May be replacing my F150 this week & the car I have an an extended test drive has Continental ContiSport Contact5 SSR. It's a CPO, so they're brand new tires.

Reviews one them are far from glowing, with user reporting 10k miles & they're toast.

They're a 280 treadwear tire, but I also don't want to be in a position of having to replace them in less than a year (I average roughly 15k/yr). With them also being runflats, they add some stiffness to the ride as well.

Is 10k to be expected out of a tire like this? On tirerack, they have a overall rating of 2.5/10. Good ratings for dry & wet performance, but the big hit is in comfort (stiff ride due to runflats) and treadwear.

Going to call the dealer today & see about making a swap, since the tires are new.

They should last 35k to 40k miles. I've seen that kind of performance in my summer tires.

Runflats drive like shit. Unless you really need them, skip them. Stiff, poor handling. Terrible.

But they should last longer than the 10,000 miles the review mentioned. I suspect those reviewers drive their cars like race cars and then complain when their tires wear out like race car tires.

ON the Michelin Pilot Cup tires on my Porsche the rears last about 10K miles and the fronts about 15K...normal for true high performance tires...

Unfortunately I don't drive it that much per year so they last a few years.

The expected mileage on summer performance tires is directly correlated to how aggressively or not you drive.

I had multiple sets of Toyo T1's on my Miata, which I drove very 'spiritedly', and by 15K they were expended. At about 13K or so, I definitely had to back off on them a bit as they began to lose their grip.

I am sure that I could have driven on them up to 20K or so, but that would not have been any fun.
__________

Thanks for the responses. Definitely not a fan of runflats.

The salesman says he has the same tires on his car (same model) & gets 20-25k out of them, which is more reasonable.

Got a flat no on requesting a tire swap.

As a whole, most of Houston's roads are in decent shape, so not overly worried about potholes & such. The OE tires on my F150 have almost 33k on them & still have life, though the rears are getting close.

The majority of the time, I'm a rather sedate driver, so maybe these Contis will last longer than expected.

My main concern would be cold weather.
Summer performance tires are not meant to be driven below 30 degrees. My BRZ had Michelin Summer performance tires, standard. One drive over the mountain pass at around 30 degrees and I pitched them. It was like driving on ice and the road was dry. The car was just skating all over the road.
I changed them for Continental Extreme Contact DWS06. Great treadwear, great grip, great in dry, wet, snow (DWS).

Be careful in the cold, if you keep them.

Bruce

Thanks for the heads up. We don't typically have temps that low, but definitely did last winter.

Called Discount about an exchange/trade & was told they'd only give about $50/tire in trade. Not including installation, these Contis are just shy of $1200.

Have Michelin Pilot Super Sports on my 911 (265 on rears, 235 on fronts) and they normally last over 30K. Fronts do last longer than rears but the weight bias in a 911 is heavily to the rear which really "loads" the rear tires. I drive in a "spirited" way but do not burn out or leave rubber tracks all over the roadways. A set goes for about $1100 or so on Tire Rack and they are consistently rated as one of, if not the best, ultra high performance tires for wet/dry but not cold weather driving.

I say, buy a cheap set of wheels and mount the summer tires on them. Run them during the hottest months and buy some all seasons to run on your stock wheels.
I did that with my last Subaru and got years longer out of the performance tires by only running them part of the year.
Better to spend a couple of hundred on extra rims and not ditch $1200 in tires.

Bruce

I have a CTS which came with Conti Summer Max tires.

Conti told me not to use them below 40, I tried to comply and certainly did not have them on the road below 32. Keep in mind that, while the air temp here may fall below 30, the road surface probably never does.

I replaced at 9500 and probably should have done at 8000. A friend of mine got 6000 on a set on his CTS-V. Cold weather wear is terrible.

They are no bueno in temps below 40, so plan around that with second car or set of wheels. I don't mean just not great, I mean bad, and get exponentially worse once under 30. Once you get to 20 or so you actually damage the tires by simply rolling them. No shit.

On a Cayman I get 12-14K on rears, 26K on fronts. On an M3 about the same.

Thanks for the further input.
I know an independent tire guy locally, going to give him a ring in the morning & see if he can work with me on a 'trade' for another set of tires.
Preference would be to put on a set of Michelin Pilot Sport AS3+ like we have on our Flex. Fantastic tires in the >100 here in Houston to the mid-20s we saw in Flagstaff earlier this year.

Upside, is that the Michelin's are ~$800/set, compared to the ~1200/set for the Contis.

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:
Thanks for the further input.
I know an independent tire guy locally, going to give him a ring in the morning & see if he can work with me on a 'trade' for another set of tires.
Preference would be to put on a set of Michelin Pilot Sport AS3+ like we have on our Flex. Fantastic tires in the >100 here in Houston to the mid-20s we saw in Flagstaff earlier this year.

Upside, is that the Michelin's are ~$800/set, compared to the ~1200/set for the Contis.

A set of winter driving tires is really the best solution. I ran Michelin Pilot Sports on my Acura RSX/S in everything including deep snow. They sucked in the snow which made me get winter driving tires, but I never felt traction impaired at any temp on dry or wet roads with the Pilot Sports.

What vehicle are you considering?
Vehicle can make a big difference.

Also depending upon vehicle and driving type they may be overkill as there are some suberbly performing all seasons that do an outstanding job for the summer fun.

quote:

What vehicle are you considering?
Vehicle can make a big difference.

This is a great point. Also consider if you are plopping down serious coin for a car that is wearing these it is probably already a high performance car. Going to some all season crap will change that and you will have wasted money, to a degree, on the car.

I'm not suggesting that a guy in a 911 if pushing it to 9/10ths on the road every day, but those times you do want to get a little more than Camry/Q50 performance out of your fancy new hotrod you'll appreciate the stickier tires.

Spare winter tires/wheels are cheap and easy.

Continental makes some great performance tires, but actually have the reputation of having slightly softer sidewalls than some other popular brands and I agree with that, having run them...

...but NOT the run flats you are looking at. No experience with them, but 10k is generally about right with a good bit of aggressive driving / curvy roads on performance tires. Double that or more for average use. I would not even worry about the tires if the car is a good fit overall. Just plan on them not lasting as long as a regular or all season tire and replace them when worn out. As for the ride... you should be able to tell with a test drive if you are OK with it or not.

In addition to the warm weather compound, performance tires often have a tread pattern that doesn't work well at all on dirt, mud, grass, ice / snow... if that would apply to you. I once about got my Miata stuck after washing it in the yard on wet grass... LOL! No lugs or grooves to provide any forward bite, but they had amazing grip on wet roads with zero hydroplaning.

I was able to run summer tires here in Tennessee year around with a little bit of common sense applied when near freezing and had zero issues... until the rare snow or ice, then that car stayed parked, would not go at all.

I ran the factory Conti Runflats on the 2 Cooper S's I had,

one set went about 15K the rest were usually toast at 12K,

and I drove it like I stole it, (as you should drive Coopers)

I have run nothing but Dunlop's on my Tundra, from Gran Trec's to Radial Rovers,

all gave me roughly 40-45K of use, and I tend to drive it a bit hard as well,

Thanks for the last few replies.

The car is a CPO 2015 Mercedes C300 Sport.

I'm a fairly sedate driver in my commuting, so maybe 20-25k isn't out of possibility for these.

Dry/wet performance is important as I do drive roughly 15k/yr, and these Contis have good rating there, their poor tirerack reviews are all on treadwear.

Odds are, we'll keep these & replace with something else when it's time.

Yep, depends in the car.

My wife's S2000 would get 8,000 or so miles on the rears and 15,000 on the fronts. Staggered fitment so forget about four wheel tire rotation.

Dad's C5 Corvette would get 25,000 miles. We ditched the run flats. Mom's Z3, well we've replaced the tires twice in the last 16,000 miles. It's a 1997 and tires have been replaced due to age, not mileage.

The Eagle F1 Asymmetrical 2s on my Focus ST should go 20,000 miles.