Best car products — tyres, batteries and oils compared

Car parts are the rare category where a mandatory label already carries the most important information. The EU tyre label states the wet grip class, the rolling resistance class and the external noise level, and those three letters decide safety, fuel use and comfort more reliably than any brand reputation.

We start from the label, then check it against published industry testing for the specific size — because classes are bands, and two tyres in class A can differ by a couple of metres of braking distance at 80 km/h. That gap is the length of a car, and it is invisible on the sticker. Rolling resistance we translate into fuel over an assumed annual mileage, which usually reorders a ranking built on shelf price alone.

For batteries the decisive figures are cold cranking amps and capacity matched to the actual engine, plus the technology — a car with a start-stop system needs AGM or EFB and will destroy a conventional battery within a couple of winters. For oils it is the manufacturer's own approval rather than the viscosity grade: an oil that meets the viscosity but lacks the approval can void a warranty.

Everything is scored per kilometre or per year of service, never per unit — that is the only way a cheap tyre and an expensive one become comparable.