New Winter Tires from Continental

[SubLGT]

It's called the WinterContactSI, and replaces the ExtremeWinterContact. It has a directional tread design.

http://www.moderntiredealer.com/news/story/2015/01/ready-for-next-winter-the-wintercontactsi.aspx

"……...Compared to the old tire, the new tire is superior in ice, wet and dry traction. It also has less rolling resistance. They have the same snow traction and noise levels………"

Continental also announced a new, studdable light truck tire, the General Grabber Arctic LT.

http://www.moderntiredealer.com/news/story/2015/01/winter-wonder-the-general-grabber-arctic-lt.aspx

 

[krzyss]

No sign of TS850 in the States :-(

Krzys

 

[Quattro Pete]

What's so great about the TS850? Just curious. They seem to be highly rated in Europe, and I convinced my mother to buy them for her Civic there, but so far they've had really lousy (no) winter over there, so no feedback as of yet.

Would you choose it over comparable offering from Michelin or Nokian?

 

[KGMtech]

I hope they've done the homework about the noise that directional treads can develop after 2 seasons...from no option to cross rotate to even out the wear on the tread blocks.

 

[CrawfishTails]

Really hard to beat a Micheline Xice3 for longevity and performance. These Continentals might, not sure.

 

[CrawfishTails]

Does look good. Especially Continental’s Alignment Verification System, which is designed to alerting drivers to the alignment of the vehicle. Never heard of that.

How does this stuff work: "Tuned Performance Indicators alert drivers to tire’s optimal performance level in dry, wet and snow conditions. Additionally, the Alignment Verification System provides an early vehicle alignment verification."

Update: OK, found youtube video about that. Got it. Clever, wish I would have thought of that! At 3 to 5 thousand miles, you check the appearance of some small rectangular patches etched out (shallow) to tell you if an alignment is needed or not.

 

[UG_Passat]

Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
What's so great about the TS850? Just curious. They seem to be highly rated in Europe, and I convinced my mother to buy them for her Civic there, but so far they've had really lousy (no) winter over there, so no feedback as of yet.

Would you choose it over comparable offering from Michelin or Nokian?



http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/accessories...s-for-2014-2015

It did beat the Nokian WR D3 (which is the G3 in select sizes)

 

[Quattro Pete]

Oh, OK... so it's in that "high performance winter" category.

 

[Rand]

Conti EWC were my favorite winter tire so far. If the new ones are indeed an improvement they should be fairly amazing.

 

[SubLGT]

Interestingly, for the Russian and Scandinavian markets, Continental has chosen to continue with an asymmetrical tread for their new studless ContiVikingContact6 tire.

 

[Mr_Joe]

I was driving to work a week ago, the same morning as the 150 vehicle pileup near Kalamazoo. The roads were TERRIBLE. Lots of spin outs and a few real accidents.

It was so bad my Blizzacks lost traction a few times. A few of those accidents made any Winter tires seem very cheap.

 

[krzyss]

Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Oh, OK... so it's in that "high performance winter" category.


You got it. They are one of the best performance winters.
If you do not drive on ice they are hard to beat.

Krzys

 

[raytseng]

There's also a related article in that blog that the Conti DWS is getting "upgraded" (even if it's just a minor upgrade).

That's also interesting news, as the Conti DWS is also extremely popular.

 

[SubLGT]

Originally Posted By: krzyss
No sign of TS850 in the States :-(

Krzys


Looks like Continental management has decided they can't compete against Michelin, Pirelli, Bridgestone, Goodyear,and Dunlop for performance winter tire sales in the USA. The only winter tire they show on their north American website is the old EWC. No performance winters are shown, not even the older TS830.

 

[HangFire]

Originally Posted By: SubLGT
Originally Posted By: krzyss
No sign of TS850 in the States :-(

Krzys


Looks like Continental management has decided they can't compete against Michelin, Pirelli, Bridgestone, Goodyear,and Dunlop for performance winter tire sales in the USA. The only winter tire they show on their north American website is the old EWC. No performance winters are shown, not even the older TS830.


The Winter tire market is pretty small South of the Canadian border. The performance Winter tire market even smaller than that. That's a lot of players you listed. Perhaps this was a savvy move.

 

[SubLGT]

Here is a review of the WinterContact SI:
http://www.autos.ca/winter-driving/winter-tire-review-continental-wintercontact-si/

Apparently, the switch from an asymmetrical tread to a directional tread was mostly driven by marketing concerns:

"…………..Why directional? According to Continental Key Account Manager Ryan Bradshaw, the asymmetrical tread pattern proved superior in Continental’s testing for the Extreme Winter Contact, but consumer and dealer perception was that asymmetrical tires were associated with all-season tires, as opposed to winter tires. In short, explained Mr. Bradshaw, the tire was sometimes ignored in the marketplace simply due to the unfamiliar pattern of its tread. Continental thus engineered the more familiar directional design into the WinterContact Si in response………….."

 

[SwampSurvivor]

I wonder if that is because of the somewhat ubiquitous Firestone Winterforce?

 

[Rand]

Originally Posted By: Miller88
I wonder if that is because of the somewhat ubiquitous Firestone Winterforce?



Blizzak's which have been directional since the ws-60 model and Michelin's which were directional since the xice model (as were xi2 and xi3) didn't hurt either.

Personally I like asymmetric better.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

I've never been a fan of directional tires. Only 2 positions for them. Plus I never know which way to mount the spare!!

 

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted By: Miller88
I've never been a fan of directional tires. Only 2 positions for them. Plus I never know which way to mount the spare!!
Unless you're doing a 5 tire rotation, just get something non-directional in the same size for the spare. But then again, if it's only run as a spare, the direction won't matter much in the end.