Michelin Cross Climate 2 vs Pirelli Cinturato All Season SF2: Even though the all season tire segment in America has been quite common since the last decade, this segment was relatively new in Europe when Michelin’s Cross Climate took it by storm in 2015. The benefits of not needing to swap your tires for the seasonal change was a huge lure for a lot of people who hated switching tires. While the competition in Europe has heated up quite a bit over the last 5 years, Michelin’s Cross Climate 2 is the undisputed best all season tire. Pirelli has been quietly catching up in the segment with the launch of Cinturato All Season SF2 in 2021. To find out which is the better tire, we will pit the Michelin Cross Climate 2 vs Pirelli Cinturato All Season SF2 head to head in an all season showdown!
Table of Contents
Results
Results below were taken from the 2021 Tyre Reviews All Season Tyre Test. A total of 11 tires were tested this time around including a reference summer & winter tire to gauge the compromises of an all season tire. The winter testing was done in Ivalo, Finland while the summer test was conducted in Wachauring, Austria. The graph below shows the comparison between Michelin Cross Climate 2 vs Pirelli Cinturato All Season SF2 based on the relevant performance category. The Cross Climate 2 was set as a reference hence at the 100% mark.
As both tires are categorized as all season tires with a 3 peak mountain logo on it, an extensive snow testing was conducted. However ice testing was left out which was quite disappointing to our dismay. Note that for subjective comfort evaluation, we equate 1 point as 5%. Hence for example if tire A is graded 4 while tire B is graded 3, A is better than B by 5%. The natural scaling does not really make sense in evaluation whereby the max number is 5. The tire size of interest is 205/55R16 which is a common tire size for Volkswagen Golf (2018) and the Toyota Corolla Altis (2018) while the test vehicle is the Golf GTI. You can check out our latest tire size table for more information.
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. As this is all season, Tyre Review decided to test wet braking at 2 different temperature points. Once at 4°C and the other at 15°C to really test the different conditions which an all season tire will have to face.
The tires were inseparable @ 4°C wet braking with only a braking distance of 0.07 meters apart. Things were different at @ 15°C as Cross Climate 2 out brake Cinturato All Season SF2 by 1.57 meters. At warmer temperatures, Cross Climate 2 was the best all season tire in wet braking with only the summer reference better than it. As mentioned in detail during the Weather Control A005 EVO vs Cross Climate 2 duel, the effect of the all season compound & its micro contact area varies based on the given temperature. Broadly speaking, all compounds are optimized to perform at a certain range due to the multitude of trade offs it has to deal with. While an all season compound should work its magic in between the winter & summer temperatures, each manufacturer’s optimized range varies, hence the fluctuation of results can be seen at different temperatures.
While in wet handling, Cinturato All Season SF2 was neck to neck with Cross Cliamte 2 as both of them are only separated by 0.04 seconds ! As we have seen with many Michelin tires across various press tests, Cross Climate 2’s aquaplaning performance is the best among the competition. It managed a straight aquaplaning slip speed of 92.2 km/h while Cinturato All Season SF2 only had a 88.9 km/h slip speed to come in second overall in the test. Similar trends in curve aquaplaning as Cross Climate 2 has an +5.8m/s2 advantage. Overall in the wet category, Cross Climate 2 has a clear advantage.
Cinturato All Season SF2:
- +0.2% in wet braking @4°C
- -5.6% in wet braking @15°C
- -0.1% in wet handling (lap time)
- -3.6% in straight aquaplaning
- -5.5% in curve aquaplaning
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. The testing was done at 2-4°C which is more of the winter side. Cross Climate 2 dominated the dry braking competition by being the best in competition while out braking Cinturato All Season SF2 by 0.77 meters. Just like in straight aquaplaning, Cinturato All Season SF2 came in second once again losing to Cross Climate.
The same story continues in dry handling as the Cross climate 2 claimed the best all season tire among the rest with the fastest lap time @ 45.8 seconds which is only 0.2 seconds faster than Cinturato All Season SF2. Overall on dry surfaces, it is Cross Climate 2 has a slight advantage over Cinturato All Season SF2.
Cinturato All Season SF2:
- -2% in dry braking
- -0.4% in dry handling (lap time)
Comfort & Noise
In the exterior noise test, Cinturato All Season SF2 was the best tire in the competition when it comes to exterior noise. It managed a pass by noise value of 68.7 dB which is 0.4 dB quieter than Cross Climate 2. Along with other 3 tires, Cinturato All Season SF2 had a 10/10 score on comfort while Cross Climate 2 was 0.5 points behind with an overall rating of 9.5/10.
Cinturato All Season SF2:
- +0.6% in exterior noise (-0.4 dB)
- +2.5% in subjective comfort (+0.5)
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.
Both tires that we feature in this article have a rolling resistance label of “B”. This would have indicated they should be around the same performance range. However with the results, we were surprised to see a 6% gap as Cinturato All Season SF2 has the best rolling resistance coefficient among the field with a measured value of 7.2 N/kN. Hence this makes the Cinturato All Season SF2 a much more sustainable as it emits less carbon footprint over its lifetime compared to Cross Climate 2.
Cinturato All Season SF2:
- +6.4% in rolling resistance
Snow
As with most all season tires in the European market, both tires here come with a 3 peak mountain symbol to legally certified them as a winter tire. In layman terms, Cinturato All Season SF2 and Cross Climate 2 had to pass a legal snow test in order to certify themselves as a 3 peak mountain tire.
Cross Climate 2 showed its strength in snow traction by taking only 5.45 seconds to accelerate from 5-40 km/h while it took Cinturato All Season SF2 5.74 seconds. All the all season tires took less than 7 seconds to accelerate till 40km/h while the reference summer tire took 20 seconds ! This is the part where you get your money’s worth by not getting stuck in the snow 🙂 . Cross Climate 2 had a snow braking edge as it out-brake Cinturato All Season SF2 by 0.67 meters. Cross Climate 2 also took the lead in snow handling with a lap time advantage of 1.23 seconds. Overall, Cross Climate 2 excels much better in snow when compared with Cinturato All Season SF2.
Cinturato All Season SF2:
- -3.8% in snow braking
- -5.1% in snow traction
- -1.4% in snow handling (lap times)
- -1.6% in snow circle
Price
Being the undisputed technology leader, we would expect Michelin to command the highest priced tire in the market. Michelin’s Cross Climate 2 proved to slightly more expensive compared to Bridgestone’s Cinturato All Season SF2.
Tire size: 205/55 R16
Cross Climate 2: €91.6
Cinturato All Season SF2: €84
Difference: -9% more cheaper for Cinturato All Season SF2.
Summary
Overall, Cross Climate 2 shows great masterclass performance in all categories. It only lost out to Cinturato All Season SF2 in noise, comfort & rolling resistance. It is clear in our opinion that clearly the Cross Climate 2 is the winner of this duel with its outstanding dry, wet, & snow performances.