Johnny Rad

AJ@TireRack - I need your help picking my next set of A/S tires. In short, are your survey ratings comparable between tire categories? For example, can I compare Grand Touring A/S to High Perf A/S?

Seems the Grand Touring Conty PureContact scores every bit as good in the dry as the Conty DWS, but does better in the snow. If the survey ratings are indeed comparable, why would anyone get the more expensive DWS over the less expensive and better performing PureContact?!

1. Conty ExtremeContact DWS
2. Conty PureContact w/Eco Tech

* I've discounted the Michelin Pilot Sport AS/3 due to its lower snow survey ratings on your site.

slawek65

What is " Conty " ?

Joeb427

iTrader: (1)

Continental

Johnny Rad

Hey, Tire Rack guy ... What do you think? Thx!

AJ@TireRack.com

How did I miss this?

I greatly apologize.

In short answer, no. I would not advise comparing a performance all season with a grand touring tire. I will say each tire (as all of the reviews from us and consumer feedback show) are great options within their own respective category. They are completely different tires, however.

The Conti DWS is a Ultra High Performance All-Season tire. This tire designed for the driver who wants to be engaged with their car. They enjoy sprinted driving, handling, and okay with giving up some ride quality and tread life to pursue that . This tire offers a 50k mile warranty.

The Conti Pure Contact is a Grand Touring tire. It has exceptional ride quality in mind along with long tread life. This tire offers a 70k mile warranty. While it does handle well, it handles well for a tire designed for ride quality, not exceptional handling.

One thing that Continental takes great pride in is wet weather traction. -and I agree with that. Most of their tires (especially the Pure Contact and the Extreme Contact DWS) perform exceptionally well in the wet. I've been to the Conti proving grounds in Uvalde, TX to participate in testing and they do go through great lengths to ensure they offer top level performance in the wet. I think that is a good thing.

Johnny Rad

Thanks, AJ.

Much appreciated.

Enjoy winter.

Johnny Rad

A quick follow-up, AJ.

Why aren't ratings between tire categories comparable? If I were to rate tires from two different categories, I'd rate the one that performed better at a particular criteria higher than the other. I don't think that I'd give one a ps over another because of the category it was assigned.

What am I missing?

Thx again

AJ@TireRack.com

They are designed to be two completely different products.

To put it another way, it would be like selling someone a ISF (think of this as the DWS) when someone really wanted a car for cruising/ride comfort like the LS460 (think of this as the Pure Contact)

The two cars really aren't comparable as they offer two completely different qualities. The Conti Pure Contact and the Conti DWS are no different.

Johnny Rad

Since the ratings come from drivers and not Tire Rack, I'm still having difficulty understanding why they're not comparable.

When drivers rate the Grand Touring AS Conty as excellent in certain categories, are you saying they've got different expectations versus an High Per AS Conty?

Thanks again.

Theo@TireRack.com

You're right- the customers' expectations are different, and their point of reference is probably different as well. Typically, if a customer is buying a Grand Touring All-Season tire for a car, it is likely that a similar tire was already on the vehicle, so that is what the customer is used to, and that is the baseline for their rating. To illustrate a little better, let's look at a different Continental's ratings in comparison to the Pure Contact- the Extreme Contact DW. Aside from Extreme Performance Summer tires, Max Performance tires have the highest grip and sharpest handling response of true street tires, and they have the best wet performance of any tires we carry. For comparison, around our test track, which is approximately a 30 second course, the DW is .5 second faster in the dry and a little over 2 seconds faster in the wet. According to the consumer survey results, though, the DW scores a 9.0 in dry traction and 8.8 in wet traction, while the Pure Contact has a 9.2 in dry traction and 9.2 in wet traction. The surveys are helpful for getting a good idea of a tire's strengths and weaknesses, and they are actually pretty good for comparing tires within the same category, but when comparing tires across different categories, they can be misleading.

Johnny Rad

Interesting timed test results - very helpful.

Thanks, Theo.

Theo@TireRack.com

You're very welcome.