I'm hoping you knowledgable people have some answers for me. My question, in short, is whether or not you all have experienced traction issues with your stock Continental ContiProContact all-season tires.

Last week I picked up a '13 Hardtop S, and I've been loving it. Not only is this the first new car I've ever owned, but the car I've been driving for three years is a 2003 BMW 325xi. My new R56 is much snappier, and I've been go-carting around town like a madman in between applying coats of wax.

Today, I took her for her first extended test drive, taking a long and winding mountain pass on a lazy Sunday afternoon. All was going good until I got into the heavier twisties, at which point my car just couldn't do what I asked of it. Whereas with my BMW I would have sailed through these curves without a squeak, my Mini just felt like it couldn't grip the road properly. I wasn't even pushing it that hard; my tires were just screaming and failing to find a purchase.

Now I am considering two possible causes: drivetrain and tires. I know that my BMW was AWD, and the inherent handling benefits are obvious. But it was also equipped with some pretty righteous summer rubber. My Mini, however, has the ContiProContact all-season runflats. So what I'm wondering is whether or not you all have had trouble getting good grip out of these tires, or whether I've just gotten weak and reliant on my AWD handling. I'm thinking that these stiff all seasons have to play a part in it; I tested a R53 with summers and really peppered it through some bends and it held on tight.

If anyone has had a similar experience and saw some improvements when they switched to performance summers, that would be awesome to hear about. It might put my mind at ease as I fret that my Mini can't handle the twisties!

Thanks all.

 

new tires have a break in period of a few hundred miles or so to get rid of the coating that is put on them so they wont stick on the mold. and as good as the mini is, that bimmer with awd and summer tires set a pretty high benchmark for your mini to match, ive driven an e46 (rwd) with summer tires and id prefer that on a mountain run than my mini

edit: i just put on new summers (conti dw) on my car last month and the first hundred miles or so were pretty fun and sometimes scary lol. had some real bad understeer

 

thanks, greasy. the e46 is a great machine but it is a slug next to the r56 in lane-change motoring. it was nice in those corners, though. the rwd models are animals.

its good to know about the break in period. i'll ride these tires out a little longer and see how they handle in a few weeks.

 

I have two sets of wheels for my mini, one with the Contiprocontact (AS) and one with RE050A (Summer). The grip is a night and day difference, favoring the RE050A's.

 

It's the tires and little rear anti roll bar... All season tires don't do anything well.

 

you can also try playing with your tire pressures. the continentals seem to ride a lot better when in the mid 40's; stock is rated at mid 30's. the max on the sidewall says 51 so you should be fine adjusting anywhere in that range to find something you like. i run mine at 40-45 front and 35-40 rear and the ride quality is much better also. with the tires at 30-35 the ride gets pretty harsh.

 

The tires aren't doing you any favors. Dedicated summer-only tires will have massively superior grip to all-season tires, because they don't have to account for cold weather or snow or ice traction. That lets the tire design be optimized for grip in warm weather.

All-season tires have to do everything, so they cannot be optimized for just one thing. They tend to be mediocre at everything, and excellent in nothing. They do work fine for people who don't need exceptional performance and who don't want to change tires twice a year. But most people I know who live where you get serious amounts of snowfall, and where the roads twist and turn, get a set of dedicated snow tires.

And almost everyone I know in my area (SF Bay Area, where "winter" means "rainy season") and wants to have fun driving gets summer performance type tires.

Each of those are far superior to the "do-everything" type of tire that the all-seasons are.


Run-flats have their own set of compromises, as well, so they generally have to give up something (not always performance, but it often is) so they can continue to be driven on when they do go flat.

So all-season run-flat tires will typically give up a lot of performance, and will often have other compromises, compared to dedicated summer performance tires or dedicated snow tires.

Change the tires out, carry a can of "slime" or "fix-a-flat" and see how the car responds. I'm betting you'll like it better....

 

OP,

I think these tires work extremely well.
You might want to check them out.
They have very-very high reviews from owners.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ort-tires.html

 

+1. These are the tires I will be putting on our JCW almost as soon as it arrives. i have run Pilot Sports on my performance cars for years and their new compounds are even better. Performance tire compounds and as someone else mentioned, correct pressure will go a long way toward curing what is ailing the OP for sure

 

I have ran Michelin tires on a bunch of my cars over the years.

They work.

 

Go wider and softer (Summer tires) and it will feel much better. Still not AWD but much better.

 

My original equipment Conti run flats finally wore down to the point where I could replace them without feeling guilty. Believe me, dedicated summer-only tires are a substantial improvement in stickyness. I ran the Conti's at higher than recommended pressure, as one of the previous posts suggests. It helped a little.

Turn the wheel with the run flats and the car responds instantaneously. Truthfully, more so than with the new summer-only tires. It inspires confidence. But the Conti's could never back up that turning response with a the amount of pure grip you would expect from such a responsive tire.

 

Oh man, I hear you with the e46. I had a 2000 328ci for a bit and it was tons of fun with the 5 speed and RWD. Lack of LSD for the e46 bothered me a lot however.

Compared to my r56, no contest, the mini is way more fun.

As for the tires, never drove with the originals, but when I bought her with 15k I had new run flats put on (part of the deal from the dealer). Bridgestone turenza's ? Or whatever they are called. They are okay, nothing special and I do Chirp them between 1-2 2-3. When it comes to replace them ill be looking at summer performance tires and probably a bit wider, 215 or so.

 

thanks all. you confirmed my suspicions; i'm going to switch to dedicated summers and winter tires, as the seasons here in the northeast dictate. until then i'll play with the tire pressure and see what i can accomplish.

 

i have read you'll lose some turn in sharpness that the run flats give you when switching to non run flats. that's kind of a bummer but cars are all about trade-offs. i did manage to dial out a little understeer raising the pressure in the front. be sure to rotate at least every 5k since it's easy to chew tires with a FWD turbo car.

the conti's are okay stock tires, at least they aren't as bad as the potenza re92's i had on my scion tC. those were just okay in the dry, scary in the wet, had low tread life and expensive; if you look on tire rack they are the most expensive tC tires. so anything else is cheaper and you can find way better tires based on your desired criteria.

 

To the OP. As someone else suggested the Michelin Pilot super sports are a great tire. I just bought these for my street tires and I use Dunlop Direzza ZII tires for autocross. The Michelins have almost the level of grip as the ZII's but are suppose to last quite a few miles and maintain a quite ride. The grip level of the ZII's is almost insane for a street tire. The PSS come very close and on the street I honestly don't think I would tell a difference in grip. On a closed course possibly... Time will tell as to how many miles I can get out of the Michilens. They have a 30,000 miles warranty. I drove less than 10,000 miles on the OEM Dunlop runflats before they were at the wear markers. I drive my car only for fun driving, and I have a lot of fun.

Don't get an all season tire if your driving aggressively, like others said they do nothing well.