Drivers generally describe the Continental Sport Contact 5 as a confidence-inspiring UHP tire with strong dry and wet grip, sharp steering response, and secure braking-especially praised in rain and at speed. However, the dominant complaint is very fast wear (often on the front axle), which many feel makes it poor value despite the premium price. A smaller but recurring theme is increased road noise and a firmer/harsh ride as the tire ages or on coarse surfaces.
What owners mention most counted across 195 reviews
Just goes to show how these trailblazing magazine tests should be taken with a barrelful of salt...
Being a lifelong Goodyear nut, I only bought these as the odd 255/45/17 profile only has two premium contenders at a reasonable price point - these and the Dunlop SportMax.
Tire wander is considerable in the dry, the noise is quite appalling, cornering feels like I'm lugging the car round with me.
The SL is indeed a big old crate,but with a recent complete suspension overhaul the fault can't lie there. And on 255 width handling should be tickety boo.
Wear is also dismal - measuring 4mm left on the middle treads with only 7,000 miles covered, and I'm a middle-aged grand-dad 60 mph highway kinda guy.
So it's off to the 245 F1 Eagles next for me; can't wait; even with a cm less of rubber I'll be a happier man!
Great grip in wet and dry but the wear is extremely bad
Wont be buying again
For a track these would be up there but on a road with holes and rough roads they will wear fast so they don't suit it.
Check out how the BEST all seasons tires perform against premium summer and winter tires!
86%
Member
Mitsubishi
225/45 R17
Mostly Country Roads
Spirited
Had these on my 430bhp/450lbs torque GTO for around a year now and have done about 3000 miles, Tread is down to 4mm on all 4 tires. Dry grip is outstanding(much better than my previous toyo T1R') wet grip is also very good(A LOT better than the toyo's) but not lasting as long but that's fine for me as they are on a weekend car..
Hard cornering is outstanding with AWD, not had a single problem in dry/wet/cold. even in the wet they really struggle to spin, and just keep gripping. obviously this will not be the case with RWD or FWD.
There not lasting as long as the TOYOS, but im finding them to be a lot better in all conditions, but its to be expected from a softer tire..
cant really comment on comfort as the car is too stiff anyway. I would by these again for a weekend car, but probably wouldn't recommend for a daily drive that would be doing high mileage as I am not sure they would last too long..But defiantly perform exceptionally well for a high performance car.
Which tires do you drive?
Researching the Continental Sport Contact 5? Rate the tires you actually drive - and help the next buyer choose.
Fitted a pair of contisport contact 5 after reading several reviews, the car (1995 MR2 turbo)had terrible rear end grip with a cheep set of kendas fitted by the previous owner (who told me they were just a cheep set to mot and sell the car.)Fitted the contis and also had 4 wheel laser alignment and the handling of the car has been transformed.
I wanted a good allround sport tire that would handle the odd track day.
Ran the car at Oulton park and was well impressed superb grip in the damp cool febuary conditions the track dried up and the tires ran great no overheating issues and surefooted grip and very progressive on the limit never let go once then the rain came and they performed very well plenty of grip and feedback recomended with out hesitation
I just changed new CSC5 last week, this was my second times. I get very good driving experience and used almost 22,000 miles/1.6yr(40% town 60%highways). The top speed i 've reach was 140 miles/hr, CSC5 still stable and seems can run faster. very balance no matter in dry and wet ground. i will recommend to my frds if he wanna find a balance performance tires.
Four tires totally cost US$800 included install and alignment.
235 40 r 18 w on a 8j rim are standard on the car and do a descent job. U had to ease the power in on 1st and 2nd gears which is normal to stop 256 ftlbs overwhelming the fronts. Handling was nice to. Now I have just put 245 40 r 18 y's all round and the difference to my surprise is amazing. Better ride. Better rim protection. Better handling. Ecceleration is dramatically improved because I can now use some of the cars power rather than just lighting the fronts up. They look good and the car looks meaner. Very happy chappy. Defo buy again, continental have done well. These tires are fantastic in the wet and breaking performance is unmatched. If I get 10000 miles out of them like my 235's ill be happy. Ps for the weather conditions in england and our roads you cant beat contisport 5's.
These tires came as standard on my a250 which I purchased in the summer. Dry grip is as good as you get and wet grip is not much less than in the dry. Feedback is good but comfort it terrible, that being said my car has a very hard suspension set up so I can't be too judgemental. The problem with these tires is when the weather gets cold they are absolutely useless when trying to find grip for hard accelerating. All in all I highly recommend these tires just swap them for some winters once it gets cold.
Bought a full set of these for my 170hp Seat Exeo as they are standard fit. The car had previously been fitted with Primewell (which were surprisingly good).
After only 6000 miles the fronts need changing as they had worn down in the center. Good tires, good grip andquieter than the Primewell but 6000 miles is just ridiculous. Never again.
Managed 12,000 miles on them before they were completely shot. Probably should have replaced them a couple of thousand ago as they've not felt particularly stable since then.
Never felt like they gave much in the way of feedback, but then again I was always confident on them up until the last couple of thousand miles where they really fell off the mark.
As others have said, great grip in dry & wet but they wear out too quickly for me. I've swapped them today for a set of Goodyear EfficientGrip Performance which seem to be at the same price point with better euro ratings. I'll see how I get on with them (hopefully more durable).
These new conti 5's are the best iteration yet. I've got them fitted to a fiesta zetec S and they have worn really well after 13,000 miles of very spirited driving they still have 4.5mm of tread left on the fronts and 6mm on the back. I had conti sport contact 3's fitted to my previous fiesta and they were frankly rubbish, I constantly got bulges in the tire walls and they didn't last well either. So there are a great improvement.
My only complaint is that in low temperatures they don't grip as well as I would like/expect(perhaps the compound is a bit hard?). They're not dangerous and the reduced grip is very predictable(progressive) but they have a tendency to light up a bit readily under hard acceleration.
And for context, the previous tires on this car were Yokohama Paradas, which were easily the worst wet weather tire I have ever had. Frankly, taping buttered-donuts to the wheels would have offered better grip. They weren't my favorite tire. Can you tell?
In contrast, the Sport 5s have been for me an excellent all-round tire for the UK. The wet and dry grip have both been excellent, as have their handling characteristics. Because they are a high grip tire, the faster wear rate hasn't been a surprise to me either. It's simply part of the trade off that you make when selecting tires. In my experience, a high grip tire will have a softer compound and wear faster. It's basic physics.
The Sport 5s seem to have had mixed reviews though, which may be in part down to local conditions. I would expect them not to be so great for warmer dryer conditions, where the benefits will be reduced and the wear accelerated.
These tires have excellent grip in the dry or wet, are very quiet, and generally give you confidence no matter where you are.
The wear rate is totally unacceptable however. In 10,000 miles of mostly normal commuting with some occasional quick blasts, they totally disappeared. Presumably it's an inevitable consequence of the softer compound to provide excellent grip, but 10,000 miles out of a set of tires that cost over £500 isn't economical.
If you aren't a hyper miler then these will probably be ideal, but I'll be steering clear from now as they aren't cheap and I would have to replace them twice a year.
