Best Tyres for the Mazda 3 Astina M Hybrid Sedan

Worst tyre I have ever owned. I installed these tyres on. 2.2D Mazda 3 and honestly handled worse than with the Dunlop sp sports with 55000km at 5 years old. Have recently bought a brand new Mazda 3 with the same tyres and it has just confirmed my opinions. I wouldn't say they are any less comfortable or loud than other tyres but if you appreciate handling any more than just having a car take you from A to B I would avoid these tyres.

This review is coming from Singapore. With either Rainy or Sunny tropical weather ranging from ambient temperature 25-35 degC daily. Summer type tyres are sold here mainly.

My ride is a 1.5L NA Mazda 3 sedan comes with stock touring tyres Bridgestone Turanza T005A 215/45R18 89W.

I changed out my rims to flow formed Japanese rims along with these Continental SportContact 7 235/40ZR18 95Y tyres and here's my observations

Advantages:
- Grip levels greatly improves.
- No more difference in Grip levels between Dry & Wet road conditions.
- Braking distance greatly shorten & becomes easily predictable.
- When cornering, the handling feels planted due to stiff sidewalls. You will feel there is this eagerness of the car to want to 'point-in' and the understeer on my FWD car reduces.
- Subjective comfort "improves". For me, this is an improvement from my previous touring tyres due to more road feedback I received through the steering wheel. However, for comfort-biased friends, they might see this as increase in ride harshness. In a way, you will feel that the sidewall is stiff but yet the contact patch is comfortable in a way for most Continental tyres.

Disadvantages:
- Going from touring tyres to UUHP tyres, my FC does decrease by about 0.5 to 1.0 km/L.
- Slightly slower pick up / acceleration but luckily this is assisted by my car's mild hybrid battery system.
- Slight increase in noise levels when cruising on expressways.

Conclusion:
- Most reviews I saw here on TyreReview using these Continental SC7 tyres are mainly cars with high horsepower or torque. Initially, I have reservations about using these tyres on my 1.5L NA car. But I am glad I made the decision to go for it. When driving a bread & butter car for daily commute to work, it is not just about how fast you can drive in busy traffic conditions, but how fast or early you can stop or brake in time to avoid bumping into others. Hence, I recommend buying this tyre if you looking also at the safety aspects of daily driving.

Approximate distance travelled as of 23rd May 2023: ~6,000 km.
Original thread depth: Between 7.50 to 7.99 mm.
Current thread depth: Between 7.20 to 7.50 mm.