
favorite michelin cross climate plus
the nixon n blue four season the
redstone quadrack pro
and the summer and winter tire
represented by the brand new goodyear
efficient grip performance 2
and the goodyear ultra grip performance
plus
right first test of the day is snow
handling and before you say it
i know snow handling isn't strictly the
most relevant test for the uk climate
because
when it does snow we're hardly going out
there and setting lap times but snow
handling is a very valid test for two
reasons
firstly not all my viewers are from the
uk there's some european and north
american audience which means
snow handling is actually quite an
important test for them because they do
go out and drive at reasonable speeds in
the snow
and secondly probably more importantly
for the uk market slow handling gives
you an idea of how the tyre works during
sort of transient or emergency
situations so
if something steps out or someone pulls
out on you and you have to break and
turn
it shows you how much grip or how much
ability the tyre's going to give the car
the best on test in the snow handling
was surprisingly the cheapest tire it's
the gt
now this tire felt the most winter-like
and it was quite a joy to drive
it gave the car good balance a little
bit of oversteer but generally find that
as
the front axle grip gets better the car
ends up with a bit more oversteer just
because the
rear's carrying more speed and it comes
around a little bit more but
fair play to gt let's see how that
translates into its
wet and dry performance because often
they're opposing qualities but
very good snow performance the next
group of tyres about a percent behind
the gt
with a goodyear continent hand cut now
of the three it was less than a percent
splitting all three on lap time and
subjectively they're all very similar
if anything i'd say the conti was the
best overall
in that it just felt a little bit more
positive and direct on the front axle
but it didn't really translate into lap
times so all three of those tires
excellent in the snow for an all season
tire next up was the summer optimized
michelin cross climate now this is a
tire that isn't designed to have the
best snow and ice performance it's
designed
for summer conditions and in other
testing it's shown to be very good in
the dry and wet
so to come fifth overall good result for
it it felt really good
balanced like the goodyear a little bit
a little bit less grip everywhere
and it seemed to get upset a little bit
more by the small patches of ice
we've found on this snow handling
circuit but otherwise excellent
after the michelin was the nexon again
nothing particularly interesting to
report
might felt a little bit more floaty on
the front axle than the rest of the
tyres
and just had a little bit less grip
everywhere overall
which is why it was about a percent
behind the michelin again then we come
on to the redstone which is
interestingly the only all-season tyre
on test that has the asymmetric tread
pattern
and directional tread patterns are
common in all season and winter tires
because they work really well in snow so
the red stein did a good job
it wasn't the quickest turren test but
it wasn't a disaster and hopefully that
asymmetric tread pattern
will pay back some of the negativity
here in the dry and wet testing
finally we finish up with the
bridgestone and cooper now the
bridgestone
again just it was okay balanced it just
felt a little bit less grippy everywhere
and uh it just
struggled again like the michelin with
the icy bit so it was a significant
chunk behind the very best all season
tires
and the cooper well you can kind of see
from the tread pattern where it suffers
it might have a blocky tread pattern but
it's not a very heavily siped tar and i
think that's made it struggle a lot more
than the others
in the snow and ice but again like the
other tyres perhaps it will bring it
back in the dry and wet
the winter and summer reference tyres
now the winter tire as you would imagine
absolute joy to drive on the front end
was even more precise than the gt
the back was stable and it just allowed
you to position the car
and it gave you a lot more ability to
brake and turn
the lap time wasn't night and day ahead
of the best all-season tires
but the confidence it gave you and the
stability it gave you you were
driving the car less if that makes sense
so it was just a
better optional round for these
conditions but these are quite extreme
wintry conditions
and the summer tyre well this new
goodyear efficient grip performance too
is a really really strong summer tyre
on snow compared to any other summer
tires i've tested in this kind of
category
however it still felt downright
dangerous compared to the pestle season
tires and even the worst all season
tires now
i think that's the lesson to take away
the cooper might have been 10
15 percent behind the best all season
tire
but even the worst all season tires
still 40 ahead of the summer tire and
the summer tire might get you going but
it's the braking and turning where you
really really find it difficult
especially you find yourself just aiming
at a snow bank braking
thinking you've done it way in advance
and then just not stopping and sliding
and sliding and sliding and always
having an accident so
if you do want to stay safe in snow
summer tires just isn't
the option and that's represented in the
name i guess
gt also aced the snow braking test with
continental and goodyear close behind
the winter tire again proved best
overall with the summer tyre taking an
alarming amount of distance to stop the
car the next stop is the south of france
for wet and dry testing
as these all season tires they're very
likely to be used in a climate which
sees
quite a bit of rain much like where i
live in the uk so their wet performance
is one of the most important criteria
now the slowest tyre on wet handling was
the cooper
now this tyre was only about three
seconds off the leader
but it struggled with grip or the
balance of the car seemed to move around
front to rear
and it was quite a tricky tire to drive
so in such a close group of tyres it's
such a capable group of tires someone
had to be last and it was the cooper
the next up was the snow specialist the
gt
now while this tyre was still relatively
slow compared to the pack
about a second faster than the cooper it
was a completely different tyre to drive
than the cooper
where the cooper was a little bit
unpredictable with the balance moving
around
the gt was lovely and safe and balanced
and it felt really good laterally it had
a neutral balance
but it just seemed to lack grip
especially when trying to break down for
the slow speed corners
which was backed up by the wet braking
results i'll show you in a minute
another half second ahead of the gt was
the nexon now this tire felt a lot like
the gt
it was a nice tire to drive it just
didn't quite have as much grip as the
best tires on test
and it seemed to lose the most time
while braking and turning for the slow
speed corners the next tire was the
michelin
the tyre felt the best it had of the
all-season tires it had the best
most direct steering and felt the most
positive on brakes
the tire just defaulted to a bit of an
understeer behavior which is very safe
for the road
but it was frustrating because it felt
like the tyre had more time
but you just couldn't extract it on this
short wet handling lap so
disappointing for michelin the six and
the breaking results back that up
however we know the cross climate two
has been announced and should be with us
in europe
next year so that's one to look out for
fifth and fourth places were
redstone and continental with almost the
same times getting very close now
interestingly these two tires were the
only tyres that say that had an
oversteer balance and that made them a
little bit trickier to drive
but both had good levels of grip
especially laterally
you could actually get quite a good time
out of the tyres but perhaps they
weren't the easiest tires to drive but
still good amounts of grip
the top three tires were all very close
to each other
4 10 separated them over the 72nd lap
hancook was third place that handcuffed
tire was a
very pleasing tire to drive it just felt
easy it felt it had really good lateral
grip
and it just didn't give you any
surprises it was a kind of like
safe blanket of a tire i really enjoyed
driving the hancock
the goodyear was second place at home
now this tire
it felt good it felt good all round had
strong lateral grip
felt good on the brakes didn't give you
any surprises if i was going to
criticize it in any way
it didn't give you not that any not that
any of the all-season tires gives you a
huge amount of
feedback through the steering wheel but
i would say goodyear was one of the
ones that were lacking maybe a bit more
but the grip was there the brakes was
there there was no problems aquaplaning
it was just a good all-round package and
the fastest tire and test narrowly
beating the goodyear
was also the best high-end wet braking
it was the bridgestone weather control
a005
this tire just had a lovely neutral
balance
didn't give you any surprises anywhere
and
was nice and easy to place just does
everything without any fuss
and had great levels of grip especially
in the brakes so well done bridgestone
you've produced a very good all-season
tire
for wet performance as for the summer
and winter tire
well the winter tire very very good
performance neutral hint of understeer
was probably the woolliest through the
steering wheel but that's not surprising
with the most amount of sights and block
movement
uh and didn't really like braking that
much but if it had been
in the overall results it would have
placed eight as for the summer tire well
after driving all those all-season tires
it kind of felt like you just directly
connected the car to the floor
it was so direct and so precise compared
to these
block movement sipes tyres apart from
maybe the michelin
it was a really joy to drive wet
breaking confirmed the bridgestone's
overall leading the way with hankook and
goodyear close behind
in fact wet breaking nicely mirrored the
wet handling results which isn't always
the way with tyre testing
continental led the way in straight
aquaplaning with hankook and cooper
closely following curved aquaplaning
which can be found on the tyre reviews
website
was a similar overall order except
cooper was at the front this time
now let's get to dry testing the air
temperature
is currently 30 degrees and as i'm
testing in the afternoon
the track is in the 40s and while this
isn't the ideal temperature to be dry
handling all season tires
they are cool all seasons so they need
to work in all conditions and some of
them will experience
these conditions not only that
every single one of these sets of tires
has had at least
three flat out laps with understeer and
oversteer and everything i do during a
tie test
flat out baking heat and not a single
one has had a huge noticeable drop
in performance or has had any issues
with the tread pattern starting to tear
or anything like that
sure they all look a little bit worn at
the end of the test but
they've all done really well so i'm
proud of them good job all season tires
now the overall results are very very
close closer than even wet handling
it's a hundred second lap here and the
slowest tyron test which is again the
cooper
was only 2.4 seconds slower than the
fastest so you can see
just how close the group is the cooper
you know it felt fine to drive
obviously not as quite as direct as a
summer tyre but it didn't feel bad
had a nice safe understeer balance it
just didn't really have the grip
anywhere
the nexon was the next slowest it felt
a little bit worse than the cooper it
felt a little bit harder to place
especially in the high to speed turns
like this
you're just kind of turning in a couple
of times wondering whether the car was
going to turn and when it was going to
attain its slip angle
but again very very safe balance a
little bit understeer primary
the gt finished seventh feeling a lot
like the nexon
and the continental finished six feeling
a lot like the gt
now you might notice a theme here of me
saying all the tires felt very similar
to each other
i pride myself and be able to tell the
smallest differences between tyres in
all conditions
it's what got me into tire testing
initially that's subjective handling but
these
all season tires during the dry handling
laps when they're all being pushed to
extreme they all do feel
quite close fifth and fourth place were
hancook and bridgestone posting
essentially the same times and
you guessed it feeling very very similar
to each other
a tiny bit ahead was goodyear in third
place
now this tire did feel a little bit
different for the rest
it was the first higher that moved the
balance more towards a sort of neutral
balance and
the grip circle felt a little bit more
even so you could break and turn it
didn't give you any real big surprises
and it was a nice package like fair play
a good year for this
i would have liked maybe again a little
bit more on the front end
but i can't really complain as it's an
all-season tire that's
proven to have very good snow
performance so it's looking to be
quite a well-rounded all-season tireless
good yeah second and first place
posted the same lap time and it was the
red steiner michelin and this is very
interesting because
both tyres did it in very different ways
the michelin
felt probably the most like the summer
tire on the brakes and turning like it
felt like it just had a
a stiffer sidewall a stronger
construction it was a more positive tyre
but like in the wet that slipped into
understeer which was a little bit
frustrating the redstein
kind of switched it around it was a very
quick turning
tyre at the front axle just felt nice
and sporty
but the rear didn't really feel like it
could keep up with what the front wanted
to do
so you felt yourself correcting and
correcting and correcting again
especially in the high speed stuff
and then the braking wasn't quite even
it felt like the tyre was a lot better
laterally
than it was in the brake so you kind of
slung it round the corner
dancing with the car on the limit which
was a lot of fun for an all season time
then you got to the breaking point and
you're a little bit oh
that's going on a little bit but the
summer and winter time well the winter
time finished last in time overall
and while it felt absolutely fine in the
corners it
felt probably the worst on break so
that's where you
feel like you're losing time on the
winter time just felt like it was
smearing itself on the road
but again that's not unusual because
you've got so much block movement in the
winter tire which is designed to help in
snow and particularly ice
and then the summer tyre well like in
the wet
it just felt like this golf 1.4 tsi
had been upgraded to a golf gti it felt
like a little race car in comparison to
all the all-season tires
felt like it had grown up the car if you
have a thing for driving enjoyment
if you like positive steering and
positive braking there just isn't an
all-season tire that can match your
summer tire and dry handling but they're
not designed for that so that's no huge
surprise
the summer tire was again best in dry
braking with the summer optimized
michelin a halfway point between the
summer tyre and the rest of the
all-season tyres
all that's left to test is noise and
comfort levels noise and comfort is a
very important test and as usual i've
spent quite a lot of time on it
but as i've noted in dry handling
subjectively these tyres are very very
similar so it hasn't been the easiest
process
all the all-season tires are slightly
more comfortable than the summer tire
which is a very comfortable summer tire
as summer tires go only the michelin the
cross climate which is the most
summer-like of the all-season tires
proved to have slightly worse levels of
comfort than the group
of the group there were three tires that
really stood out and that was the
hankook
nexon and bridgestone and interestingly
on the way to wet handling i could tell
i was on the bridgestone before i got to
the circuit bearing in mind i'm testing
blind i don't know what tyres are fit to
the car
because as i went over a bump on the way
to the circuit
it just felt like it was the bridgestone
and i was like oh this must be the
bridgestone so in my notes i put i think
this is the bridgestone
and then when i went back at the end of
all the testing and looked at what tyre
was what
it was the bridgestone so that's why i'm
putting that at number one
the noise testing was again done by
goodyear and i'm really appreciative of
them doing it because it's very
complicated
it took them two days of driving and
three days of processing
of the group again the next and
bridgestone were very very good proving
to be the nicest tires to live with from
a noise and comfort point of view
but i'm going to put some of the data on
the screen so you can pick through it
yourself and look at all the decibel
curves
if you want the very basic stuff again
go to the tire reviews website and look
at the test there the link will be in
the description
as for fuel use well recently
bridgestone have been killing it and
rolling resistance testing
and they have again here but they only
got second place first place went to the
new
goodyear vector four season generation
three which is mighty impressive
considering how well-rounded attire this
seems to have been
in all the tests so far so well done
good year for that the worst all-season
tyron test was the cooper
nearly 20 down and as a tyre contributes
about 20
of the overall rolling resistance to a
vehicle that's 20 percent of 20
for roughly for extra fuel use so it's
significant over a tires life
[Music]
so before i start the conclusion there's
a few bits of housekeeping i want to
talk about in advance to preempt any
questions you might have
firstly if you're wondering why i
haven't tested any tyres that were
released or updated this year
that's because i started ordering tires
for this in november 2019
started testing in february 2020 and it
was meant to be finished in march 2020
but
as we all know the world's got delayed
secondly i want to put a huge thanks out
to goodyear again for fitting me into
their french facility in miraval
they didn't have to fit me in and demand
is obviously sky high
since the world's reopened so thanks
once again to goodyear for letting me
run this test on my own
in their facilities it's a really big
help so thank you so much
thirdly i've had lots of people on
previous videos asking if i test blind
as i do for a lot of my tests where i
don't have to physically fit the wheels
myself
i do test blind and if you're a little
bit confused that doesn't mean i'm
literally blindfolded driving around the
track that wouldn't be much good for
anyone
what it means is i don't know what tires
are on the car while i'm testing
that is the case for everything i've
done here in france so good gear have
even gone to the lens
of covering the wheels before i get in
the car just in case i wanted to take a
sneak peek
not that i would but it's important you
know that when i'm testing tires and
taking notes all i know is a sequence
number i don't actually know what time
i'm driving on
and lastly as my audience is worldwide
i'm going to do what i think is a
world's first and give
two different sets of results the first
set of results will be the traditional
all-season score weighting
and that means dry and snow performance
will have an equal level in the overall
results and then wet just a little bit
more
this is the result you should look at if
you're in a climate that gets
proper all season so you get snow in the
winter you get sun in the summer
you get wet in the autumn the second set
of results is going to be for people
like me who live somewhere in like the
south of the uk
where you see snow once every three
years and when you do see snow
you just want a tyre that gets you home
that's better than the summer tire
what i'm going to do is i'm going to
drop the snow section of the score
weighting
right down to 5 then i'm going to bump
up dry wet in equal percentages
which means we'll be looking at a set of
results which is more useful for someone
who lives in london
in ninth place is this it's the cooper
discoverer all season
now this was by no means a bad tire i
only finished seven percent overall off
the best
but it didn't really excel in any of the
tests struggled in the snow
struggled in the way and while it was
good in dry breaking and aqua planing
it just wasn't up to the ability of the
rest eighth place overall went to the
redstone quad track pro
now as the only asymmetric tire on test
this has been a bit of an interesting
test because it's had a quirky set of
results
excelled in dry handling but really
struggled in dry breaking it was a
mid-pack for the wet test but struggled
in aquaplaning and it was the quietest
on the smooth surface but the noisiest
on the rough surface so
really interesting tire perhaps the
all-season tire for track days because
it was so much fun on the dryer handling
track
but for the rest of the year there are
better ties in this group seventh place
went to this the nexon m blue four
season
and while it was a quite uncomfortable
tie it didn't really excel in any of the
grip tests
it's another title that's very well
priced but there are better ties in this
test
sixth place went to the quickly
improving gt with their gt all season
now this tire was the snow king it felt
the most like a winter tire in the snow
but it did struggle in the wet test so
maybe this is the all-season tire you
want to think about
if you're on a budget because it's a
very well priced tire and
you live in a climate that sees a lot of
snow probably not as suited
for a climate like the south of the uk
where it's mostly dry and wet running
but excellent in the snow
fifth place went to this the michelin
cross climate plus as always this tire
felt
excellent in the dry and wet
subjectively with direct steering and a
really good brake pedal
and it works pretty well in snow so that
dispels the myth that this tire doesn't
work in snowy conditions
however after a string of six places in
the wet it just wasn't up to the rest of
the group in its wet performance
i know the michelin cross climate 2 has
been announced it's in north america
only at the moment but should be with us
in europe next year
so i'm mega excited to test that
subscribe for that if you haven't
already
bridgestone finished a solid fourth with
the weather control a
005 now this tire wasn't the greatest in
the snow but excelled in the drying
particularly the wet
plus it had very low rolling resistance
and it was a really
nice quiet and comfortable tire to drive
on really really impressed with this
tyre
and the a005 evo is already to market
that's come out this year
so i'm mega excited about testing that
in next year's all-season tire test see
if it can build on
where this is lacking and that's snow
performance right now we're at the top
three things are getting very close
overall
in third place is this the continental
all-season contact
now this is a tie that didn't really
jump out at me at any point in testing
at no point did i leave any notes in my
testing notes against the secret numbers
that this tile was remarkable however it
just did
everything well which is what an
all-season tire should do it's such a
well-rounded tire
really impressive package from
continental so world on continental for
third place
highly recommended hancock will be very
pleased with the second place for the
kennedy 4s
now like the continental this tire
didn't actually win a single test
but it was second third fourth fifth it
was there or thereabouts in every single
test
meaning it's just one of the most
rounded tires on test it has no real
drawbacks it's such an incredible piece
of technology from career
hancock should be really proud with this
mega impressive tyre
i really enjoyed driving on it just just
a fantastic breadth of ability which all
season tires should have
and by a narrow margin we have the
winner which is the newest tire and test
it's the goodyear vector four season
generation three
like the other top tires it had no
faults in fact looking at how well this
tire did in all the testing it's amazing
one tire can do everything so well it
was the second best overall in snow it
was top three and wet
it was really good on dry handling it
had the lowest rolling resistance it was
quite uncomfortable
the fact this one tire can do so many
things well
really really does shout out just how
much work the goodyear engineers have
put in
upgrading the already excellent goodyear
vector forces in generation two so well
i'm good you should be really proud of
this tire you've made it's excellent
in pretty much every category so as i
touched upon at the start of the
conclusion
what if you live in a climate that
doesn't actually get much snow you want
that safety net of an all-season tire to
get you home safely when it does snow
but your focus should be on dry and wet
performance well if you've watched this
video from the start you're not going to
be surprised it's this
the bridgestone weather control aw05 was
pretty much
unrivalled in the dry and wet so this is
the tire for climates like the south of
the uk
where you're not going to see much snow
ever this is the tire you should be
thinking about
hancock remains second and goodyear
slides down to third with the dry
specialist michelin in fourth
as for the summer and winter time well
both these tires did what we expected
really the winter time was amazing in
the snow
was okay in the wet but struggled in the
dry but we have been testing at over 40
degrees track temperature so the winter
compound is going to struggle a little
bit more than the all-season compound
and the summer tire well that was the
best in the dry and wet it had the best
sense of driving enjoyment you can't
rival
an unsiped tire did just you don't get
feedback like this from any all-season
tire even the cross climb it's have
stepped down
but you just shouldn't be using a
summitary snowy conditions
and if you're in a climate that sees
very hot summers or very cold winters
a summer and winter tire is still the
safest way of motoring year round
all season tires are very good for the
kind of milder winter summer seasons
but they don't replace a summer and
winter tire if you want the optimum
safety for year-round motoring
well that concludes the video i hope
you've enjoyed it it's been a long old
test
thank you once again to goodyear if
you've got any questions please ask
below if you've enjoyed it give it a
thumbs up
if you haven't already subscribe and hit
that bell icon we've got a lot of good
winter stuff coming
including four wheel drive and all
season tires versus two wheel drive on
winter tires which is going to rain
supreme
if you've watched this video you've
probably got a good idea but i'm doing
both the european and an american
version which will be mega exciting
and as always safe motoring
you
