To cope with winter weather conditions, potentially including snow and ice, it is common to use winter tyres, or "all-seasons" tyres assumed to be safe both in summer and winter. In some northern countries, winter tyres are mandatory. It is commonly assumed that winter tyres are noisier than normal tyres (here called summer tyres) and winter tyres equipped with studs are assumed to be extra noisy.

This paper presents a study where noise and rolling resistance properties of tyres for winter conditions are compared to summer and all-season tyres. The winter tyres include types optimized for central European climate, tyres optimized for Nordic climate and tyres with studs. In total, approx. 50 car tyres have been tested. Noise properties have been measured with the CPX method and rolling resistance has been measured with a trailer method; all measurements made on two road surfaces; SMA 8 and DAC 16.

Results indicate that winter tyres are not noisier than summer tyres; except for studded tyres. Despite high differences among individual tyres, rolling resistance is approximately similar among the main types; surprisingly including also studded tyres. An alarming result was that there was no correlation between measured values and values on the tyre labels.