Bridgestone Weather Control A005 EVO vs Michelin Cross Climate 2

Bridgestone Weather Control A005 EVO vs Michelin Cross Climate 2: 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 things were only starting to take off in Europe after the launch of Cross Climate in 2015 revolutionizing the whole all season market. Michelin has a strong foothold in the all season market with its newest Cross Climate 2 (launch in 2020) and has been winning quite a number of press tests. Bridgestone has also been quietly catching up in the segment with the launch of its 2nd generation Weather Control A005 EVO in 2020 as well. To find out which is the better tire, we will pit the Bridgestone Weather Control A005 EVO vs Michelin Cross Climate 2 head to head in an all season showdown!

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 Bridgestone Weather Control A005 EVO vs Michelin Cross Climate 2 based on the relevant performance category. The Weather Control A005 EVO 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 Weather Control A005 EVO did really well @ 4°C and out-brake Cross Climate 2 by 1.5 meters. Weather Control A005 EVO was the best wet braking tire among the competition @ 4°C. However things changed drastically @ 15°C as the Cross Climate 2 brake 2.13 meters earlier than the Weather Control A005 EVO. What we are witnessing here is 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, Weather Control A005 EVO managed one of the best lap time by being quicker than Cross Climate 2 by 0.67 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 Weather Control A005 EVO only had a 85.7 km/h slip speed. Similar trends in curve aquaplaning as Cross Climate 2 has an +5.1m/s² advantage. Overall in the wet category, Weather Control A005 EVO has an edge during low temperatures but at a warmer temperature range Cross Climate 2 is much better.

Cross Climate 2:

• -4.9% in wet braking @4°C
• +8% in wet braking @15°C
• -1.3% in wet handling (lap time)
• +7.6% in straight aquaplaning
• +6.2% 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 Weather Control A005 EVO by 1.9 meters.

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 0.41 seconds faster than Weather Control A005 EVO. Overall on dry surfaces, it is clear that Cross Climate 2 is the best in class tire.

Cross Climate 2:

• +5.2% in dry braking
• +0.9% in dry handling (lap time)

Comfort & Noise

In the exterior noise test, Cross Climate 2 has a pass by noise value of 69.1 dB which is 0.8 dB quieter than Weather Control A005 EVO. Both tires are equally matched in subjective comfort with a rating of 9.5/10

Cross Climate 2:

• +1.2% in exterior noise (-0.8 dB)
• 0% in subjective comfort (9.5/10)

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 is labeled “B” while the Weather Control A005 EVO is labeled “C”. So it is not surprising to see a big difference as the Michelin has a 7.17 N/kN rolling resistance coefficient value while the Bridgestone obtained a 8.11 N/kN rolling resistance coefficient. Hence this makes the Cross Climate 2 a much more sustainable as it emits less carbon footprint over its lifetime compared to Weather Control A005 EVO.

Cross Climate 2:

• +5.9% 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, Weather Control A005 EVO and Cross Climate 2 has 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 Weather Control A005 EVO 5.9 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 🙂 . Snow braking was relatively closed as they are separated just by 0.11 meters. Cross Climate 2 also took the lead in snow handling with a lap time advantage of 0.76 seconds. Overall, Cross Climate 2 excels much better in snow when compared with Weather Control A005 EVO.

Cross Climate 2:

• +0.6% in snow braking
• +8.3% in snow traction
• +2% in snow handling (lap times)
• +4.4% 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 Weather Control A005 EVO.

Tire size: 205/55 R16

Cross Climate 2: €91.6

Weather Control A005 EVO: €79

Difference: +13.8% more expensive for Cross Climate 2.

Summary

Overall, Cross Climate 2 shows great masterclass performance in all categories. It only lost out to Weather Control A005 EVO in wet handling & wet braking at cold temperatures. 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.