Both the Michelin CrossClimate 2 and the Bridgestone Turanza All Season 6 are grand touring all-weather tires, each offering distinct advantages for different driving needs. Let’s see which tire is better for you here.
Table of Contents
Main Findings
Based on my tire engineering tests, here’s how the two tires stack up:
The CrossClimate 2 has the upper hand in:
- Dry Performance: Offers superior longitudinal grip and handling.
- Winter Traction: Excels in snow and ice conditions due to its better winter oriented structure.
- Road Smoothness: Provides a smoother ride with its noise-dampening technology and handling road imperfections.
- Hydroplaning Resistance: Better at preventing hydroplaning in wet conditions.
Review Michelin CC2 in detail here.
On the other hand, the Turanza All Season 6 outperforms in:
- Wet Performance: Superior in wet braking and overall wet traction.
- Tread Longevity: Lasts longer due to its stiffer rubber composition.
- Fuel Efficiency: More fuel-efficient with a better rolling resistance profile.
- Noise Comfort: Generates less noise, particularly noticeable in standard driving conditions.
Sizes Specs
| Specs | CrossClimate 2 | Turanza All Season 6 |
|---|---|---|
| Rim Sizes | 16 to 22 inches | 16 to 21 inches |
| Speed Ratings | H, V | H, V, W, Y |
| Load Ratings | SL, XL | SL, XL |
| Tread Depth | 10.5/32″ on all | 11.5/32″ on all |
| Weight Range | 25 to 36.5 lbs | 25 to 36 lbs |
| Warranty | 60,000 miles | None |
| UTQG Rating | 640 B A | 600 A A |
| Winter Ratings | 3PMSF, M+S | 3PMSF, M+S |
Overall Ride Comfort
Ride quality consists of two aspects: the tires’ capacity to minimize road noise and their effectiveness in smoothing out road imperfections. Let’s start with noise.
Though make sure to first check out my post on comfort and noise on all-season tires.
Noise Comfort
The noise a tire makes is closely linked to its void-to-rubber ratio.
More voids usually mean more noise. This happens because a lot of the tread noise comes from air whooshing into the tire’s shoulder voids and bouncing around the tread walls.
This is where the Bridgestone Turanza All Season 6 has a bit of a struggle. It’s actually the weakest performance aspect of the tire and so in my tests its been found to be over 2 decibels noisier than the Michelin on average.
The CrossClimate, on the other hand, is much quieter, thanks to some smart design choices.
Inside, the tire uses a special polyurethane foam. This does a great job at muffling noise. And outside, its design with fewer voids and clever pitch sequencing helps too.
Pitch sequencing? Well its a name of subtle alternations of the tread lugs’ shapes which create a spectrum of tones of varying frequencies that then try to cancel each other out, giving you a quieter ride.
Road Smoothness
A tire’s ride comfort largely depends on how well it can adapt to uneven road surfaces, something that’s influenced by its build and material. Generally, softer tires give you a smoother ride. That’s a well-known fact in tire making.
Here, the CrossClimate 2 is a step ahead. Like I mentioned in the noise section, it uses a special polyurethane foam layer on top of its cap plies which of course is meant for noise, has a dual functionality.
I mean its pretty great at soaking up shocks from the road too.
Plus, its softer rubber composition and deeper tread depth add to the comfort. This means there’s more cushioning between you and the road, so bumps are less jarring, making for a smoother ride in your car.
Dry Performance
When it comes to the overall dry performance of tires, two aspects are crucial: their longitudinal grip and handling. Let’s dive into each aspect individually.
Directional Grip
This grip is primarily calculated by the tire’s braking capabilities, and depends on the effectiveness of the central tread area in maintaining contact with the road during straight-line movement.
And here the CrossClimate 2 is doing great. In fact its the best and rated for it in my list of top grand touring tires. For more details, you can visit: https://tiredriver.com/best-grand-touring-all-season-tires/
The tire features a denser arrangement of lugs in its middle providing relatively better rubber-to-road contact.
Plus its interlocking central lugs with wave-like sipes on them providing a unique pattern that is more biting compared to Bridgestone.
And yes one more thing.
Michelin also features a rounded contact patch which basically ensures that the tire’s weight is distributed evenly across the tread.
Such distribution is key to faster braking, as it minimizes momentum compared to Turanza All Season 6, which has a similar weighing structure (for most of the compared sizes).
Overall Handling
When discussing overall handling, it’s important to consider the dynamic interplay between lateral grip and steering responsiveness.
Lateral grip refers to the traction a tire provides during the midst of a turn. And in this aspect, the CrossClimate 2 excels, surpassing its competitors with marginally higher lateral G-forces. This superior performance is attributed to its stickier rubber compound.
Additionally, the tire leads in providing superior mid cornering steering feedback as well as exceptional on-center feel.
By mid cornering feedback, I mean it gives you a better idea of how much steering input is needed, reducing the tendencies for understeering or oversteering. And its greater on-center feel is its ability to get realigned faster after the turn/corner (so it could accelerate again).
Plus as already explained (in the section above), the tire provides faster braking which tells that it enters the corner quicker too.
All these cool features make Michelin CrossClimate 2 faster on the track, nailing those lap times during handling tests, compared to Bridgestone.
On the flip side, the Turanza All Season 6 takes longer to complete those laps, which is due to its slightly lagging steering responsiveness.
But what makes it slow? Well, simply put this is because its lugs are more susceptible to more bending, and showcase a slower return to their original shapes (as they get compressed against the road, especially during aggressive turns).
This creates a tiny delay between your steering and the car’s actual movement, diminishing overall handling performance.
For Your Info: Learn how to improve dry performance out of your all-season tires here.
Fuel Efficiency
Fuel efficiency depends on a few things: the tire’s weight, its rolling resistance, and the rubber it’s made of.
And here Bridgestone Turanza All Season 6 takes the lead showcasing better mpg readings on my various tests. In fact its the second strongest performance aspect of this tire (the first being wet braking).
Whereas the opposite goes for CrossClimate 2, which provides one of the least efficient design.
So what makes Bridgestone better here? Well mostly its rubber compound. Certain rubber mixes can boost fuel economy while keeping a good grip, and this tire is one of them.
Wet Performance
To gauge the overall wet performance, my approach involved testing each tire for wet grip, handling, and hydroplaning resistance. I’ll take you through the results for each of these aspects separately.
Wet Traction
When it comes to wet traction, it’s all about those tiny sipes and grooves.
So, grooves are like the big canals on the tire, kicking water out from under it. Sipes, on the other hand, are those little lines that look like tiny cracks. They’re super important as they suck up the leftover water particles in their slits and later spray them out (as the tire rolls over).
Now here, the Bridgestone Turanza All Season 6 is doing better. In fact it provides the best wet braking among all other grand touring tires I’ve reviewed.
This superior performance is due to Turanza’s full-depth siping structure, which remains flexible under various conditions, effectively absorbing moisture and enhancing road drying capabilities.
On the other hand, the CrossClimate 2 tends to exhibit more slippage in similar wet conditions, comparatively.
However, the overall difference in performance between the two tires is minimal, almost negligible. This is largely due to the Michelin tire’s better resistance to hydroplaning, which compensates for its other shortcomings in wet conditions.
Aquaplaning Resistance
Hydroplaning is a phenomenon where a tire loses road contact due to surface water, causing it to float.
And here tire’s grooves play a vital role in mitigating this risk by displacing water from its path.
In this context, the CrossClimate 2 has the upper hand. Despite both tires feature similar V shaped grooves directing water out from the middle towards shoulder efficiently, the Michelin tire still does it better thanks to its rounded contact patch and greater tread depth.
With rounded contact patch it basically puts a greater negative pressure on the water coming in the middle, thereby throwing it out faster comparatively.
And tread depth? Well its pretty straight forward, the more of it, the greater volume of water is able to evacuate.
Winter Performance
Despite both tires possessing the 3 Peak Mountain Snowflake (3PMSF) rating, which is primarily an acceleration benchmark, the Michelin tire still shows remarkable superiority.
Its relatively a better all-weather tire for winter, which interestingly also provides superior dry performance. And this is because of its superb engineered inner and outer construction.
But for the sake of simplicity, let me share the main highlights of this tire here. First off, the tire comes with a narrower section width, coupled with its heavier weight.
Both of these design elements enhance the tire’s ability to trap snow particles within its tread voids, facilitating snow-to-snow contact, which is ideal for traction (on light snowy terrains). Why?
Well because snow tends to adhere better to itself rather than the rubber of a tire.
Additionally, the CrossClimate 2 is designed with a relatively more thermally adaptive rubber compound. So in freezing temperatures, this feature ensures that the tire’s biters and snow vices remain supple, enhancing grip on snowy surfaces and consequently improving traction.
And speaking of biters, its interlocking siping in the middle along with snow vices are pretty helpful, allowing it to particularly excel in ice braking. (Bridgestone Turanza AS6 linear sipes on the other hand, tend to get stiffer, losing effectiveness).
It’s important to clarify that the 3PMSF rating doesn’t directly imply enhanced braking or handling on snow, it indicates approximately 10% better performance than a standard all-season tire. Learn more about it here.
Tread Longevity
For tread longevity, a few things matter: how much the tire resists rolling (rolling resistance), what it’s made of (composition), and the depth of its tread.
Now here rolling resistance is pretty straightforward: more friction means faster wear.
The composition is about the rubber mix used in the tire: harder rubber tends to last longer. And deeper treads usually mean you won’t need a replacement as soon. But, too much tread depth can actually increase the rolling resistance, so tires need to find a optimal balance here.
Now both tires although have similar tread depth and weight (looking at all sizes). But the Turanza All Season 6 still manages to last a little longer in comparison to CrossClimate 2.
This is thanks to its stiffer rubber mix, which doesn’t wear down as quickly.
Take Home Points
Wrapping up, its clear that choosing the right tire here is tricky as it’s all about weighing the pros and cons. I mean both tires offer distinct advantages, so there’s no outright winner in this comparison.
The CrossClimate 2 dominates in dry performance, particularly offering superior longitudinal grip, though also leads in overall handling.
Whereas the Turanza All Season 6 is the best tire to have for wet braking and yes it’s also having an upper hand in terms of steering response and wet cornering too. Though in terms of hydroplaning resistance, not so much.
For winter conditions, the CrossClimate 2’s design and material composition give it an edge, providing better traction and handling on snowy surfaces.
And yes Michelin also leads in providing superior overall comfort. However it lacks to Bridgestone tire in terms of fuel economy and tread longevity.
