Michelin Alpin A4
French firm’s winter tyre lost some ground in the dry tests
The Alpin A4 could have been made for cold, wet British winters. It matched Continental in the wet and was only beaten by the summer SportContact 3 thanks to its superiority in the non-temperature dependent aquaplaning.
It was the quickest of all in wet handling, just pipping the Pirelli. The directional pattern felt secure, with a sharp turn-in and good traction out of the slower turns. This wet performance was not at the expense of grip on snow, although it was off the pace of the best. It was one of the leading pack on the handling course, where it again showed decent traction and initial turn-in, although it would push wide in tighter corners. Only in lateral aquaplaning was it really off the pace.
Its dry road performance is at the heart of why it has to settle for fourth. Eighth place for handling looks worse than it is, but it needed two more metres than the all-season Vredestein to stop from 62mph, and came bottom of the closely scoring winter tyres.
Our verdict
Competitive performances on snow and wet conditions, but lacks a little in the dry.
| On test… | Score | Ranking |
| Snow braking | 90.5 | 4 |
| Snow traction | 94.8 | 4 |
| Snow handling | 99.4 | 4 |
| Snow slalom | 98.1 | 3 |
| Straight aquaplaning | 99.8 | 2 |
| Curved aquaplaning | 84.7 | 5 |
| Wet handling | 100 | 1 |
| Wet braking | 96.9 | 3 |
| Dry handling | 98.9 | 8 |
| Dry braking | 95.5 | 9 |
| Rolling resistance | 94.8 | 6 |
| Price | £222 | 9 |
| Overall | 98.7 | 4 |
