Conti Extreme Contacts
 

Conti Extreme Contacts

I thought I would post my impressions of this tire as I just put a set on my wifes SVX. They replaced the stock Bridgestones that were about 2/3 worn and IMHO were a crappy tire from new.

I took the car in to have the tires changed in late December. I was initially going to put some dedicated winter rubber on and decided to give some new all high performance all seasons a try. I figured if the new all seasons were poor in the snow I would just get some snows to replace them for the in the winter and install the new all seasons in the spring... the Bridegestones were almost toast anyway.

The first thing I noticed is that the tires are very quiet on the road...even wet. The speed wobble that had been ever present with the Potenzas (at 120 + KPH) even after two alignments and having the tires balanced was gone...all gone. I took the car up to 150KPH+...tracked nice and straight, no shaking in the steering wheel...quiet...nice. They seem to have excellent grip on wet and dry and also seemed to work very well with the SVX in keeping with the character of the car I suppose.

The big surprise was how well they worked in the snow. We just received a freash 7 inches of snow yesterday. I got home from work in my car (04 TL) that has Bridgestone Blizzak LM22's freshly installed its snowing heavy and about 3" of freash powder on the street. I see the wifes car in the garage as I park mine and remember oh ya...new rubber...time for a snow test with the new Contis.

All I can say is WOW! These tires will handle lots of snow with little or no fuss. The control on 3" of freash snow was remarkable for an all season tire. The tires bite into the snow and dont slide over top of it, stopping with a great deal of control is possible.
Taking off from a standing start there is almost no slip...well unless you want to induce some cause its just so much fun :)

I was and still am amazed at the snow performance of these tires. I think they will prove to be excellent in the dry too...there is lots of evidence at Tire Rack to support this as well from other owners.

My past cars for sake of comparison in snow were 1997 Outback w/all seasons, 2000 Chrysler 300 M with Arctic Alpines, 2003 WRX w/ all seasons, 2004 Acura TL with Bridgestone Blizzak LM 22's. The SVX with Contis is far and away the best of the bunch in snow...I thought Id share it with you guys on here as Im sure some of you may want some high perofrmance all season tires that are also good in the snow.

AJAX

I have these on my Blue 94 with the 5 speed. They are one of the quietest tires I have ever had. They are great. They were better than I thought they would be in the snow. The next best thing about them is the price. I got mine at Discount Tire, and they met the price of the Tire Rack. :D

Thanks for the posts on the tires. I'm thinking about getting a set of those tires.

mbtoloczko...I dont think you can go wrong with the Contis...they rate very well at Tirerack...even better than Michelin Pilot Sport AS which is also an excellent tire. Cant beat the price either.
Never underestimate the importance a good tire makes to the overall driving experience.

...so, any consensus out there on the Conti Extreme Contact vs. the Yoko dB S2? the Firestone Firehawk SVX (really!) tires that came on the car will probably wear out someday. (living in the upper left corner of the u.s., famous for fair summers and wet winters, i'm interested in max dry roadholding performance when driven with spirit, mit good wet weather manners in normal traffic the rest of the year. snow performance just isn't much of an issue here...)

The only thing that disappointed me about the Conti Extreme Contact tires is the fact that I could not get a pair in time before my old tires finally wore out. I replaced the old Yoko AVS dBs with new Yoko AVS dB S2s. I had the Contis on back order with Tire Rack from mid July '03 and by late November I absolutely needed new tires. I even called Continental USA once aweek from Sept. on. Those people didn't know "which end is up".
Continental may know how to make very good tires at a great price but they sure don't know beans about marketing or customer service.
Why am I not surprised...I have an SVX.
If I wanted easy, I would drive a Chevy.

I am happy that you found some new tires with good winter performance. Here in Minnesota it's always a dilemma for winter driving, so I made the decision to go with an extra set of dedicated winter tires (and rims) a few years ago. I like having every advantage! I was looking for Blizzaks, but couldn't find a 'deal' to my satisfaction and stumbled into a terrific internet closeout at 1010tires.com on some Pirelli Winter Ice Assymetrico's they were 'blowing out' on clearance (about $68.00 ea.!). Super good winter traction and extremely quiet for a winter tire.

I noted your comment about the original Bridgestone tires. If these were indeed the 'original' Bridgestones, they would be a minimum of 6 years old (you didn't say what model year your SVX was) (and you would have a very low mileage SVX, too). There have been some studies done recently on tires that have determined that they significantly 'age' with time and lose much of their 'moisture'/ or chemical composition over time. A kind of 'dry rot' over the years. The study determined that you should probably replace tires that are over about 4 years old with 'fresh' rubber if you want maximum performance- regardless of the actual mileage and wear on the tires. I have to concur that I've noticed increased noise, harshness, and vibration at the end of a tire's life cycle. It's like they start to separate and 'internally' wear with time.

As an example, I have had a set of Nitto NT450's as 'summer' tires on my car for about the last three years, but one of them somehow has significant wear on the inside edge of the tire (maybe attributable to bounce of a weak strut- which have more recently been replaced), but I've also noticed a harsher ride and more noise than I recall when new. When I mounted the new winter tires, they were as or more quiet than the NT450's. I figured I couldn't complain after I realized I probably have over 40,000 miles on them now. I'll probably be putting some fresh 'summer' rubber on this spring. So far I'm leaning towards the AVS dB's as the feedback indicates they are a good performing tire and are very quiet (which I've come to value on the SVX).

I was also glad to hear other positive feedback regarding Discount Tire. They are relatively new to our area, but I had bought tires from them mailorder before. One of my best friend's brother manages one of the local stores and I concur that they are a very competitive, yet first-rate organization (even without his direct assistance!). Very high level of satisfaction from these people.

Enjoy your snow; we haven't seen any for a while here (but March is yet to come).

-Mark

Also another very quiet tire is the Falken Azenis ST115... That is the allweather Azenis tire from Falken... I had a set of them on my other wheels (the ones that got stolen)... They recieved one of the highest ratings for noise I believe... I mean that they are VERY quiet

I also bought a set before winter started. Mainly after reading all the positive responses that i found on this site and yahoo site. Thanks guy for steering me in the right direction. On negative result was, I could not do donuts with ease any more. Oh-Well :D

The ContiExtremeContact has gotten some pretty good reviews on evolutionm.net (Evo 8 board). Quite a few people are running them. The concensus seems to be that the tires are great in the snow, moderately good in the dry, quiet, and comfortable.

I have driven them on the dry and the wet, and am very happy with them on snow. Seem to be a good all round tire. :)

is everyone reading this thread recommending them over the yokohoma avs db s2s?

mark 10t...the tires I replaced were about 2/3 worn and by original I meant Potenza but was unsure of the RE designation..is it RE 950, 930, 720?

no snow in Minnesota? thought you usually get lots of snow there? global warming?

Hope you don't mind too much, but can I toss out another tire for consideration? Not exactly moving towards consensus, but since when does this group ever reach a consensus, especially on nwsvx meeting dates? :-) Anyhow, I think another tire worth considering is the new Toyo Proxes 4. Its all season ultra high performance, and its priced competitively with others. There are only a handful of reviews on the internet, but the ones I've read praise it highly for dry traction.

If snow is not a problem then have a look at the Yoko AVS sports. Super grip in wet & dry. A very grippy compound and yet the wear does not seem too bad (so far)