Both the PureContact LS and the Turanza QuietTrack are Grand Touring All-Season tires. While the Continental emphasizes responsive handling and a sporty feel for family vehicles, the Bridgestone’s tire focuses on ride luxury. Let’s see what else, they offer.
In dry conditions, the Turanza offers better traction, but in wet and snowy settings, it’s competitor has the upper hand. Moreover, the QuietTrack is quieter, while PureContact ensures a smoother ride. And yes, the Bridges one also has a slight edge in tread longevity, but both tires offer similar fuel efficiency.
Table of Contents
Tire Sizes
The Continental PureContact LS comes in 16 to 20 inches rims, with following sizes’ specs.
- Speed ratings: H and V.
- Load ratings: SL and XL.
- Tread depth: 10/32″ on all.
- Weight range: 18 to 32 lbs.
- Treadwear warranty: 70k miles.
- UTQG rating: 700 AA.
On the other side, the Bridgestone Turanza QuietTrack comes in 15 to 20 inches wheels and they have the following specs.
- Speed ratings: H and V only.
- Load ratings: SL and XL.
- Tread depth: 9 to 10/32″.
- Weight range: 19 to 33 lbs.
- Treadwear warranty: 80k miles.
- UTQG rating: 800 A A.
Tire’s Construction
The Bridgestone Turanza QuietTrack comes with a symmetrical tread pattern.
The tire’s tread comes with 5 block columns (called ribs).
These ribs together form 4 circumferential grooves, where the base of these grooves carry a secondary tread pattern, (which is designed to basically reduce road noise and offer winter traction).
In the middle, we have 3 very similar ribs.
All these ribs are equipped with wave-like siping and prominent lateral voids, inter-connecting the circumferential grooves.
And since the 3 central ribs are voided up, they interconnect with those longitudinal groove effectively.
Moving towards shoulder, here lugs integrate lateral siping, which also connect with longitudinal slits.
And in term of the tire’s internal construction, it comes with a single ply of polyester and a nylon cap ply, reinforced by two steel belts.
On the other hand, the Continental PureContact LS comes with a totally different asymmetric tread design, which is also more aggressive.
So here we have again have 5 ribs, forming similar longitudinal grooves, though with more voided up structure, you get better connectivity of those grooves.
The central most rib is the main contributor here though, as its laced with thick lateral (slanted) grooves, which also act as biters.
The surrounding ribs slimmer and less pronounced.
One displays lateral notches pointing towards the shoulders, while another features chamfered edges and snow vices (though vices are common on all ribs).
Speaking of its internal construction…
The tire comprises a single polyester ply casing, two steel belts, and a double layer of nylon cap plies.
Road Comfort Performance
Ride comfort is fundamentally determined by a tire’s capability to mitigate noise and absorb bumps. Let’s explore these aspects in detail.
Road Noise
In the context of road noise, although both tires are pretty close, in terms of their generated decibels’ levels, the Continental still lacks with its more pronounced voids. Let me explain why.
Noise actually arises from air colliding with the tread walls (for the most part), with the majority of the air entering via the shoulder area.
Among the two, the Continental PureContact LS although comes as a luxury performance tire (referring to the abbreviation “LS”), it’s more spacious shoulders allow greater air to come in and hit around, generating more noise.
On the other hand, the Turnaza tire takes the lead with its QuietTrack Technology.
With this tech Bridgestone combines its special composition, and tread design, allowing for a quieter ride in comparison.
It’s composition, includes a a rich blend of polymers, notably Polybutadiene and silica. And these materials are renowned for their ability to diminish road abrasion noise.
While it’s tread offers better variable pitch tread construction, where lugs are designed to encounter incoming air at diverse angles, resulting in a spectrum of sound tones and frequencies, so they don’t amplify together.
Road Smoothness
How smooth the ride is, depends tire’s ability to soak up road bumps effectively, And here, in comparison, the PureContact LS shows off as a superior choice.
This is attributed to the Contiental’s unique construction, where it offers an added layer over its nylon cap plies, designed especially to cushion road bumps. (They call it the Comfort Ride Technology).
Moreover, its polyester casing, carrying a more supple composition, enhances its overall ride flexibility.
And lastly, its tread, enriched with +Silane additives, which is primarily intended for fuel efficiency also plays a crucial role in reducing road vibrations too.
Dry Performance
The effectiveness of a tire on dry surfaces can be assessed by examining two primary factors: grip and handling.
Let’s analyze them both.
Forward Traction
The traction a tire provides in the forward direction is predominantly influenced by its central region.
But why is the center so crucial?
Simply put, it’s because this section bears the most brunt of the weight, especially when the tire is moving in a straight path. That’s why tire have continuous running ribs in the middle, or more compact lugs there compared to shoulders.
Having said that, the Bridgestone Turanza QuietTrack, takes the lead here, by showcasing shorter braking distance (on average), which is the key determinant of directional grip.
The design of this features elongated and less voided up ribs, enhancing the tire’s contact with the road and thus boosting friction/grip.
On the flip side, the Continental PureContact LS with its central most rib, a lot more voided up (as clearly seen from its tread pattern, expalined in design section), the tire lacks to its counterpart, even though its only a difference of less than a foot.
Cornering Traction
When evaluating dry handling, lateral traction and steering response are the most crucial elements to consider.
Now in terms of traction, both tires do great, offering similar results.
The Bridgestone Turanza QuietTrack offers unique lateral notches and deep longitudinal slits, ensuring top-tier traction.
Whereas Continental PureContact yields similar traction (as indicated by its similar averaged lateral g forces). And that’s attributed to it’s streamlined shoulders enriched with lateral siping and grooves.
But the overall handling is still superior on the QuietTrack, where its more than a second faster (on average), on lap tests. And this advantage largely stems from its superior steering responsiveness.
Steering Dynamics
Now before diving here, it’s essential to understand the three distinct phases of “cornering”:
- Entry: The initial phase as the vehicle begins its turn into the corner. This involves/checks “braking”.
- Mid corner: This is when the car is right in the middle of the turn, and here steering response is the most significant.
- Exit: This is where, you straighten up the car. Here, tire’s ability to center without slippage is the main concern.
Now the Turanza QuietTrack excels in all of these. I mean as already discussed it offer slightly faster braking.
Additionally, its robust steering feedback during the mid-corner and exit phases guarantees tire stability without oversteering or understeering tendencies.
On the other side, although it’s not bad by any means, the Continental PureContact LS still lacks with it’s sluggish steering, compared to Bridgestone.
But why? Well, the answer lies in its construction.
Its Comfort Ride Technology, which features a cushioning layer above the nylon cap plies, results in a softer internal makeup. This design makes its lugs more flexible, slightly compromising the tire’s balance, where it tends to understeer a little.
Wet Traction
When assessing a tire’s efficacy in wet conditions, the key lies in its ability to swiftly channel water away from its tread. This capability is primarily attributed to grooves and sipes.
Though grooves are fundamental in displacing the “majority” of the water, sipes magnify this effect.
I mean, at first glance, sipes may seem like simple slits, but their role in enhancing grip is profound, as they work on a microscopic scale. These slits expand, (throwing air out), and contract, generating a vacuum effect, that draws in water particles, enhancing overall wet traction.
So it tells us two things about a “good wet tire”:
- It should incorporate an abundance of sipes.
- And it should employ them or tread the flexibility.
Understanding this perfectly explains why the Bridgestone Turanza QuietTrack lags here slightly. I mean, despite its abundant interlocking (wave-like) siping, its stiffer compound hampers optimal sipe flexibility, reducing its overall wet handling times.
Whereas the Continental PureContact LS gets to be better, offering denser siping complemented by a softer compound, ensuring the sipes remain adaptable, even during sharp turns.
Moreover, as this tire is more voided up, it also offers better resistance to hydroplaning. In other words, it’s slightly balder tread allows a more rapid water dispersal. And this further improves overall traction, as it takes greater relative workload off on sipes (to begin with).
Fuel Efficiency
Factors such as tread composition, tire weight, and rolling resistance significantly impact fuel efficiency.
And here both tires are doing great, offering similar results.
I mean, there’s no discernible difference in miles-per-gallon (MPG) when transitioning from one tire to the other.
And it makes sense as they both have a lot of (fuel effecting) factors in common. They both exhibit comparable rubber-to-road contact, speed ratings (up to V), and a uniform tread depth up to 10/32″ across all sizes, resulting in similar rolling resistance metrics.
Snow Traction
In the world of winter capabilities, both boys present very varying outcomes.
Though if I have to simply it, I can say the Bridgestone QuietTrack shines on icy surfaces, while the Continental PureContact LS outperforms in snow traction.
Though the Bridgestone features a somewhat harder rubber compound that can become rigid in frigid conditions, its greater (in number per tread area) sipes, combined with chamfered tread edges compensates for this, ensuring slightly better traction on icy conditions, (referring to black ice with more slippery roads).
Conversely, the PureContact LS, enriched with additional in-groove notches, possesses “biters” that grasp onto snow particles. And this structure design facilitates superior snow-to-snow interaction, which is pretty important, as snow adheres more effectively to itself than it does to rubber.
So you get a better “salt-like” snow performance with Continental in comparison.
Tread Longevity
When evaluating tire’s overall mileage, it’s vital to consider aspects such as tread depth, rolling resistance, and the materials incorporated in the tire’s make-up.
While both tires are above-average in this domain, the Bridgestone QuietTrack slightly outperforms with its enhanced tread longevity, thanks to its somewhat firmer rubber compound.
Conversely, the Continental PureContact prioritizes comfort over extended tread life. As indicated by its “LS” designation, (short for “Luxury” Performance), it’s explicitly designed with comfort as its central focus.
Nevertheless, the difference between the two tires is pretty low, as dictated by their mere difference of 5,000-mile warranty.
To Sum Up
Both tires rocks in separate sections.
In dry conditions, the Bridgestone outperforms with superior traction and handling, while in wet settings, the Continental has the edge due to better siping and hydroplaning resistance.
For snowy terrains, QuietTrack excels on ice, while it’s counterpart dominates in snow grip.
Road comfort sees the PureConact LS proving a smoother ride, while its counterpart is quieter.
Lastly, in terms of tread longevity, Bridgestone slightly leads, though both tires are comparably efficient concerning fuel consumption.
