All-season tyres – what’s hot for the upcoming cool weather?

[Salted_Peanut]

We’ve had various all-season tyre threads, but what are this year’s best choices?

Last year, Auto Express gave the first price to the Hankook Kinergy 4S2: https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/product-group-tests/...

Confusingly, Parkers gave completely different results: https://www.parkers.co.uk/car-advice/product-revie...

[andburg]

https://www.tyrereviews.com/Article/2023-24-Tyre-R...

Along with YouTube video

Tldr; cross climate 2 still the best

[Salted_Peanut]

Thanks, andburg

The aquaplaning, wet braking and handling results are interesting. The CrossClimate 2’s performance is less clear cut in the wet, which I feel matters more in our British climate.

[andburg]

Yeah they come at 6.6mm depth new vs the others about 7.7 so that could be why

[Salted_Peanut]

The depth difference could explain it.

On a Continental note, we have a newcomer since the last TyreReviews.com test. The new AllSeasonContact 2 should be available now:

https://www.tyrereviews.com/Article/Continental-Al...

[Smint]

As an above post re new tread depths, i'm not buying new tyres with a measly 6mm odd new tread depth, yes they might last longer than the deeper treaded makes we're told but i don't like running around on 4mm of tread in the wet when after a similar mileage with another make the tread will still be around 6mm, this maybe wasn't such an issue when tyres on even luxury cars hovered around the 195 section but when 215 is considered a fairly narrow tyre and 255 quite common iwant somewhere for the water to channel and avoid that horrible sensation of being pulled off the road when you encounter a large puddle in our ruined roads.

Its 8mm+ new or they can keep them.

[roscopervis]

How much snow driving will you be expecting compared to general cold and wet driving? That makes a difference in the tests I’ve seen. The Cross Climate 2 is a great all rounder, but has gone more snow focused, whereas the first Cross Climate was more balanced.

Bridgestone’s offering is the other way - very wet biased and not that great in the snow (but still much better than summer tyres) so may be better for south west users. Their full winter Blizzak is a good choice as an All-Season for this reason.

The Hankook iCept mentioned is a very good tyre and is offering various puncture prevention options hopefully this year.

The Goodyear Vector 3 is well balanced.

[Salted_Peanut]

roscopervis said:

How much snow driving will you be expecting compared to general cold and wet driving? That makes a difference in the tests I’ve seen. The Cross Climate 2 is a great all rounder, but has gone more snow focused, whereas the first Cross Climate was more balanced.

Indeed, I was disappointed the CrossClimate 2 had lost some wet weather ability compared to its predecessor. I have used both CrossClimates and felt the 1+ worked noticeably better than the 2 in wet conditions.

We've high-performance all-season tyres, too: https://www.tyrereviews.com/Article/2023-Tyre-Revi...
Thoughts?

[stevieturbo]

Smint said:

As an above post re new tread depths, i'm not buying new tyres with a measly 6mm odd new tread depth, yes they might last longer than the deeper treaded makes we're told but i don't like running around on 4mm of tread in the wet when after a similar mileage with another make the tread will still be around 6mm, this maybe wasn't such an issue when tyres on even luxury cars hovered around the 195 section but when 215 is considered a fairly narrow tyre and 255 quite common iwant somewhere for the water to channel and avoid that horrible sensation of being pulled off the road when you encounter a large puddle in our ruined roads.

Its 8mm+ new or they can keep them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXOE1DpjQGg&t=1s

[Smint]

stevieturbo said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXOE1DpjQGg&t=...

Was never seriously considering budget ditchfinder carp, tend towards Vredestein/Uniroyal/Yoko etc, the two former normally still offer decent new tread depths, as does Goodyear notably among the premium brands, am not considering Mich/Conti with typically less than 7mm new tread, have already ruled out Falken (presently on one car) decent enough tyres but not enough new tread depths, ok when they were cheap but thats no longer the case.

I have experimented with budget (not so budget either, seemingly respected far eastern makes) twice in recent years, one set i bought as an experiment to see if previous prejudices were still valid, the other was a brand new set fitted to a vehicle i bought, in both cases in the first year they were fine if not outstanding but in the second year still as new one set became skittish wet in the other case the set i bought provided two unprovoked oversteer slides in the wet.
Both sets removed soon as and replaced with Yoko/Uniroyal respectively, normal service resumed.

[roscopervis]

Salted_Peanut said:

Indeed, I was disappointed the CrossClimate 2 had lost some wet weather ability compared to its predecessor. I have used both CrossClimates and felt the 1+ worked noticeably better than the 2 in wet conditions.

We've high-performance all-season tyres, too: https://www.tyrereviews.com/Article/2023-Tyre-Revi...
Thoughts?

Those aren’t the only ones, but of those, it would depend on the car and what type of driving I was doing more often. A BMW 530d? Probably go for the Falken due to the general balance. On a Porsche Cayman, probably would have to go for the Pirelli or Conti.