Continental Sport Contact 6 Review
Continental’s signature tire when it comes to high-performance applications, the Sport Contact 6 is designed to deliver amazing grip for incredibly powerful machines, combined with the civility you’d expect from a tire equipped from the factory.
PROS
- World-class grip
- Comfortable ride
- Excellent braking
CONS
- No mileage warranty (thought that’s not unusual)
Using an ultra-grippy tread compound, the tire has a UTQG rating of 240 indicating just how sticky it is. That should also give you an idea that it’s not designed for long life and it’s no surprise that it doesn’t come backed with a tread life warranty.
The tire itself makes use of a unique Black Chili compound, which has nothing to do with spicy peppers. Instead, that’s just a name Continental has given to its tread blend that makes use of polymers, specially developed carbon black particles and other filler materials. It’s manufactured by combining natural rubber with synthetic compounds, before being combined with the carbon particles and then formed.
If you’re shopping for high performance tires you’ll read a lot abut silica compounds. Well, Continental claims that this new technology beats their old silica-infused tires by a wide margin, offering 30 percent more grip, 5 percent more milage and 26 percent better fuel economy.
To make the most of this compound, the tire needs an ideal tread shape and that’s what you have here. The flat, single band that runs the length of the center of the tire makes for maximum turn-in response, high speed stability and excellent braking. The outside shoulder features two sections positioned very close together to deliver a maximum contact patch. These ultra-wide tread blocks make for excellent cornering capability, while the inner section helps to reinforce the tread under lateral loads.
To further meet the needs of ultra high performance machines, Continental developed a new material made of two parts aramid fibers combined with one part nylon. This is then used immediately under the tread compound to give an extra level of stability to the tire at high speeds and allow it to be used at speeds of up to 350 km/h (217 mph).
Designed in all thee way to meet the demand of any high performance sports car, exotic or SUV, it’s also a surprisingly compliant and comfortable tire.
While far from cheap, when it comes to this level of performance, it’s reasonably priced too.
Continental Sport Contact 6 Price
Pricing for the Continental Sport Contact 6 ranges from just over $150 per tire for an 18-inch fitment to more than $400 for a 22-inch fitment.
Continental Sport Contact 6 Warranty
The Continental Sport Contact 6 is not covered by a tread wear mileage guarantee. It is, however, backed by Continental’s Total Confidence Plan that includes flat tire roadside assistance or a 150 mile tow for the first two years of ownership. It also adds a road hazard protection plan where Continental will replace any tire damaged as a result of a road hazard like driving over nail or hitting a pothole, for the first 2/32-inch of treadwear.
Continental Sport Contact 6 Sizes
18-inch sizes
235/40/R18
19-inch sizes
255/35/R19
245/40/R19
245/35/R19
275/35/R19
255/45/R19
265/35/R19
295/35/R19
20-inch sizes
245/30/R20
295/40/R20
265/45/R20
295/30/R20
275/30/R20
305/30/R20
21-inch sizes
255/40/R21
265/40/R21
22-inch sizes
265/35/R22
295/30/R22
285/40/R22
Continental Sport Contact 6 vs Sport Contact 5
There are a host of improvements made to the Continental Sport Contact 6 compared to its predecessor and they make a significant difference in how this new tire performs.
Conti’s engineers pretty much reinvented the tire with a new tread compound, tread design and even a new internal structure. The mixture of compounds in the tread was modified slightly to offer increased grip without impacting tread life.
As for the tread design, it’s been modified and now feature’s Continental’s Force Vectoring technology including an asymmetric design with larger exterior tread blocks that are actually reinforced by a secondary strip of tread to provide a larger and more robust contact patch.
And finally the third innovation for this tire is in the tire’s structure with a new synthetic fiber called Aralon 350 used in its makeup. Aralon 350 makes use of two high-strength aramid strands twisted with a nylon strand which is then woven through the rubber base. This innovation helps the tire maintain structure even at extremely high speeds.
And as a final addition to the Sport Contact 6, it gets new two-stage tread wear indicator that lets the driver know when the tread depth has reached 3.0 mm and should be replaced for maximum performance as well as a secondary indicator at 1.6 mm indicating the tire must be replaced.
According to Continental the improvements allow for a 14 percent improvement in steering precision, while overall handling performance and grip on dry roads is up 11 percent. When driven in angle on a track, Continental claims a 4 percent improvement, with a 2 percent up-tick in the wet. Finally, both tread life and comfort have also been improved, to the tune of 7 percent.
Record Setting Tire
While Continent does offer versions of the SportContact 6 for SUVs, it’s also designed for use on high-performance and exotic cars as well as luxury vehicles. To show its versatility, Continental equipped the Civic Type R with the Sport Contact 6 when it made its record setting Nurburgring run, achieving a world-record for a front drive car around the track in just 7 min 50.63 sec.