Continental Premium Contact 5 Reviews - Page 6

I just bought this to replace year-old Goodyear Excellence tyres on my car. Not that the Excellence was bad, I just wanted better wet grip capabilities. Haven't tested the wet grip yet, not that I want to, but the dry drip seems to be good. No more screeching sound when I make turns in indoor carparks with those smooth flooring (screeching = tyres are slipping).

First thing I noticed was that the ContiPremiumContact5 is significantly lighter than the Excellence, when I handled them personally at the tyre shop. There's less rubber in the CPC5 probably for eco reasons and fittingly the sidewalls are softer than the Excellence and the Energy XM2 (tried pressing the XM2's on a neighbour's car) - I will have to be extra careful not to bump into curbs or potholes with the CPC5. On the plus side, the cabin noise level is much less now, so much so I can now hear the air buffeting from my side-view mirrors which were masked by the road noise from the previous tyres.

Fuel-consumption-wise, though I have no FC numbers yet, I do feel that the CPC5 is more of a petrol guzzler than the Excellence despite both having the EU rating of 'C' for FC. My car now slows down noticeably faster than with the Excellence when I let go of the petrol pedal - I can only attribute this to higher rolling resistance.

I'll update my review again in a year's time once I have clocked a more significant mileage with these tyres than just the 300km so far.

I have purchased a brand new skoda octavia last march, that is 6 months ago.
the tires are fitted from the factory.
regarding handling, those are definitely performance oriented tires in the segment of family sedans: they grip among the best, the corner among the best, steering is superb, and in cabin noise level is mid ground and well acceptable within the segment.
no wonder that at 3rd party independent tests, those tires are always rated at places 3rd to 1st.
what is that I don't get - is how many people in here are complaining about wear, as my 7000 km tires (6 months old) still looks new! the thread haven't lost even 1 mm of thickness in the fronts!
this leads me to believe, that those complaining here about wear, are either drivers who drive badly - thus wasting allot of fuel for unnecessary accelerations and after words ton of breaks because they never learned to leave the gas pedal long in advance of a cross road, while they think they are normal drivers, but in reality they are "racing drivers" on public roads all day long. of that their wheel alignment is broken.
for reference:
I am achieving with "grown up careful driving" around 20km per liter outsize city at 100km per hour speed, and 14 km per liter inside city driving, let me remind you this is a petrol engine - not diesel.
driving like that, the tires doesn't bare unnecessary strong forces and the outcome is tires that do not wear - period.
to conclude: those who complain about wear, must first learn how to drive carefully and environmentally correct. and also check their cars wheel alignment.
accelerating like hell and stopping too much because of it every corner and every traffic light, will kill your fuel consumption, kill your breaking pads, and kill your tires - physics 101.
before complaining about wear, think how much of it is due to your inexperienced driving habits, or lack of knowledgeable mechanics of the car domain.
continental contact premium 5 are so far among the best tires I have ever driven during the last 20 years.
**I am 40 years old now - for reference.

Amazing grip, better than the previous Pilot Exalto 2 that the car equipped as standard, both on dry and wet. At some point they also proved fairly good when I had to climb a mountain pass covered with fresh snow (ESP and TCS had to work much less than expected), but did average on dry gravel paths and are mostly useless on sand or packed snow (Pretty much the same you would expect your average summer tyre to do).

I have detected that the car uses a bit more fuel than before with the Michelins, but makes more or less the same road noise. When driven aggressively, Contis squeal, something that the French tyres didn't, so one can notice in advance when they're reaching the limit.

Too bad my front tyres have only lasted 20.000km when my previous set did 50.000km and were able to take 5.000 more.

I can only compare to my old tyres. Continentals equal or improve almost every aspect of driving, except fuel economy and wear.

I'll keep it short and sweet. I've had these fitted on the front of 2.0 TDCi Mondeo, 130bhp.

I do 90% of my driving on the motorway but I certainly don't hang around, the tyres have 3mm left after 12,000 miles. I expect them to last at least another 3,000 miles.

When I first had these fitted, they absolutely transformed the ride of my car without a doubt. It's not hard to believe as they replaced chinese ditch finders that vibrated really bad at speed (I thought it was wheel bearing until I replaced the tyres) but I remember being astounded and I'm usually very cynical as to how much of a difference could be noticed.

The tyres themselves are very comfortable, I don't suffer any fatigue from noise driving 2 hours to work and the stopping distance really is pretty phonemenal in the wet. I've done a couple of emergency stops (in the wet) and really I couldn't believe how quick I stopped. In fact I can't recall a time where they've skidded or the cars understeered as I take roundabouts fairly quick. I use to understeer all the time in the wet with Chinese Ditch Finders.

If I was concerned purely about wet braking then I would purchase again, however for me when it comes to replacement time because of the comparatively high wear I'll more than likely choose Michelin Energy Saver +

Updated version of my previous review, 205/55/16, 2011 VW GOLF.
As mentioned before, it is very good tires, good handling, very good grip dry/wet, very stable tires, good comfort and low noise level.
As I have experienced only with other Continental tires before, after they are about half worn out and beyond they seem to loose a little bit of the grip even on dry roads, they are slipping a little easier/earlier at the limit and I have now a slight wobbly feel when the tires start to loose the grip, in the wet the reduced grip is more noticeable.
I was however recently recommended to increase the tire-pressure from standard 2.0 Bar to about 2.5 Bar and this has actually eliminated this slight loss of grip with only minimum reduction of comfort, I'm a little surprised about that and I don't really know why higher tire-pressure than standard/recommended pressure can eliminate a slight reduction of grip on old tires but it did with these tires and it was recommended by a professional Tyre-dealer.
The high wear is as mentioned before absolutely ridicules, I have now only 12.000 km on these tires, they have no shoulders at all and about 1-2 mm left in the middle of the tread. The alignment of the wheels are ok and I did always have correct tire-pressure until recently when I increased the pressure.
Small chunks of the tread has fallen out and there are full of small cracks on the tires, especially on the shoulder area, they look a lot older than the 15 months they actually are and I don't feel safe with these tires anymore.
Although the tires with the increased tire-pressure handles well and still is comfortable they do not age well judging from the small damage on the tires and they do age extremely rapid, it is not good economy and probably not good for safety in the end.
I will not buy again and I will soon try another brand, probably Michelin or Dunlop which I have good experience with other cars.