The expert team of the British publication AutoExpress has tested eight sets of tires in the size of 235/50 R18 in order to define which of them would become the best choice for town SUVs.

The growing popularity of vehicles with high ground clearance is making tire makers to pay more attention to SUV tires. SUVs, as a rule, are heavier and taller than hatchbacks, and often come with a four-wheel drive, which imposes some certain requirements on the tires that they drive upon. Because of that, the tire manufacturers either develop special tire models for SUVs or modify the already existing ones. And in this test of SUV tires, the group of AutoExpress experts tried to find out who of them did a better job of it.

The tires to be tested were bought retail, while the tests were chiefly conducted at Continental’s test facility in UVALDE (Texas, USA). The tires’ rolling resistance was tested in the Continental R&D center in Hannover, Germany. All of the tests conducted at the test facility were conducted by the AutoExpress expert team, for the sole exception of hydroplaning resistance test that requires special skills from the driver. This test was conducted by the pilots of the test facility.