2017 Car and Driver UHP Tire Test
Senna at Donington. Hunt in Japan. ExtremeContact Sport in South Bend. Okay, the Continental can’t make you a wet-weather hero, but it is the choice tire when both rain and pilot are driving hard. The Continental swept all three wet tests with big margins and showed the smallest performance drop-off between dry and wet tests. Chief among its waterproof virtues, the Continental maintains relatively high grip when the tire starts to slide, unlike the Pirellis and Goodyears. The ExtremeContact Sport locked in second place with a solid performance in the dry, although not exactly threatening the Michelin. It delivers sharp steering precision that makes it feel alert and responsive when driven casually, but that quality fades when pushed past the limit in the dry. Our ears registered louder thwacks compared with the competitors over the same cracks and expansion joints on-road—similar to the almost metallic clank of a bouncing basketball. But that’s a small price to pay for exceptional wet grip and impressive dry performance. Plus, Continental asks only $164 for the ExtremeContact Sport, $34 less than our winner.