Bloody Conti's

[Roodosutaa]

Yep... blew another tyre, rubbed it lightly on the kerb pulling out of a driveway on the way back to work from lunch, drove a short distance back to the office, dind't realise until I knocked off for the day and saw the car and thought "wtf?"

There's a few scrapes and cuts on the sidewall, exactly like the one last year that blew after hitting a pothole, god these tyres are WEAK!!

Swapped it with the dirt-cheap Kumho Ecsta SPT I bought as spare last year, now I need another one of these cheap tyres to make a pair (no way in hell I'm gonna get another Conti at $280 a pop), hope these Kumhos aren't gonna be too bad... But at $110, i'm a bit sceptical

grrrrrrr

[Gti Dave]

Personally I think the conti's sidewalls are quite thin and weak.

[noone]

Nothing wrong with the KU31's (assuming thats the one you have).

I prefer them for comfort, so on the track day I'm taking the Conti's so the Kuhmo's don't get shredded.

[Umai Naa!!]

We found one on a Golf GT the other day that had splits in the sidewall, but no obvious damage to the tyre or rim. Volkswagen are now aware of it.

Give the Australian Continental distributor a ring, and see what they can do for you.

[Joe Chu]

Conti's

We found one on a Golf GT the other day that had splits in the sidewall, but no obvious damage to the tyre or rim. Volkswagen are now aware of it.

Give the Australian Continental distributor a ring, and see what they can do for you.

Absolutely nothing!!! That's what they'll do, they are aware of the sidewall being weak, thats why they are so quiet. If you hit a pot hole and pinch the sidewall bad luck, if you scrape a kerb and split the sidewall even worse luck.I know the importer and nothing can be done. Sorry for the bad news.

[SmutsGTI]

Had the same happen to my wifes car, just clipped the gutter and bang tyre blew like she'd mounted the kerb at 80. Would not even consider rebuying that and the fact they are very noisy as well.

Smuts

[Maverick]

Yep... blew another tyre, rubbed it lightly on the kerb pulling out of a driveway on the way back to work from lunch, drove a short distance back to the office, dind't realise until I knocked off for the day and saw the car and thought "wtf?"

There's a few scrapes and cuts on the sidewall, exactly like the one last year that blew after hitting a pothole, god these tyres are WEAK!!

So you scraped the gutter, cut up the sidewall on a a low profile tyre performance tyre and you're complaining about the it failing?

There are lots out there with the Conti's and plenty that have gone 30, 40, 50k on the CSC2's (Golf GTI's) with no problems. I've never had a problem with them and they're highly regarded and come up around the top on tyre tests.

If you damage them in a pothole claim the cost of replacement from whoever is responsible for the road. If you damage them on the kerb you have no-one to blame but yourself. I wonder how many times you've done it before where it hasn't caused a problem but been weakened each time.

Had the same happen to my wifes car, just clipped the gutter and bang tyre blew like she'd mounted the kerb at 80. Would not even consider rebuying that and the fact they are very noisy as well.

How many times has she clipped gutters before this and not had the problem?

[G-rig]

Yeah people should learn how to drive before blaming the tyres all the time.. there have been a few of these pothole/ kerbing threads lately.

[pixl]

I had an issue with my tyres (or so I thought) --

Got in contact with Continental and they took care of everything. Told me to visit one of their approved tyre places. The guy there had my car for a couple of hours, testing the tyres, checking the alignment and balance.

In the end, all I needed was a wheel alignment which wasn't done right (twice) from the dealer. Even though it wasn't the tyres in the end, Continental picked up the bill for the inconvenience.

I keep hearing about how "bad" these tyres are, but honestly, how bad could they possibly be if Mercedes, Audi and VW approve of their use on their cars.

I've ridden Michelin PP2s and Marangoni Zeta Linea and neither one made me feel as confident in taking corners than the ContactSport 2s.

[Maverick]

I keep hearing about how "bad" these tyres are, but honestly, how bad could they possibly be if Mercedes, Audi and VW approve of their use on their cars.

The "issue" is that they're oem fitment to most GTI's (Golf and Polo's) so with a much larger install base of course you'll hear of more problems with them.

Does this mean the CSC2/CSC3 is a bad tyre? No just that's it's a common tyre and being a performance low profile tyre you can't go bouncing them over gutters or scrape them along gutters and expect them to not fail.

I've ridden Michelin PP2s and Marangoni Zeta Linea and neither one made me feel as confident in taking corners than the ContactSport 2s.

All the reviews back this up as well, the only tyre that is consistently better than the CS2 (CS3 now) is the Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric but both are excellent tyres.

[G-rig]

Apparently the Michelins have thin walls and they were still excellent for years on my previous cars..

Neither will be as good as semi slicks with reinforced walls.

[Chuck]

i had one blow crossing over a cats eye on the highway - doing bout 80km/h

that is not normal or cool

now am on the Marrangonis (spelling) good dry grip, not so in the wet (compared to the Conti's)

the contis were awesome grip both wet and dry

[Roodosutaa]

OK let's put things into perspective here before you get too carried away with the knee-jerk generalisations - and we all know where that would lead on an internet forum.

I don't need to read reviews to know the tyres are good performance-wise - yes in that regard they're at least on par with the better road tyres I've had in my previous cars (Bridgestone Adrenalins, Toyo Proxes and Yokie A539s - showing my age as well), that was never in question.

The issue here is being road tyres all the same, in my experience they took the kind of wear and tear and general abuse one comes to expect of road tyres very poorly. In 15 years of driving and track days I've only had to replace tyres due to wear or occasional punctures from nails/screws etc. Definitely not from driving over potholes in traffic or rubbing a kerb leaving a car park. If I clipped a kerb hurtling into a corner or rode on the ripple strip and ripped up the tyre, then I copped it fair and square.

I take offence at your suggestion that I "go bounce off gutters" on just one occasion. I'm sure in your divine mightiness you've never hit a pothole or rubbed a kerb in a car park, ever.

Perhaps I should learn to drive better but certainly not as much as you need to learn a little more social etiquette.

[Maverick]

i had one blow crossing over a cats eye on the highway - doing bout 80km/h

that is not normal or cool

I find that very very hard to believe.

There is no way a cats eye would cause a tyre to blow, not at 80kph or 180kph.

[Maverick]

I don't need to read reviews to know the tyres are good performance-wise - yes in that regard they're at least on par with the better road tyres I've had in my previous cars (Bridgestone Adrenalins, Toyo Proxes and Yokie A539s - showing my age as well), that was never in question.

The CSC2's are way above all of those tyres performance wise but I digress.

The issue here is being road tyres all the same, in my experience they took the kind of wear and tear and general abuse one comes to expect of road tyres very poorly. In 15 years of driving and track days I've only had to replace tyres due to wear or occasional punctures from nails/screws etc. Definitely not from driving over potholes in traffic or rubbing a kerb leaving a car park. If I clipped a kerb hurtling into a corner or rode on the ripple strip and ripped up the tyre, then I copped it fair and square.

The tyres are low profile performance tyres, what was the profile on the other tyres that you've had? 60? 70?

How often do you check the tyre pressures, if you weren't running correct pressures (or higher) the tyre will be a lot more susceptible to damage especially from potholes.

I take offence at your suggestion that I "go bounce off gutters" on just one occasion. I'm sure in your divine mightiness you've never hit a pothole or rubbed a kerb in a car park, ever.

Tyres don't just fail, there's always an external influence involved (lack of tyre pressure, careless driving or potholes on roads) and blaming the tyres when clearly that's not the problem is not going to stop it from occurring again.

If you read what I said it was factual and to the point, the sidewall must have been scraped on more than one occasion for it to fail in that way.

Perhaps I should learn to drive better but certainly not as much as you need to learn a little more social etiquette.

Perhaps you should learn not to take offence when being given the facts, the contis are not at fault here, they are an exceptional tyre but like all tyres subject to damage if not treated correctly.