Not thrilled with the Continental Pure Contact "Eco Plus" tires

ES44AC · Apr 20, 2016

ALS said: ↑

I just replaced my Michelin A/S Energy savers with Michelin Defenders and yes I took a major hit. I'm guessing four to five mpg's and I can say I have less than 1,000 miles on them so I expected a hit. We'll see once I make sure my Scan Gauge is properly calibrated at my next fill up what the hit really is. I was seeing only around 46 mpg at 65 mpg yesterday with the AC on. Normal is closer to 51-52 with the AC. Anyway back to the subject new tires will always cost you upwards of 5% hit on fuel mileage. It may be anywhere between 5K and 10K miles before you start to see an improvement in fuel mileage.

From Cummins on the effects of a trucks tires on fuel economy. This information applies also to automobile tires on a smaller scale.

From page 16

Tread Depth and Pattern According to Bridgestone, the tire tread accounts for 60–70% of the tires’ rolling resistance

Not only do the tires differ in rolling resistance when new, but as the tread wears, the rolling resistance of the tire changes.
A 7/32 tread wear represents ~10% reduction in rolling resistance (5% better mpg) compared to a new tire.

Rib tires at all wheel positions will provide greatest fuel efficiency
Tread pattern is important be cause lugs have deeper tread (more rolling resistance) than ribs.
If we take a new ribbed tire as the standard, a new lugged tire is less fuel efficient by about 6%

A worn tire is about 7% more fuel efficient than a new tire.

Link to the Cummins Study on Truck fuel economy. If you get some time it is well worth the read.

http://cumminsengines.com/uploads/docs/cummins_secrets_of_better_fuel_economy.pdf
Click to expand...

Thanks for even more information on the subject! Wow that Cummins article is interesting, They really put a lot of time and effort to eke out the most mileage! I have seen some trailers with an "aero" dynamic / streamlined attachment over the trailer doors. This article doesn't show that, I've only seen a few, it may be very new or something not worth the trouble.

Cheers "ES"

ES44AC · Jul 31, 2018

The Continentals have a 70k miles warranty and they still have a little less than half the tread left. Handling is excellent in both wet and dry and even lightly dusted snowy paths. One bad thing about these tires is that they get pretty noisy after about 30k miles of driving..
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WolfpackBill,

I doubt you'll ever see this posting but you are CORRECT about the tires being noisy. I have a little over 20k on my Continentals and they sound like I'm driving a monster truck or a Jeep with huge chunky treaded tires. Completely unacceptable!! Of course Continental won't do a damned thing since there's no uneven tread wear, an out of balance condition or poor alignment. I hate these tires! I have nothing good to say about them, if they are this noisy at 20k what will they be like @50k??

I'm planning to replace them with Michelin Defenders, the selling dealer will credit me for what I paid for the Conti's and I'll be out a bit over $200 for a set of the Michelin's. They surely can't be any worse than the ones I have now.

Cheers,

"ES"

ASRDogman · Jul 31, 2018

ES44AC said: ↑

Bob,

You are reading something in to the original post that isn't there. I never said crushed, or over torqued, I said 'damaged'. I guess it's up to the individual to decide what 'damage' is. When I come in to a shop with rims that have no marks on them and I find marks all over each rim, to my eyes that's DAMAGE.

The service manager admitted the tire mounting machine's "finger" that pulls the bead of the tire over the rim edge was already cracked when they started the job. The crack in the nylon material or whatever it is, put a scratch around the entire circumference of each rim, about 1/4" from the edge of the rim. In the attached photo you can see the black mark, unfortunately the mark will come off if I use Goof Off, but the line under the black mark remains,

To add in insult to injury while I was having this discussion another employee overheard what was being said and offered " Oh yeah we had to replace that because it was broken!" Too bad it wasn't replaced before they scratched the rims.

I am set up to have a wheel repair shop do all 4 next week. The bill will be paid by the installer of the tires. View attachment 108594 The guy that owns that repair service told me the same shop, that damaged my rims, managed to cock up a set of AMG wheels on a new Mercedes. He quoted me a price of $2k to replace each one, damage was so bad they will have to be sent out of town for welding in of new metal.

So all things considered I got lucky.... if you can call it that.

"ES"
Click to expand...

This is the same thing walfart did to my rims! Except they said it is impossible "their" machine did that!
BALOGNA! I've change a 100+ tires, and I scratch the first few I did, not know how.
They gave me the run around. So instead of getting madder and stressing out. I decided to put my army skills to good use.
I "acquired" $1000 of "item" and had then "traded" those items for American Money!

Not thrilled with the Continental Pure Contact "Eco Plus" tires

ES44AC C.A.U.S

ES44AC C.A.U.S

ASRDogman Senior Member

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Not thrilled with the Continental Pure Contact "Eco Plus" tires

ES44AC C.A.U.S

ES44AC C.A.U.S

ASRDogman Senior Member