Continental SureContact LX vs. Goodyear Fortitude HT

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Dec 8, 2006
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Location
Illinois
My 2004 Silverado needs tires.

Last November, I paid $450 for a set of 18" factory wheels and tires that came off of a 2014 Silverado LTZ. The (still) factory tires on those wheels are dried out, used up, and shot. Back then, the seller (a tire and wheel shop) charged me nothing for the 265/65-18 tires, since they were over 4 years old and were at less than half tread. Honestly, they didn't even want to take the effort to dismount the tires and keep them. That was fine with me, as I still got over a year's use out of them.

Two stores are currently offering "Buy 3, Get 1 Free" deals.

Store 1 is NTB. They are offering a Continental SureContact LX, 70000 miles warranty. $165 each. Out the door - $660.

The SureContact LX is a "store tire", which is specially made for and sold by NTB / Tire Kingdom / Big O outlets.

https://www.ntb.com/sku/sku4870003/surecontact-lx


Store 2 is Farm and Fleet. They are offering a Goodyear Fortitude HT. 65000 mile warranty. $169 each. Out the door $570.

The Fortitude HT is one of the OEM tires used on GM and Ford pickups. It finished with 68 points in Consumer Reports 2019 testing. The best rated tire scored 74 points.

https://www.goodyear.com/en-US/tires/wrangler-fortitude-ht


Farm and Fleet is a better deal as their mounting and balancing is about $40 less ($15 per tire vs. $25 per tire for NTB), plus Goodyear is offering a $50 rebate. Plus they are closer... less time and gas expense.

Since the Continental is a "store tire", I would assume that warranty issues/adjustments for the Continental tire would likely have be performed through an NTB/TK/Big O store. I'm also a bit skeptical about a tire line made specially for an outlet/vendor. Is it manufactured to the same specs as a tire going to an OEM... or as a tire being sold by a Continental dealer?
 
I have the Fortitude HT as OEM tires in the 265/65-18 size. They got a lot of undeserved grief on the internet. While they're not AT tires that GM and GY say they are, they are pretty decent highway tires. Good traction, quiet and smooth ride. I will replace them with a true AT when the time comes, but for a HT tire they're good.

I'm not sure they'll make the 65,000 tread wear warranty (no warranty on my OEMs though). I have around 16,000 on them and they're at 7/32". They start at 11/32". They are all wearing very even though.
 
Never had a set of Goodyear's worth a darn. That goes for passenger car, SUV, truck, trailer, medium duty truck, motor coach and my heavy tow trucks. I've had a lot of vehicles with Goodyear's for various reasons and they have all been awful. Continental I personally don't care for but would go Continental over Goodyear any day. I would rather drive a no-name Chinese tire over a Goodyear. I know there are a lot of Cooper fans but I have never been impressed—especially with their non-use of gum-strips leading to blow outs (yes that's way way way in the history books and well passed but it turned me off to Cooper for life). My brother loves Coopers—all he runs on his vehicles. Best tire IMHO hands down is Michelin followed by Uniroyal which is made by Michelin. On my personal vehicles that's what I run. On my fleet of tow trucks I buy the cheapest Chinese 19.5s I can find by the shipping container and run those until I'm out and and make a deal on another no-name Chinese tire. Same w my heavy trucks. Fleet cars get whatever I can find cheapest w my wholesalers. One tire that my shop is a dealer for and is impressing me is Kenda. They are really aggressive wanting to increase market share in the US.
 
Discount tires continental store brand is better then regular continentals. Discount demanded more advanced molding to get a better quality straighter tire then all but continental's top top of the line summer sport tires..
 
Originally Posted by Mainia
Discount tires continental store brand is better then regular continentals. Discount demanded more advanced molding to get a better quality straighter tire then all but continental's top top of the line summer sport tires..


That's quite a claim.

Where did you hear that?
 
Originally Posted by Mainia
Discount tires continental store brand is better then regular continentals. Discount demanded more advanced molding to get a better quality straighter tire then all but continental's top top of the line summer sport tires..


I ran a set of DTD Continental "store brand" on the Volvo 240 wagon. They wore quickly and were a nightmare to balance on a Hunter Road Force Balancer. DTD replaced all 4 with ContiTrueContacts free of charge after 18,000 miles.

The store brand was noticeably more firm than the replacement tires.

Sam
 
Originally Posted by Mainia
Discount tires continental store brand is better then regular continentals. Discount demanded more advanced molding to get a better quality straighter tire then all but continental's top top of the line summer sport tires..


Highly unlikely.
 
Originally Posted by K20FA5
I have the Fortitude HT as OEM tires in the 265/65-18 size. They got a lot of undeserved grief on the internet. While they're not AT tires that GM and GY say they are, they are pretty decent highway tires. Good traction, quiet and smooth ride. I will replace them with a true AT when the time comes, but for a HT tire they're good.

I'm not sure they'll make the 65,000 tread wear warranty (no warranty on my OEMs though). I have around 16,000 on them and they're at 7/32". They start at 11/32". They are all wearing very even though.


16,000 miles to me, is over 2 years of driving on this truck. So if I repeat your experience, they'll be a 5 year tire... on what is already a 16 year old pickup truck.

I agree... GM charges $200 extra for a set of these Fortitudes, and then refers to them as "all-terrain" tires. The problem is..they're not.,, and GM and GY are both delusional for calling it that. And it ticked a bunch of people off, and I can understand why. Customers were expecting something more like the Wrangler "Adventure" tire, and didn't anything close to it for the extra $200.

But hey... for $114.99 each for the Extra Load version... I'll give them a shot. That price is in down there along with Nankang, Duro, Ironman, Milestar and GT. I bought a set of Michelin LTX tires for this truck that were pure rubbish, so my expectations for these tires, for the price I'm paying... can and will be darn low.
 
Originally Posted by Sam_Julier
Originally Posted by Mainia
Discount tires continental store brand is better then regular continentals. Discount demanded more advanced molding to get a better quality straighter tire then all but continental's top top of the line summer sport tires..


I ran a set of DTD Continental "store brand" on the Volvo 240 wagon. They wore quickly and were a nightmare to balance on a Hunter Road Force Balancer. DTD replaced all 4 with ContiTrueContacts free of charge after 18,000 miles.

The store brand was noticeably more firm than the replacement tires.

Sam


Are you referring to the Continental ControlContact by any chance? I was thinking of getting those.
 
Originally Posted by Mainia
Discount tires continental store brand is better then regular continentals. Discount demanded more advanced molding to get a better quality straighter tire then all but continental's top top of the line summer sport tires..


That's quite a claim.

Where did you hear that?
From the store manager, And he was right. I went thru 2 sets of Extreme 06 with different batch #s. The I went with the store brand and it was CLEARLY a better tire. No flat spotting, and handled far better. And I have a semi-hot hatch to throw the car into the corners. Extremes are older technology and have a soft sidewall. He said the Extremes have 2 mold total and the Sports have 4. So you are not pulling the tire out of 1/2 a mold when hot.
 
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