July 18, 2022
Standard Touring All-Season tires are built to satisfy an important segment in the modern tire marketplace. Historically drivers gravitate to the category for its pragmatic approach to tire design, featuring longer tread life, comfortable road manners and sufficient all-season traction. Where some segments put an emphasis on "smiles not miles" or "ultimate luxury," Standard Touring All-Season tires are the proud workhorse of the segment spectrum, focusing on delivering day-in, day-out reliability and durability.
The Defender2 is the latest Standard Touring All-Season offering from Michelin, and it comes from a long legacy of sensible tire options. Built with design elements and technologies that heavily promote smooth, even tread wear and with a durable compound focused on long life, the tire is engineered to be a steadfast partner for many miles.
To see how the Defender2 stacks up against its fellow prudent counterparts, our team chose two familiar rivals that each exemplify the right balance of attributes of a Standard Touring All-Season product. The Continental TrueContact Tour is well-regarded by consumers with an impressive number of miles reported with excellent reviews. Goodyear’s Assurance MaxLife brings similarly good reviews with some of the highest Treadwear survey results in the category. Both tires have been tested against each other, as well as the Defender2’s predecessor, so it should give our team a clear picture of how they compare and where any design compromises or priorities were made. Our evaluation used 2022 Subaru BRZ Limited test vehicles fitted with new, full tread depth 205/55R16 tires mounted on 16x7 wheels.
Our 6.0-mile loop of expressway, state highway and county roads provide a great variety of road conditions that include city and highway speeds, smooth and coarse concrete, as well as new and patched asphalt. This route allows our team to experience noise comfort, ride quality and everyday handling, just as you would during your drive to school or work.
With Standard Touring All-Season tires’ propensity to soak up miles during the daily commute or road trip, our team, naturally, put a strong emphasis on the road portion of the test. Our drivers got a chance to see how the three competitors would fare in ideal conditions without inclement weather taking attention away from the subtle noises and minute differences in handing and comfort that drivers might notice after living with the tire every day. The Goodyear Assurance MaxLife drew praise from our team with its comfortable, but still well-controlled ride. Its test leading ride quality managed to soak up small undulations and cracks with ease, without feeling loose or disconnected over the varied surfaces. Noise comfort from this group of tires with their utility-focused patterns and constructions might make some mild compromises, but overall, our team was satisfied with each product along the ever-changing surfaces of our route. The Assurance MaxLife emitted very consistent road noises at a moderate volume on par with the group, with only mild tones becoming discernable on rougher pavement. The Goodyear also managed impressive steering and light handling evaluations thanks to its reassuringly hefty steering weight and communicative mid-corner feedback. The Defender2 garnered similar praise from our drivers in its steering characteristics, but in a slightly different manner. In contrast to the Goodyear’s firm, weighty feel, the Michelin was fast and light while retaining its accuracy. Both felt good in their own right, just different, which our team could appreciate. The Defender2 matched the Assurance MaxLife in subjective noise comfort by producing slightly more cavity ring on smooth surfaces but again impressing the team with broad, consistent tones. The ride was taut from the Michelin with concise impacts that transmitted the road imperfections in vivid detail without being overly harsh or uncontrolled. The TrueContact Tour had the firmest ride of the group which brought attention to itself on the small, repeated bumps and undulations, feeling choppy compared to its more supple counterparts. The responsive steering was satisfying right off center with a rapid ramp up in response, but our team agreed it could have used a bit more accuracy, particularly on-center. While it did have the highest levels of noise in the test, the Continental wasn’t objectionable due to its well-blended tones that only stood out on exceptionally smooth pavement.
Our 1/3-mile per lap test track course includes 90-degree street corners, a five-cone slalom and simulated expressway ramps. Run in both dry and wet conditions, the test track allows our team to experience the traction, responsiveness, handling, and drivability normally only encountered during abrupt emergency avoidance maneuvers or competition events.
The inevitability that wet weather will be part of drivers’ commute or daily driving duties is a fact of life for many consumers. While quiet, comfortable road manners are important, the added predictability when conditions become difficult takes center stage in heavy rains and on damp, slick roads. While the TrueContact Tour might have found itself just behind the others in absolute comfort on the road, it was clearly out front around our wet track. Braking from fifty miles per hour was achieved a commanding, twenty-five feet shorter than its closest rival. Lateral traction came in over 6 hundredths of a g higher, which on paper, might not seem like much, but around the skidpad, the difference was readily apparent. Unsurprisingly, this traction advantage yielded the quickest laps of the test. The Assurance MaxLife leveraged its weighty, responsive steering and nicely balanced handling at the limit for more competitive laps than its objective performance might suggest. The braking disparity was, however, hard to mask, and our drivers could feel it was obviously working with less traction, but it was utilizing what grip was available efficiently, clearly communicating its limits. While also doing a commendable job of communicating its limits, the Defender2 simply had considerably lower levels of grip around our course. The combination of rapid wheelspin coming out of corners and braking distances that required significant mental readjustment for our drivers, equated to laps that were a solid step behind the Goodyear and what felt like a massive leap behind the Continental.
While dry track lapping is not the focus of a Standard Touring-All Season tire, it can give insight into how the tires might react if pushed beyond their limit, like when avoiding the sudden road obstruction or managing an overcorrection after accidentally dropping a tire off the roadway. The Assurance MaxLife once again utilized its direct and responsive handling, combining multiple inputs with ease, which is a trait that makes unexpected, dynamic maneuvers easy to handle. The Defender2 also delivered competitive, objective results, and around the track defaulted to safe understeer as it slowly exceeded grip. While maybe not the optimum behavior for fast laps, its understeer-prone handling was consistent and easily correctable for the unpredictable public streets. The TrueContact Tour delivered competitive objective results as well, but our team found its steering lacked some of the directness and accuracy of the other two. While still more than capable for public roadways, our team thought a moderate increase in front end response would have helped it sync up with our test car’s chassis a little more.
Traditionally, Standard Touring All-Season tires have been some of the more capable all-season tires for winter conditions. Their generous sipes and smaller tread blocks that promote a smooth, quiet ride also typically excel at creating the biting edges needed to develop light snow traction. With the smaller 16" test size and our capable BRZ test platform, our team expected satisfying performance and was excited to find each tire’s limits.
The TrueContact Tour delivered those satisfying results by accelerating to twelve miles per hour, a palpable 4.7 feet sooner, and braking over six feet shorter from twenty-five miles per hour. The Continental’s objective traction advantage helped it achieve the highest subjective evaluations around the handling course with stronger acceleration and the most front-end bite of the group. While it struggled like all the all-season products in the icy sections, our drivers thought it did provide superior control through the polished corners. The Assurance MaxLife was a bit down on outright grip from the Continental but mostly satisfied our team around the course if they stayed well below its edgy limit of traction. The Goodyear’s tendency to magnify any yaw and its relative lack of traction made some corners a bit exhilarating. Still, luckily the tire’s decent braking competence allowed them to shed the speed off approaching corners, preventing any future mishaps. The Defender2 maintained enough traction for basic winter driving tasks but was a noticeable step down from the former competitors in acceleration and braking. Our drivers found it difficult to manage cornering speeds, with the tire punishing even the slightest of missteps with crippling understeer or exacerbated oversteer that took precious seconds to correct.
On the ice, the Assurance MaxLife led the group by a solid margin, gapping its nearest competitor, the Defender2, by over half a second in acceleration to sixty feet and stopping the test vehicle four feet sooner from 12 miles per hour. The TrueContact Tour struggled to match the others this time with capable but ultimately slower acceleration times and longer braking distances.
Each tire in this test of Standard Touring All-Season options performed well. Their combined overall evaluations were very close, with each tire seemingly taking slightly different routes to get there. This should allow customers to differentiate between them, helping drivers fit their new tires to their preferences. The Goodyear Assurance MaxLife is a solid, well-sorted package. It’s nice on the road, blending comfort with sporty handling in all the right amounts. The Goodyear is capable in the snow as well as the wet, and even though it’s a clear step behind the leader, it has the predictability and balance needed to provide divers with confidence. The Defender2 delivers a comfortable, well-controlled ride with nice steering and well-managed road noise. Our team would have liked some more wet and winter traction, and while it struggles somewhat to match the others in that respect, it delivers a nicely rounded package otherwise. The TrueContact Tour’s fast, light steering and taut ride never felt out of place on the road, but it does lead our drivers to question why it didn’t offer a little more precision when pushed on the track. Regardless, the Continental is an excellent example of why drivers should assess their driving characteristics and conditions and make sure their prospective tires align with them. The TrueContact Tour’s traction in the wet and snow is undeniable, which are metrics that can be very high on a driver’s list of priorities. At quick glance, being third of three in this very tight group might be unimpressive, but a closer look reveals each tire seems to simply balance performance and utility in their own way.
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