Major summer tire test by ADAC — 2026
The all-German car club ADAC compared 16 summer tires of size 225/50 R17 in its traditional test, and only three of them received a "Good" rating, while another one was able to truly surprise, with experts paying special attention to it in their report and noting that "when experienced tire testers have trouble believing the readings of measuring instruments", this is "really a special case".
This is about the Linglong Sport Master, which this year has already performed well in ACE tests and unexpectedly became the best in the qualifying round of the big test of Auto Bild. The ADAC specialists were surprised by the Chinese brand's tire, which performed so well on wet surfaces that it left behind premium products from market leaders, and only the Continental PremiumContact 7, a multiple winner of independent tests, was able to keep up with it.
"This Chinese brand was not particularly notable before, and how is it possible that a relatively inexpensive tire from the budget segment works so reliably on a wet surface that it surpasses tires from well-known brands in terms of resistance to aquaplaning, handling, and braking? Has a new star appeared on the tire market?" - the testers wondered and answered themselves: "In fact, no. It seems that the Linglong tires are optimized only for wet roads. The characteristics on dry surfaces, apparently, were not paid attention to: as soon as the tires heat up, they respond sluggishly to the driver's actions, which not only worsens the clarity of control but also creates the need for corrective steering in the middle of a turn. Linglong tires also create problems at the limit of adhesion and have a strong tendency to skid during maneuvers, and if an inexperienced driver is caught off guard by such a loss of traction on the rear axle, the situation can become really dangerous".
Linglong tires also have low environmental characteristics and wear out very quickly, emitting a large amount of particulate matter into the air, which also worsened their rating, and ADAC experts put them in last place with a categorical verdict "Not recommended".
The following tires participated in the test:
Continental PremiumContact 7
Goodyear EfficientGrip Performance 2
Linglong Sport Master
Test results
To be fair, it should be noted that Linglong has excellent braking efficiency on dry surfaces, and in this discipline, they took second place, losing only to Falken. The last place in the test is occupied by Hankook.
The effectiveness of tire braking in rainy weather is evaluated by ADAC on wet asphalt and concrete, and here the Chinese brand's tires show surprisingly high results. At the same time, Greentrac tires are clearly lagging behind the others, which happens much more often with economy-class tires.
Continental and Pirelli tires are the best at resisting aquaplaning, and Leao tires (also from Linglong) are the worst in this regard.
Linglong tires not only wear out quickly but were also the worst in this regard, and the premium tires from Goodyear, Michelin, and Bridgestone can serve longer than the others. Disappointing results, in addition to Linglong, were also shown by Vredestein and Leao.
To assess the emission of harmful particles, ADAC measures how much rubber the tire loses in milligrams per kilometer of road, taking into account the weight of the car in tons, and Michelin tires were recognized as the best in this discipline.
When determining the environmental rating of a tire, its weight, which affects fuel consumption, is also taken into account, and Falken tires were found to be the lightest, while Greentrac tires were the heaviest.
Of course, fuel consumption was also measured, and Continental and Hankook tires were found to be the most economical among the tested tires, while Linglong tires have very high rolling resistance.
External noise was evaluated according to the ISO standard (70.2-74.3), and Firestone and Kumho took the first places.
Verdict
As emphasized by ADAC, the example of Linglong demonstrates that developing a tire with an emphasis on improving certain characteristics while completely ignoring other parameters is a fundamentally wrong approach, and tires should be balanced and work effectively in any conditions. In the 2026 test, only three tires were able to meet this requirement and earn a "Good" rating, and the best were Continental PremiumContact 7, which have good qualities on both dry and wet roads, combined with high mileage and excellent fuel efficiency.
Continental was slightly behind by Pirelli Cinturato (C3) and Goodyear EfficientGrip Performance 2, which also showed good results, but the first tire has better characteristics on wet surfaces, and the second has the highest mileage among all participants in the test. The potential mileage of Goodyear was almost 58,000 km, and to cover this distance, you would need two sets of Linglong tires.
10 tires received a "Satisfactory" rating, and the leaders in this group were Firestone Roadhawk 2, Falken Ziex ZE320, Bridgestone Turanza 6, Michelin Primacy 5, Maxxis Premitra HP6, and Kumho Ecsta HS52, which do not have an ideal balance of characteristics and have minor drawbacks. BFGoodrich Advantage, Vredestein Ultrac+, Hankook Ventus Prime4, and the Chinese Greentrac Quest-X performed slightly worse, and their lag is due to the fact that either the weak sides are more pronounced or there is a combination of small flaws.
In addition to Linglong, experts also do not recommend buying Leao Nova-Force Acro tires, which work poorly in any conditions and have a low resource, as well as Turkish Lassa Revola tires, which showed acceptable results on wet surfaces but behaved unpredictably when performing an emergency maneuver on a dry surface.
