Conti’s Award Winning Winter Range

During the past year Continental has sold 19.1 million winter tyres worldwide, about 1.5 million more than in 2005. This season the German manufacturer is promoting its ContiWinterContact TS 810 and ContiWinterContact TS 810 Sport models for mid-size and luxury classes of cars, as well as for sports vehicles. And smaller vehicles can get off to a safe start in the cold season with the ContiWinterContact TS 800.

The ContiWinterContact TS 810 Sport is designed for highly tuned cars with powerful engines. Thanks to an extremely asymmetrical tread concept, it offers what Conti believes to be the very best driving performance under all wintry road conditions, outstanding handling characteristics on dry and wet roads, and a wide margin of safety on snow-covered roads. Approved for speeds of up to 270 km/h, it is available in some sizes as an SSR model with extended mobility features.

The ContiWinterContact TS 810 combines superb properties on winter roads with comfortable design. The tyre’s developers place a strong emphasis on short braking distances and high traction – even on snow-covered roads – as well as good aquaplaning resistance and minimum road noise. Another plus this technically sophisticated tyre has to offer is increased mileage performance.

The ContiWinterContact TS 800 is designed with compact cars in mind. With outstanding handling features and shorter braking distances on winter roads – whether wet or dry, snow-covered or icy – the new tyre is a real all-round winter performer that Conti recommends for a number of cars including the Skoda Felicia, VW Polo, Ford Fiesta and Vauxhall Corsa. Continental attributes the tyre’s safety performance to the advanced development of the honeycomb sipes in conjunction with an arrowhead grooved structure and a novel compound concept. The ContiWinterContact TS 800 range has been expanded for the coming winter.

For 4×4 vehicles Continental offers the ContiCrossContact Winter. Large, rigid tread blocks on the outside shoulder interact with sinusoidal sipes to give the tyre added cornering stability. On the inner side of the tyre, smaller, more flexible blocks with biting edge sipes allow for strong grip on snow and ice. The combined effect of the density, depth and angle of the sipes is intended to systematically harmonise circumferential and lateral tread stiffness. In this way, Conti reports that it has proved possible to reconcile the conflicting goals of handling properties on dry and snow-covered roads and achieve more uniform wear.

Additional elevations in the cross grooves serve to increase the tread’s circumferential rigidity, thus ensuring shorter braking distances on dry roads. These alterations to the tread design were made to accommodate the enormous weight of the vehicle and the relatively large wheel-load fluctuations of SUVs. Approved for speeds up to 240 km/h, the ContiCrossContact Winter tyre is available in 22 different sizes. Its range of sizes fits 15- to 21-inch rims. The tyres are available in widths of 205 to 295 mm with aspect ratios between 85 and 35 per cent.

All the winter tyres currently on offer from Continental have obtained high ratings in recent comparison tests. The ContiWinterContact TS 810, for example, received the top rating of “highly recommended” in tests conducted by Sportauto and Powercar. The ContiWinterContact TS 810 obtained the same rating no less than five times in tests conducted by the motoring publications in German speaking countries, and the tyre was the overall test winner three times (AutoBild, AutoBild sportscars and Autozeitung). The ContiWinterContact TS 800 fared similarly well. The editors of ADAC motor welt, the Austrian ÖAMTC and the Swiss TCS awarded the winter tyre for compacts a “highly recommended” rating.