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
I have a spirited style of driving and these tires provide excellent levels of dry grip. I used to experience a lot of understeer, which is not surprising because WRXs are known to understeer. These tires have greatly reduced my WRX's understeer. Wet grip is very good, although my driving style is more gentle when it is wet. My main criticism of these tires is that there is noticeable sidewall flex when I push my car into tight turns. This is probably made worse by the relatively high profile of my tires (235/45/17).
superb all rounder.....good in dry although you may find slightly better in the dry weather. they excel on wet roads and are leaps and bounds ahead of the field
Check out how the BEST all seasons tires perform against premium summer and winter tires!
Good dry and wet grip, but not exactly a good wear. C63 is known to eat tires, but I really wasn't pushing it too hard and after 3000 miles the tires are almost gone.. Next choice would be Michelin PSS.
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Shocking wear! As this tire replaces the Sport Contact 3, which I have on my Renaultsport Clio 200 and which have done 13500 miles and now require changing, the 5s at 5500 miles and also require changing are quite simply the worst wearing tires I have ever had!!
These tires came fitted to my wife's car, so when she needed 2 fronts replaced on MOT I stuck with the same on the rear, imagine my surprise when less than 5000 miles later the fronts were on the legal limits AGAIN!, and now the rears were done too. My wife does not drive like a boy racer either so the tires have not been thrashed. Performance wise I can not fault them but they are high end tires which are not cheap and wear out faster than my bank balance can keep up unfortunately, would not buy again on wear only (sorry).
tread for one year , very expencive for two years use!
80%
Member
235/40 R18 W
It was very good until 18 - 20.000 km's. But after then it loses performance day by day. Dry and wet grip is good. braking performance is good. But I can't say the same things for comfort level and wear. It's hard to say i would buy again.
These tires are Conti Seal and they are the original equipment on my car. At 38,000 miles they still have some life in them. I have swapped them round regularly (every 10000 miles or so) with the full size spare wheel, which has similar wear to the rest. Tread depth is 3mm so needing to be replaced soon. They are also approaching 4 years old.
These Conti seal tires have not yet had a puncture so I have been unable to test the effectiveness of their self-seal quality.
The only disappointment is that on rough road surfaces they are noisy but aren't all tires? I put this down largely to the tires being pretty big and therefore having a lot of road surface contact, and a relatively low profile.
I will replace all tires soon with the same type.
not very impressive, though this is in comparison to other new tires in this segment, still miles ahead of a standard mid-range design from 5-6 years ago.
Great grip in wet and dry, fairly numb steering feel, very weak lateral resistance but somehow not really that compliant vertically over the bumps. wear is poor on a heavier car, these died by scalloping on both front tires (alignment and suspension checked, no issues that would cause this) at just under 15k of normal driving
I chose the tires after seeing many reviews and its top positions in several tire tests. Found them for 500 Euros although most of the dealers were selling them between 600-700 E. My car is not so powerful but i often drive it to the limit of the roads i use and believe me greek asphalt is not the best. My car has excellent handling on its own and before i had SportContact 2 (factory) and Toyo Proxes T1R which were very good. But this one is really remarkable. I have forgotten my car has ESP and i don't think its due to improvement of my driving skills. Excellent grip on dry and wet surfaces, fantastic feedback. Mileage is not enough to really comment on wear but they look and feel as new. Lastly Focus MK2 is not famous for its comfortable ride but the tires are not added as a con.
The self sealing version were fitted to my 200bhp CC from the factory. They did last longer than on the front of my previous S Max but were down to the TWI by 10k. Those were replaced with P zeros which gave better handling and lasted 11k. The o/e rears are still at 5mm after 21k.
Just had standard SC5 fitted to front and they do seem better handling than originals. Quieter than Pirellis too.
I just wish tire test could see long term use reports as available from the users here , as assessing a new tire over a short testing regime doesn't mimic real life performance.
