Can a New Budget Tire Beat a Worn Premium Tire in the Dry, Wet and Snow? 

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I love the testing of worn tires! Anyone can optimize for the testing of brand new tires. What happens when they get worn is the important metric that can rarely get tested

Great test (as usual!), but one note though - it is not always only about thread depth. I have had tyres which were fine for their depth, but the compound got degraded after 4-5 years (yes, I don't drive like mad when not driving my M240i). So last tyres I had to change were changed due to the compound degradation, not due to the thread depth. So having 4-5 years old tyre with low thread is not the same as having the "new" (relatively) tyre machined down to the same thread height. This is not a critisim, just my observation. Thanks for the review!

The time spent watching this channel is well invested, not wasted!

Do the same test with a 5 year old worn tyre and the brand new budget -) I think the age of the tyres makes HUGE difference!

Great test! More worn tire tests!! Your channel is the best I've found for honest tire comparisons

As a guy who works with tyres I love this channel haha I'd be interested to see this same test with summer tyres as so many people have summer tyres all year round so the wet test would be interesting

This channel has officially turn me into a tyre junkie. And I love it. First video to watch on a Sunday morning 😅 before coffee no less 😂

Great effort 👍 love watching your tests.

Incredible detail when testing, nobody out there at this level. Any future All Terrain tyre testing in the future would be greatly appreciated as these are incredibly popular here in Australia.

Again thank you for developing this channel and making your testing results available for our benefit. Extremely valuable information

Yes! A video I've been waiting for ages!

I know 3mm (4/32") tread depth is usually where the steepest drop off in wet weather performance occurs, and 4mm (5/32") is the limit for winter. The fact the CC2 arrived with just 2.2mm (3/32") and still did this well is truly astonishing.

Another great vid! Thanks! Regarding the snow handling - some close ups show that the worn CC2 still grabs quite a bit of snow and the area of the tire covered with snow is greater than on the Tomket. So it's the snow gripping to snow, hence better handling (that also proves that CC2 thread design is really awesome) :) If the tire would we warm, straight from the garage on the snowy road, it'd probably skid until it would cool down enough. While cooling, it could cover itself with lots of snow, like a ski with no wax on, when taken from a warm room and put on the snow. My concern would be more in city snow-salt-sand-mud pulp, where little thread would struggle to push this crap out, as the throughput of these thread 'channels' would be significantly lower. Aquaplanning quite similar, however at higher speed, as water has better density than such winter crap-pulp ;) Great test, good to know etc. However, I'd still stick to 3-4 mm before the winter for CC2 and then maybe still use it in the summer and get new ones before the next winter, for such conditions, where CC2 is great (mild, mid-European winters with occasional snow and terrible 'love' of the road maintainence teams to use salt for no good reason on each and every small street in the city... Salt ruins everything (from cars, through clothes to environment, also creating a troublesome waste category) and does not increase road safety at all. Quite the opposite actually, as it makes people drive faster than they would on the compacted snow. Oh, BTW - yes, I agree that dry grip improves with wear. But (there's always a but ;)) we need to keep againg in mind. 20 y.o. tire may not give us such great grip anymore ;) Yet within 5-8 years I do agree. I had Sportmaxx RT, not used much, after 8 years they were still amazing in the dry, however the thread compound was significantly less elastic than before and in the wet it wasn't the same tire anymore. I've noticed that any sand on the edge of the road was also a bigger challenge compared to the same tire a year earlier, with pretty much the same thread depth (really not used much - it had almost 6 mm when I left them for recycling, after 8 seasons). I had the same observations with bicycle tires. With age they still grip in the try, but any surface imperfections, sand and dust on the road becomes more challenging. Wet becomes a disaster. As with car tyres :)

Thanks for producing this kind of tests. 👍 This aspect has been in my head for some time and I have been among the people who asked you to try to do it, really interesting to see the results. So thanks also for listening to your "fan club". 🙏😄

Thank you for your great videos! I work in sales for a tyre dealer. Some people just won’t accept good advice. I often refer to your channel when people think I’m just trying to sell higher priced tyres.

You sir are a legend. Thank you for everything!

Very good to know that the Michelin tire's compounding is uniform throughout the tread depth. I had a set of "P" brand premium tires which changed from a Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde in terms of traction and handling as the tire became worn. Thanks, John!

Can't wait to find out the quality of life a tire has. Most appreciate the effort you and the team's are putting in.

Love the videos, whenever I get time to watch them I watch them in full.

Great review ! We have Michelin Cross Climate 2 on both our Outback and Forester. I’m glad we don’t have to put winter tires anymore. The Cross Climate 2 is perfect for our needs. Especially with our 5-6 feet of snow every winter.

It is amazing how hard it is to find any comparisons on truck tires in the winter. I find dozens of All Season and other reviews and everyone is driving small SUV's or little compacts. All of the AT tire reviews are in the spring and summer. Would be great to see a review using pickups in the snow and ice.

Thank you for all these tests!!! You’re doing a great job!👍💪

I've watches more than a few reviews/tests on the CC2s and it seems your channel is the best at these tests and reviews. I'm convinced the CC2 is the tire I'd be happiest with for my Subaru Forester. Thank you for your excellent channel.

Fantastic review. Have on order a set of cross climate 2 to replace my 9 year old x-ice 3 on my 17” wheels. I live in Southern Ohio, so limited snow in winter, few people drive on winter tires here. Being Canadian I’m used to winters and also gave me opportunity to run summers (pilot sport) on my 18” wheels. Note the x-ice 3s have always been mounted on same wheels, no degradation seen (stored inside). But at 9 years felt they were overdue for replacement even with lots of tread left.

The good news, the tomket didn't take you for an unplanned route to an alternative circuit this time. Great review many thanks !!

You are doing a test I am waiting for ever!

this is such a fantastic real world needed answer. thanks!

Great test. It would be interesting to test an old tyre and a new tyre with the same level of wear to test what happens when the rubber gets old. I replaced 7 year old tyres which had awful cold weather grip.

Great vid, very useful info, thanks 🙂 This fella has to be one of the best car RU-vidrs. He knows his subject, articulates his findings enthusiastically and clearly - and isn’t an egotistical bellend, unlike far too many I could mention 🙄

these are some surprising results, thanks for doing these tests!!

Awesome as always, keep up the great work

Such an interesting test, thank you for the always excellent content! 👍

Michelin's tyre is known for consistent performance throughout its lifetime. I've heard Kumho is notorius for performance degredation as it gets worn. It is very difficult to execute, but I would love to see a normal multi-factor tyre comparison between makes and models with worn tyres.

Please never stop tyre reviews

Literally asking myself this question yesterday. Love your videos.

Confirms what I always believed, always wanted this type of test to be done! Also really impressed the CrossClimate 2 performed so well even when worn (which is part of the reason why I bought it even though I usually change my tyres earlier than "necessary"), I just fitted it to my car 2 days ago and already drove it for almost 400km and through a terrible rainstorm with no issues, haven't pushed it too much yet but grip on wet surfaces is better than I anticipated, maybe its understeery nature fits my RWD car better as I can give it more gas coming out of corners compared to my previous tyres (GY Asym 5), maybe not as fun but ESC and TC are joy-killers in my car anyway (no drifting for me). I'd love some testing on tyre pressures and how it affects performance and fuel economy!

Your channel needs more subscribers and views. Not just because more people can be educated, but also to help you earn more money so you can do more of these tests. Excellent video. If you had the means of doing this again, can I suggests winter tires? As they have the highest wear and also tire grip change is most important in slippery winter conditions.

Thanks, one of the best tyre reviews over the years I have watched, strong arguments, and I will think twice now about getting new cheap tyres...

man I love the video and your test technics, comments, video quality, all !! thank you and keep uo the good work!

What you unfortunatley couldn't embrace in you comparison is the factor of aging during the time, the premium tire is worn from 6.5 to 2.2 mm - but this is a significant fator! You should develope an aging procedure (UV light and changing of cold and warm phases and ...) to compress the aging of an 6 year old tire to 1 year and then compare the old and worn premium tire with a brand new budget tire! Maybe the tire manufacturers already have? 😉

This was interesting to watch, great video. In the future, will you touch ageing aspect as well? I think it was left out a bit in this video. As far as I know even if you don't use tyres, softening chemicals will leach out and make it harder. This secound aspect might be more important then thread depth when it comes to old tyre performance.

Thanks for doing this test. Love to see these!

❤ omg, ive been waiting for so long! Thanks for the video!

As a fan of the Crossclimates I enjoyed this. Currently on the 2 but still have an original from 2016 as my spare and it hasn't cracked and perished. Thanks for trying the budget tyre so I'm not tempted to. Also enjoyed the bit about the environmental impact of tyres although was hoping you would also mention deforestation to grow rubber so it's definitely better, in my opinion, to have to buy them less often and have full life performance.

I've used the Michelin North4 studded for now into 3 seasons ( roughly 20-25 000 km ) on my daily driver in Manitoba Canada . It's at around 5/32s and still excellent grip so far. I have always had snow tires and could feel the loss of traction as they wore down. These North 4's ( with the help of 85% of the studs left) have not changed to the point of noticing loss of grip.

Excellent video as usual!

Real interesting - appreciate the effort!

I think you should try to buy used tires for worn tires testing ) At least, you would have something to compare

This is a very tricky topic. I had CrossClmate (not the Plus or 2) tyres, I bought them used after I saw your test about the 7-degree myth. I can't talk about snow performance, but wet performance at near freezing and freezing temperatures was getting worse after their 6th birthday. And that's the tricky part about it. The worn tyres in this test were still "young", the rubber didn't age. I know wear and worn tyre testing is complex, people want to see an objective test on something that is massively influenced by the driver, the car, location, driving habits and many other things. The best thing we can do is review our tyes.

Great test as always

Awesome job! Thank you for this!

One interesting comparison would be a 4-5 year OLD (not worn) tyre versus a NEW tyre.

Much respect for pointing out the environmental impacts 👍

Jonathan, Happy Christmas to you, our best tire/tyre reviewer, and also to the readers here. I much enjoy your reviews and looking forward to the next one. Safe snow driving!

Very interesting test, I did not expect that the worn ones brake so well on snow. Thanks.

I was doing lot of dynamic tyre testing. In my experience all higher price premium tyres had the greatest adventage in consistency during their tyre life. I remember winter continentals with 2 mm still done better than some brand new budget tyres. And budget tyres quickly lost some of their performance when they done some miles.

These tests are always awesome! It was surprising to see the performance left in the Michelin even with so little of the tread remaining. The "worn tire" situation is still missing a lot of variables, as in degradation of the compound due to heat cycling, UV irradiation and diffusion during ageing, uneven wear due to weight distribution and toe settings... tire engineers likely know all about it. I know it's near impossible to test properly, just a reminder to take those results with a grain of salt - still, at least from my personal experience, budget tires and rainy conditions are a recipe for disaster.

OMG YES! Thank you for this vid. Such great information here.

If you remember I asked for this some years ago and I am very very glad you are doing this. Waiting for the other video you said it should be coming soon where you compare all premium brands for wear vs performance.

Great Review thanks you for explaining everything in details! So far I'm very happy with my CrossClimate 2 purchase. The Performance has been great overall on the Snow, Rain and Dry conditions. I also want to mention the tire does a great job making the drive quality a lot more smoother and stable. I take many road trips throughout the year and so far driving 4 - 8 hours has been great! I highly recommend the CrossClimate 2's to everyone and anyone that is looking to buy a new tire.

Everytime I see another Cross Climate 2 evaluation I am seeing the $1200 price tag was worth it. From treadwear over years, snow performance, hydroplaning resistance, noise, comfort, and competent dry handling... it's a freaking swiss army knife of tires.

Again thanks for these videos. Very insighting

Great video! Very enlightening, thanks.

It would be great making test - worn all season tires( driven in summer) vs worn winter tires. The hot sun will show the real face of the "all" seanons ties😂

I think one of key takeaways (and I have argued this a lot and as well from my own experience) is that - what makes premium tyres safer is the consistency and predictability. I always get premium tyres and I always try to care for them as much as I can (making sure they have right pressures, doing wheel alignment when fitting, monitoring how they wear and adjusting pressures etc.) and I drive them as long as I can (generally to ~2.5-3mm). This usually means that I am getting 30k miles+ from a set and sometimes even close to 40k miles. Once in a while I get a car and it has decent budget tyres and in the past I felt bad about replacing tyres with plenty of thread depth (say 5-6mm+), but in my experience budget tyres are death trap for specifically this reason (your wet driving results), they may grip grip grip and then they suddenly let go. So it isn't ultimate grip that matters for safety - it is consistent and predictable handling! Note as well that you picked genuinely good budget tyre, but that is not what people are fitting.. people who shop for budget generally takes the cheapest tyre on sale... that is your Accelera, Triangle, FastRoad type of brands... they are horrifying!

Black ice test would be nice addition to the test! Awesome work! 👍🏼

Great to se this video, i was searching exactly for this a day before it was posted...

Impressive by michellin, I wonder if other brands would up as well.

It is not an entirely fair comparison, a tire not only loses threat deep. Over time, heat, sun, etc. the rubber becomes harder. If you machine the tire to lower threat deep you have fresh rubber even if you have very low threat deep

@tyrereviews Thank you!! This is exactly the video I was waiting for. I hope you get the budget to do more worn tire videos

Thank you. This is very important and very informative. Amazed & pleased that you do this.

After just 2 years on Mediterranean ☀️ every tire becomes significantly closer to plastic than new... So i think these is only relevant in aquaplaning. With regards!

I wouldn't want to be driving even a premium tyre at 1.6mm. I try to swap them at 3mm. Equally I wouldn't want a budget tyre. I have run Kumhos in the past when money was tight and I did inherit a car on nearly new Maxiis, which was not too bad. But other than that I stick to the premium brands and shop around for the best price.

You are the champion geek of tyre geeks, I salute you sir! Great vid

I have had these CrossClimate2 tires in SWFL rainy seasons as well as driving up to the NC Mountains during snow events. They are no joke. And on 2 different vehicles. Will definitely continue to purchase these tires.

worn tire should be a 3-5 year old one, where the rubber has lost quality. The dept of the protector is not the only one parameter that makes a difference. However, an interesting test.

Age of the tire matters. Once an aged premium tire gets with so little tread, it would have way less performance left than the test done in the video.

Brilliant video, thanks loads for the very informative video.

I bought the original CC tires back a few yers ago. I LOVED them! I now have the cross climate 2s on my other car.

Hahaha *imagines CC2 fans ordering shaved CC2s from now on*

Wonder : WHY are you grundig down a brand New tire to the limit? IT is still brand New rubber. Old rubber, 5 to 8 year would behave very different from each other

Keep up the awesome work.

I’m getting a new set today of CC2. Thanks for great reviews Boss!

Thank you for your honesty Sir.

Very interesting, you are THE tyre channel !

I live in Brazil and most likely will never use a winter tire in my life, but I just love the effort you put in your videos to collect the most accurate data possible. Video suggestion: Budget summer+winter tires vs premium all season for almost the same price.

Excellent experiment!

Thank you for this test & analysis.

Another great video!

Some eye-opening great information. Thank you

Brilliant idea! Thank you for this test. I'd also like to see how other tyres perform when they're used... Hopefully the Goodyear will be on the list.

Nice video as usual 👍

One of the most interesting videos I´ve ever seen from you. Thank you very much!

Really nice video!

Hey bro, I really appreciate your commitment to quality data. It's expensive, and most others take shortcuts.

Thanks for putting in the hours once more!

What a test, you are so thorough. Ps I mentioned I bought my first set of all seasons a few months ago ( Goodyear vector 4seasons gen 3). They have performed so well. Had below freezing temps in the UK last week and the confidence they gave vs premium summer tyres was very very noticeable. All possible because of your videos. 👍

I really don't know how to praise you friend. Your videos are really great, especially the ones that go in the form of controlled experiments. Please continue this.

Kudos for your in-deep review and proving many of my points. A good tire is always good tyre and it is sometimes even better when near its lifetime.