I just bought new tyres for my car. My decision as to which was based on the ratings - they show fuel efficiency, stopping in wet and noise level.
The shop did have an offer on Continental, 25% off, but these were rated worse (in two categories) than the Goodyear ones I bought that were exactly the same price.
Are these rating reliable, and what are the other elements of tyre quality that is ignored by them?
For normal daily driver cars my priority is always to get the best wet weather performance tyres that are as quiet as possible. (which happened to be dunlop sport maxx last time) Ime fuel efficiency rating is worthless in the real world.
There are numerous videos on youtube showing wet breaking and noise levels comparisons of different tyres.
Ok so my Goodyear ones that have an A wet rating and 3dB quieter than the Continental ones are much better then? There aren’t other factors that matter much?
Wear rate matters as does comfort. Softer, grippy tyres in the dry can be superb but driven hard will need replacing more frequently.
How you drive and treat the tyres will have more of an effect. Same as wet weather performance, drive to close to the car infront and it doesn’t matter.
Watch some for the youtube tyre reviews.
I’d like to get a set of toyo r888 for my z4. They are road legal but far from good on very wet roads (which is fine as the car is only driven in the dry)
Cool 
Good tyres make driving dull, boring and predictable, get cheap nasty ones from china and have some FUN!!!
I recently bought Goodyear Asymmetric for my car - the rears are incredibly quiet @ 65db, that’s 7db less than the Contis they replaced!
Best I could find for the Mini were Michelin Crossclimate with wet grip=A MPG=B and noise=68dB
Mine are rated exactly the same
Lol
A discussion about tyre foo 
Yeah, good innit…
Implicit in my question was whether there is any foo in it, whether the stated specs contain all you need to know, or whether there are some other specs that aren’t given out (and how important they are, if so).
I think (though don’t quote me) that the tyre companies test and rate their own tyres…
Latest tyre test just published…
Not sure why they haven’t included a Michelin though??