Continental truck tire line blowing doors off Michelin Defender LTX

[edyvw]

Hey Corn, I’ve been running the Conti terrain contact HT for about 16 months on the ram 1500. They have exceeded my expectations. On ice, they’re as good as any other tire I’ve had, although surprisingly enough, the stock Goodyear wranglers were exceptional on ice driving. The Congo’s grip like glue in heavy rain and all wet conditions. Handled about 8 inches of our north jersey heavy wet snow on my unplowed roads without using 4WD. On some of our larger hills, I would most likely have had to use the 4WD. They seem to be wearing well, but I haven’t measured the tread depth. Handling in normal weather is fine. I run them at 40PSI. When I bought them, they were significantly cheaper than the Michelins. I can’t see the Michelin being any better. Btw, one can tell just by looking at them they are not off road tires, but they do handle the boat ramps I frequent without any drama.

I use both brands a lot.
So, I will be always more confident in Michelin’s overall quality, like balancing, retaining initial performance. New M/S2 is very close performance wise to old one, but two major differences: Hauling performance and chipping resistance is dramatically improved. Second, it lost 4lbs on average and compared to TerrainContact, it is same, 4lbs lighter.

 

[John105]

Who did that testing/rating?

Why are you overly complicating things? Just look at the green dots and their respective numbers, is that so hard to do?

 

[John105]

Right, you can get a Road Hazard warranty to cover the complete destruction of the tire for example by hitting a pothole or getting a sidewall puncture. I have one on my Michelins. Continental though is doing something fundamentally different. A normal flat tire repair where they could fix it and send you on your way, voids the TREADWARE warranty on Continentals. Michelin does not do that. See the difference? We are not talking road hazard warranty. A road hazard warranty does not give you a new tire when all that was needed was a simple flat repair. It also does not warrant a certain lifetime of the tread. That is what the treadware warranty covere. Yet a simple repair voids the treadware warranty on the Continentals. Their mileage warranty goes out the window.

Also there is a time limit of 6 years on the wearout warranty, which is why I find an 80,000 mile warranty to be not as beneficial as it might sound, over 60,000 miles, etc. Until the last 4 years I've never used a tire nor road hazard warranty. Now, I can say we did it on 4 tires (mileage warranty), at least 3 patches, and now 2 complete pro rata replacements. All Michelin/Costco. Not really sure why this all happened lately and not over the last 25 years....

 

[meep]

Pretty tight comparison. I would trust runout to better on the Michelins, and agree that the conti’s will be a good bit quieter, especially as they age. Continental manufacturing in my experience hasn’t been quite as tight as Michelin, but I have continentals on the truck right now so you can see where I put my money. Continental’s rubber has the best wet braking I’ve owned for normal treads. My wife’s CC2s are continuing to be excellent rain tires, better than other Michelins I’ve driven. I’d love a side-side comparison between CC2 and the continentals in the wet, but at least in our case I can’t put the CC2s on my truck and wouldn’t risk disappointing her by changing tires on the next set.

 

[Eddie]

In my past, I remembering that Michelin tires were more susceptible to UV aging. Not sure if that is still true today's tires. Ed

 

[ejes]

One of the things I find interesting about this tire model is that there is an A/T version and the all season performs better (at least according to Tire Rack reviews) off-road that the all terrain. I'm assuming a lot of that is just based on perceived traction and not durability however. I've noticed several tire brands that have models with A/S and A/T versions and the A/S performs better off-road than the A/T. Perhaps due to different levels of softness in the rubber.

 

[Corneileous]

In my past, I remembering that Michelin tires were more susceptible to UV aging. Not sure if that is still true today's tires. Ed

That’s a good question. I have a set of Michelin Defenders on my Ram that I think are pushing 6 and a half years old and they’ve got some minor UV aging. Of course, I’ll have to go look at the DOT stamp to get the exact age but I put them on brand new in December 2018.

 

[edyvw]

One of the things I find interesting about this tire model is that there is an A/T version and the all season performs better (at least according to Tire Rack reviews) off-road that the all terrain. I'm assuming a lot of that is just based on perceived traction and not durability however. I've noticed several tire brands that have models with A/S and A/T versions and the A/S performs better off-road than the A/T. Perhaps due to different levels of softness in the rubber.

The key difference!
Most troubles off-road are caused by punctures. If you go to some areas in the West where there are a lot of tourists, brochures specifically warn about puncture issues.
Michelin Defender is probably the strongest H/T tire available. I know bunch of people who actually do some demanding off road with them. Are they as strong as Michelin A/T2? No. I would say TerrainContact is right there with Defender. These tires are a good compromise between on-road and off-road performance. Probably they are better than some cheapo off-road dedicated tires when it comes to durability. Another thing is these tires achieve that performance while being fairly light. For example, Falken has a fairly well-regarded H/T tire (that looks like a copy of Defender). But it is like 5 lbs heavier, for example, in 265/60R18 size than Michelin or Continental. I have Defender's on Atlas specifically for that reason.

 

[4WD]

I use both brands a lot.
So, I will be always more confident in Michelin’s overall quality, like balancing, retaining initial performance. New M/S2 is very close performance wise to old one, but two major differences: Hauling performance and chipping resistance is dramatically improved. Second, it lost 4lbs on average and compared to TerrainContact, it is same, 4lbs lighter.

Glad to hear the chipping issue is being addressed - had several of those from crushed quartz gravel roads we have to remote areas.
(Marsh areas will never get pavement bcs flooding is life) …

 

[edyvw]

Glad to hear the chipping issue is being addressed - had several of those from crushed quartz gravel roads we have to remote areas.
(Marsh areas will never get pavement bcs flooding is life) …

Yeah, they did extensive testing in Spain, like 3,000 miles test on gravel roads for journalists. I will try to find that article. Generally, by design, it looks like they improved that off-road aspect with stronger shoulder blocks too.

 

[SC Maintenance]

My Generals (a Conti brand) were so out of round that 3 of them had to go back - after much trouble and complaint with continental.

I had a work meeting and mentioned it to one of my co-workers, also a car guy, and another co-worker mentioned he had the same issue and fight with continental with actual conti branded stuff.

No more conti for me, but to each there own.

 

[MParr]

My Generals (a Conti brand) were so out of round that 3 of them had to go back - after much trouble and complaint with continental.

I had a work meeting and mentioned it to one of my co-workers, also a car guy, and another co-worker mentioned he had the same issue and fight with continental with actual conti branded stuff.

No more conti for me, but to each there own.

Your experience with General tires is similar to mine. Three were out of round and they all went back and were replaced by Cooper. Since that time, I’ve been shy of buying a Continental built tire. Lots of folks have good luck with Continental and General however, I’m not one of them.

 

[f355spider]

Went through four sets of the Michelin on my Tundra, really liked them, long wearing too...been using the Continentals the past couple years (I'm a Consumer Reports subscriber the past 40 years) and they have been equally great. All highway driving, with occasional towing of the horse trailer. No complaints.