Dunlop Winter review
The Winter's name is a no-nonsense one, but its results weren't quite as clear-cut
It's been a while since we’ve had a Dunlop in our winter tyre test. The simply named Winter was a bit of a mixed bag; it scored one outright win, being the best in snow traction, and it backed that up with third in snow braking, just a few centimetres behind the best – and yet it could only take ninth around the snow handling circuit.
From behind the wheel it came as no surprise that it was a couple of seconds off the pace; it delivered little bite when turning into corners, but the rear was quite eager to swing, making for a tricky balancing act.
It came a lowly ninth in wet braking, taking almost 3m more to stop than the best, and it was ninth again around the wet circuit. It didn’t seem to put a wheel wrong, with decent grip and a willing handling balance, but the time just wasn’t there. It was a decent sixth in curved aquaplaning but ninth in a straight line.
Seventh equal in dry braking, less than 2m off the leading tyre, placed it mid-field, and although it was ranked 10th in dry handling, it was less than a second off the pace. That said, it was unexpectedly loose, which made the ride a bit wild. Rolling resistance was good.
Blackcircles.com says…
“Delivers a couple of decent results in the snow, but overall performance isn’t good enough to help it compete with the mid-field tyres.”
| Dunlop Winter | ||
| Overall | 97.5% | |
| Price | £119 | |
| Snow braking | 99.3 | 3rd |
| Snow traction | 100 | 1st |
| Snow handling | 97.7 | 9th |
| Straight aquaplaning | 90.6 | 9th |
| Curved aquaplaning | 94.3 | 6th |
| Wet braking | 91.9 | 9th |
| Wet handling | 96.4 | 9th |
| Wet circle | 96.2 | 8th |
| Dry braking | 96.2 | =7th |
| Dry handling | 98.9 | 10th |
| Cabin noise | 99.3 | 8th |
| Rolling resistance | 89.0 | 5th |
