Continental 4×4 Contact Review
Sounding more rugged than it is, the Continental 4×4 Contact is actually designed to deliver a premium ride for modern, luxury utility vehicles. Unfortunately it has one major flaw.
PROS
- Comfortable and quiet
- Available as a run-flat
CONS
- Sub-par tread wear
- Poor wet grip
- Pretty expensive
It actually has several flaws, but there is one that stands above (or below) the rest: tread life.
We wouldn’t even bother reading the rest of this review. We would, however, insist that you shouldn’t judge all Continental tires by this underperforming one. Instead, if you’re looking at Continentals, we highly recommend the CrossContact LX25.
For those who do want more info on why we rate this tire so poorly, we’ll say that tread life is almost unanimously panned by owners, to the point that reading user reviews of this tire is actually quite entertaining. If we can paraphrase one owner, he said he thought he could see the tread wearing away as he watched.
Factory equipment on numerous Mercedes-Benz SUVs, you should be lucky to get 25,000 miles on a set and many owners claim to have bald tires long before then.
In short, it’s unacceptable.
As for the tire’s other features, it does live up to the promise of being both comfortable and quiet – though numerous other tires can do that, and many for less money.
The tread pattern is optimized for grip in wet and wintry conditions as well, and the tread compound makes use of silica to optimize for wet weather grip. Unfortunately it comes up short here as well. Owners report poor wet grip and another gifted reviewer even commented that the tires would hydroplane at the thought of rain.
Needless to say, winter grip is limited, even for an all-season.
Is the Continental 4×4 Contact a Good Tire?
Most tires these days are quite good. And usually the choice comes down to what tire makes the most sense for your vehicle, driving style and budget. Here, however, we can definitely say that the Continental 4×4 Contact is not a good tire.
Continental 4×4 Contact Price
Pricing for the Continental 4×4 Contact starts at roughly $150 per tire for a 16-inch fitment and goes up to just over $200 per tire for a 20-inch sizes.
Continental 4×4 Contact Warranty
The Continental 4×4 Contact does not come with a tread life warranty. And we’re not surprised. It does come backed by Conti’s limited standard warranty that covers defects in materials or workmanship. Continental will replace defective tires free of charge during the first 2/32-inch of treadwear and replace tires on a pro-rated basis down to the final 2/32-inch of useable tread life.
Continental 4×4 Contact Sizes
16-inch sizes
215/65R16
18-inch sizes
235/60R18
255/55R18
55/55R18
265/60R18
265/60R18
19-inch sizes
235/50R19
255/50R19
255/50R19
255/55R19
265/50R19
275/45R19
275/55R19
275/55R19
20-inch sizes
265/45R20
275/45R20
Is the Continental 4×4 Contact a Run Flat Tire?
Continental offers the 4×4 Contact as both a regular tire and as a run-flat version. The run flat model can be identified by having the letters “SSR” in the product description. This tire can operate for up to 50 miles at speeds of up to 50 mph. See here for pricing on the 4×4 Contact SSR.