Michelin Crossclimate 2 vs Crossclimate Plus: All season tires have always been the go to tires for the American market and this segment has been well established across the years. However Michelin surprised the European market with a 3 peak mountain certified all season tire called Cross Climate in 2015 and this revolutionized the all season market completely. Against a summer tire, Cross Climate showed that it is possible to be slightly worse in summer performances but completely dominate the winter performances. After 3 iterations , Michelin released their best model so far , Cross Climate 2 which sets the gold standard for all season tires with an incredible all round balance portfolio. We will bring you back down the memory lane and make a comparison against its predecessor “Cross Climate +” and show the improvements made with the Cross Climate 2.
Table of Contents
Results
Results below were taken from the Tyre Review’s “Michelin CrossClimate 2 VS Michelin CrossClimate+” test. The graph below shows the comparison between Michelin Cross Climate 2 vs Michelin Cross Climate+ based on the relevant performance category. The Michelin Cross Climate+ was set as a reference hence at the 100% mark.
As this is an all season segment, Tyre Review conducted a snow handling test to evaluate the differences between the 2 tires.. The tire size of interest is a 205/55R16 which is a common tire size for Volkswagen Golf and the Toyota Corolla Altis. You can check out our latest tire size table for more information. The testing vehicle is a Volkswagen Golf 8
Wet
The friction of coefficient of the tire/road dramatically decreases in wet roads compared to dry roads. Hence it is more likely to get into a road accident during wet conditions rather than on a sunny day. It was so important that the EU label has wet braking as one of its three criteria. There were no EU label changes for both tires as they still maintain the rating “B” but Cross Climate 2 managed to out brake Cross Climate+ by 4.7 feet (1.4m). The braking distance improvements were quite impressive even for Michelin’s caliber.
While in wet handling, both tires were effective the same as the new Cross Climate 2 was only 0.03 second quicker than its predecessor. Overall wet performance was improved with most of the gains coming from wet braking.
Cross Climate 2:
- +4.9% in wet braking
- +0.1 % in wet handling (lap time)
Dry
As for dry, safety is usually not an issue as the braking distance is much longer than wet. However this is the default daily usage and the tires have to perform at a very consistent level. In dry braking we saw huge improvements as Cross Climate 2 was stopping 5.9 feet (1.8m) earlier than Cross Climate +. Kudos as Michelin managed to balance the target conflict of wet & dry braking very well.
While we saw almost no gain in wet handling, things were different for dry handling as Cross Climate 2 managed to be 1.74 seconds per lap faster than Cross Climate +. Knowing the improvements in wet relative to the dry, Michelin surprises us once again by improving on dry with a respectable margin.
Cross Climate 2:
- +5.3% in dry braking
- +2.2% in dry handling (lap time)
Rolling Resistance
When it comes to all season tires, rolling resistance is definitely not at the highest priority as the engineer has to handle the most important winter vs summer target conflict. However with the sustainability topic being more prevalent, rolling resistance has been widely used as a competitive marketing tool as it could be easily seen in the label values.
Cross Climate 2 stayed with the same rolling resistance label of “C” as Cross Climate+. However when the tires were put to the test, the new Cross Climate 2 achieved a lower fuel consumption of 5.55 liter/100km in comparison to the 5.66 liter/100km of Cross Climate+. This makes Cross Climate 2 a much more sustainable as it emits less carbon footprint over its lifetime compared to Cross Climate+.
Cross Climate 2:
- +2% in fuel consumption
Snow
As both tires are the poster child for all season tires equipped with 3 peak mountain, it is only natural to test them on snow. In the snow handling criteria, Cross Climate 2 did much more than what it was expected by being 2.7 seconds faster than Cross Climate +. Even though there were no objective snow braking tests but with a much faster lap time, Michelin showed massive improvements in snow once again.
Cross Climate 2:
- +3% in snow handling (lap time)
UTQG rating
We have previously shown that UTQG tread wear rating can be a good indication of your expected mileage. Below are the UTQG values of both of the tirelines.
| Brand | Tireline | Size | Tread Wear | Traction | Temperature |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Michelin | Cross Climate + | All | 600 | B | A |
| Michelin | Cross Climate 2 | All | 640 | B | A |
The mileage warranty for Cross Climate 2 is 60,000 miles while Cross Climate+ offers 55,000 miles. The higher miles warranty offered by Cross Climate 2 are in line with the UTQG tread wear rating of Cross Climate 2 at 640 compared to 600 of Cross Climate+. Overall we can expect a slightly more mileage for Cross Climate 2 in comparison to Cross Climate+.
For more in depth information about UTQG, please check out this article here. We even have a free download on the latest UTQG values from the leading tire manufacturers.
Price
Being the undisputed technology leader, Michelin usually is one of the highest priced tires in the market.
Tire size: 225/50 R17
Cross Climate 2: €149.5
Summary
Overall, Cross Climate 2 shows drastic improvements in wet, dry, snow & fuel consumption over a highly successful predecessor product. Be sure to check it out yourself !