Continental ContiMaxContact MC6

If I was to sum this tire up into a phrase it would be: the budgeted experience of the Michelin Pilot Sport 4 and that isn’t a bad thing.

I have these tires on my BMW E60 525i and have currently put on roughly 30,000KM. I’m from Malaysia and in Malaysia you can drive however fast you dare to go. (those from Malaysia would understand) My driving includes: spirited drives (touge), fast highway miles, and mundane traffic. My car although a BMW it still has a natural tendency to understeer, this is further exemplified with minimal camber up front. I am running -2.0 camber on the back.

I’ll have my review broken down into sections for easy reading.

Dry Grip: One word, understeer. With the setup and characteristic of my car, this tire when pushed to the limit it understeers. The front is always the weaker axle and the first to give when pushed. Moving on to the rear. With -2.0 camber at the back I am able to go through somewhat acute bends on the highway at speeds of 200km/h+ (IPOH to KL and vice versa for those in Malaysia) and not be at the limit of the tire or car. So in my opinion, with the right set up these tires they can give you more than it would with a factory set up.

Wet Grip: This is the compromise of this tire. The wet grip is non-existent, especially after I have tried the Conti SC7 on another car, the differences are night and day. (although they are two completely different tires) This tire hydroplains like crazy, although it still does good enough to not throw you into the barrier, unless you are driving very stupidly it won’t be killing you, but you are still better off not pushing this tire in the wet. This reflects on spirited driving in the wet as well. Even with a wet line and attempting to mitigate understeer up Genting (a famous touge road in Malaysia) the tires are just not up to the task. Depending on the turn and the weight distribution of the car at the time it will happily go into either understeer or oversteer. In conclusion, just not a confidence aspiring tire in the wet.

Road Feedback & Comfort: I find this tire soft and pliant. Great for comfort but there is no road feedback. Even with a hydraulic steering rack this tire still mutes out a lot of the impurities that I would like to feel through the wheel at times.

Wear: Right now at 30,000KM~ the tires are at their halfway mark so assuming the wear rate remains constant I should be expecting 60,000KM~ out of these tires. This type of wear rate for me is a 5/5 rating.

Coming to a close, to be completely honest the reason why I got this tire at the time (2022) was due to a budget constraint. My top choice at the time was the PS5 and I will be getting the PS5 after this tire. Hence why I say this tire is a budget experience of the PS4. It gives you that overall road focused sporty tire at the cost of wet performance and at a cheaper price.

This replaces a set of Michelin PS4 on my car. In the dry, I feel no noticeable difference. The two are very similar to me. After all, I only drive my car on road. I never drive it on the track. In terms of comfort I feel the contis are more comfortable, but the michelins were on my car for 6 years before being replaced, with maybe 20% tread left, so of course the newer tires would be more comfortable. I dont really remember how they felt when new. The biggest difference to me is when the road is wet. The michelin, despite being a summer tire, handles very, very well in the wet. In the 6 years I had them, I never once experienced any aquaplanning whatsoever. The contis on the other hand, feel a little bit slippier. It's not terrible, but I can certainly feel the difference with the michelins. Let's just say I was more confident on wet surface with the michelins. I've only had them for a little over 2 months so I cant really comment on wear. The michelin PS4 lasted me 6 years, and I only replaced them because they were severe cracks due to the environment. I really hope the contis last as long or even better. Hopefully they dont crack as quickly as the michelins.

This is my first Continental tires. I switch from my old Michelin Pilotsport 4 which I have experienced for 3 sets of it. This time, I decided to try something new rather than get the new PS5. I choose MC6. (And yes it is cheaper too)

My car was Nissan Sylphy B17 base model with manual tranny (NO ABS). It is used as a daily driver. It has GAB suspension lowered 20mm from factory height. And I mainly spirited driving on expressway in combination with city driving under speed limit.

I will share my thoughts based on what I found compare to the PS4.

Dry grip. - I find it ‘slightly’ lower than the PS4 which I noticed from the stopping power. As my car has no ABS, I felt the braking threshold is slightly lower than my previous PS4 and the MC6 did not provide the stable stopping force as the PS4. However the cornering performance is acceptable for road use. “More than enough”

Wet grip - This is the most disappointing things for me. I found that its hydroplaning resistance isn’t comparable to the PS4 that i have used. But don’t get me wrong. The over all wet grip is decent and I still feel safe to drive during thunderstorm here in Thailand.

Road feedback - Slightly better than my previous PS4. Not that god-like feedback level that you would feel from another tier of tires like Potenza sport or Semi slick like A052 or AD08R from Yokos. But for this price i would say more than enough and still better than the my previous Michelin.

Progressiveness - It is quite newbie friendly tires. Not so snappy when it is reaching the limit. But still my previous PS4 does a better job than this one.

NVH - This set of tires has weird NVH characteristic to me. It is quiet and lovely during city-limit. (0-80KPH) suddenly when passed 100KPH it generate sounds like wheel bearing would broke or something. ( i am sure that it is not my bearing as i have just changed it). The ride comfort is decent and comparable to my previous Michelin.

Other thoughts - Lovely sidewall and tread pattern design.