The Continental PureContact LS is a premium luxury all season tire designed for drivers seeking a balanced and reliable performance across diverse conditions. Its an reliable choice, overall, balancing performance, comfort, and durability across varying conditions.. Let’s see if this tire is made for you!
Being a tire engineer, I can tell you that the Continental PureContact LS is a versatile tire, excelling in lateral grip, hydroplaning resistance, and delivering substantial ride comfort and tread longevity. And although its optimized for fuel efficiency through advanced technologies, it requires improvements in areas like steering responsiveness and noise reduction.
Table of Contents
Tire Sizes
The Continental PureContact LS comes in 16 to 20 inches with following sizes.
- 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.
Tread Pattern
The Continental PureContact LS comes with a asymmetric tread design with a lot of biters.
Let’s start form its most biting middle area, where the central most rib comes equipped with multi-directional (in-groove) notches, and slanted lateral siping.
These offer winter and wet grip, while with foundational supports underneath these lugs, you also get commendable directional grip on dry.
The ribs on either side although have similar grooves and siping, they have a slightly altered angle to them.
Moving towards shoulders, they are less aggressive overall, in comparison.
They don’t feature any notches and only have lateral (straight forward) sipes on them.
Internally, the tire comes with a single ply polyester casing with twin steel belts, and a two layered nylon cap ply, with comfort plus technology.
Find all the All Season tires compared to PureContact LS.
Dry Performance
The overall dry performance is two parts, traction and steering response, (where traction is further divided in to two, lateral and longitudinal grip).
Let me discuss each of these aspects one by one.
Dry Grip
When it comes to the directional grip, the middle part of the tread is super important, as this area carries most of the weight of both the tire and the car (while of course rolling straight).
That’s why it makes sense why the Continental PureContact LS needs a bump up in its braking efficacy (which is how this grip is calculated).
So this tire although comes with a very fat rib in the very middle, the array of lateral voids there eat away the rubber that could have been in contact with the road, providing grip.
The following ribs on either side are also not doing so great as they are slightly more spacious for the tire in this category.
Lateral Grip
The lateral grip of a tire depends on shoulders and they get to meet with the road with greater friction, as the tire corners.
And here, the tire provides a very good job.
Although the tire features an asymmetric design, its shoulders aren’t too different form one another. They have a minimalist design, where they just have lateral siping and grooves (so they form a great rubber to road contact).
And as those grooves aren’t full depth, (as the shoulders are sitting on a secondary rubber layer), you get a very stable driving experience.
So with minimalist tread pattern here, the tire offers above-average lateral traction values. Though this doesn’t translate in to as impressive handling lap times, (let me explain why in the next section).
Steering Response
The steering on this tire is okay, but not great, as there’s a little delay when you turn the wheel, and it doesn’t feel as quick to respond as some other tires in its all season category.
And this is because the internal construction of this tire is pretty soft. It comes with Comfort Ride Technology (a cushioning layer above nylon cap plies), and single ply polyamide casing in its construction (where usually tires get to have 2).
While this design does reduce the overall weight and cornering inertia, it clearly signals areas that could benefit from refinement.
I mean the tire showcases decent traction and grip, sure, but its steering lag hampers you from fully tapping into its potential.
Particularly during precise cornering or quick adjustments, the steering seems sluggish, requiring too much movement before accurately reacting to the driver’s input.
And so because of this the tire lacks a little in overall handling times (as seen on tests, on average).
Ride Comfort
Ride comfort depends on how well the tire settles down the road irregularities. And here, the Continental PureContact, being a luxury sport performance tire, does a pretty great job.
It provides ride quality that is both exceptionally cushioned and highly controlled.
What I mean by that is, the tire is really efficient at dampening minor impacts to the point where they are often imperceptible.
And as for the larger jolts/bumps, they are also proficiently isolated.
So how is it doing that? Well, there are a lot of small factors contributing to the whole picture.
For one, the tire is equipped with Comfort Ride Technology, which incorporates an additional layer over its nylon cap plies, specifically designed to absorb road bumps.
And its internal construction, consisting of just single-ply polyester, also ensures a softer and more pliant ride.
Moreover, its advanced rubber composition incorporates +Silane additives. While these primarily extend tread life, they also play a crucial role in absorbing road vibrations, (mostly during braking), contributing further to the tire’s overall ride comfort.
Wet Performance
Two factors are worth discussing here, overall wet grip (and steering), and resistance to aquaplaning.
Wet Grip and Steering Response
The Continental PureContact LS is notable for its remarkable grip and handling on wet surfaces, creating a driving experience where the vehicle feels securely planted and in control.
During my tests, however, there arose a subtle wish for more refined control, particularly at the vehicle’s front, and an increased rear rotation to refine the driving sensation.
Though traction wise, there are no complaints as the tire offers pretty decent braking abilities, and lateral traction values, thanks to its effective rectilinear siping.
Sipes are essentially air-filled and, when pressed against the ground under the weight of the vehicle, they expel that air, creating negative pressure and drawing water particles into their voids.
Now although usually the rectilinear siping design have its limitations, as they tend to get stiffer and don’t suck up water particles as effectively, but with multiple angle orientations as seen on the Continental’s tread, that’s not a problem here.
And this results in tire still giving out above average wet handling times (on laps), and braking distances (averaged).
Hydroplaning Resistance
The tire’s ability to avoid hydroplaning, or skimming/floating over water, is measured by how well it can move water out of the way.
And here the Continental PureContact LS is leading the way, offering you with the fastest float speeds in both curved and straight line testing (I mean compared to other direct competitors).
In addition to featuring four straightforward circumferential grooves designed to expel water longitudinally, the tire’s grooves are interconnected laterally too, through in-groove notches, enhancing its capacity to displace water sideways as well.
For Your Info: Hydroplaning resistance is sometimes overlooked, but it’s really important. Efficient water displacement through tire grooves reduces the amount of water that the sipes must manage, so it contributes indirectly to overall tire’s wet traction too.
Tread Life And Durability
The Continental PureContact LS is a pretty great tire when it comes to tread longevity.
Being a more advanced generation from Continental, it comes with optimal levels of silica and new +Silane additives among others, which offers this tire with the needed treadwear durability.
Moreover, its Comfort Plus Technology ensures that its (construction) weight is balanced across the tire’s lugs, (or evenly distributed), reducing pressure on each lug as the tread rubs against the road.
And let me tell you, it doesn’t weight too much to begin with, as its internal construction is only comprised of a single ply polyester casing, (unlike its competitors which typically feature dual-layered carcasses).
And so this further helps with the tread longevity.
And as a result, it earns a treadwear rating of 700 and comes with an impressive 70,000-mile warranty.
For Your Info: This tire features tread indicators labeled DWS, where the “D” represents dry performance, “W” goes for wet, and “S” for snow. As the tire wears, these letters gradually disappear, indicating reduced proficiency in the corresponding conditions.
Winter Traction
Talking about snow traction, there are a few things to look for. These include:
- How well it grips the road (referring to overall traction).
- How it handles when you steer (referring to the tire’s steering response).
- What kinds of snowy or icy conditions it can tackle.
Now the Continental PureContact LS does okay in all these key areas.
With numerous siping, and all ribs equipped with snow vices, the tire offers a decent overall traction values in both icy and snowy tracks.
(These sipes don’t get stiffer under freezing temperatures, as they have multiple angle orientations to them, and yes, the tire’s tread also features temperature activated functional polymers).
When navigating softer, snow-covered tracks, the tire’s asymmetric tread pattern, adorned with multiple in-groove notches, delivers exceptional lateral and longitudinal grip.
These strategically placed notches basically trap snow particles, facilitating snow-to-snow contact.
This type of contact creates enhanced friction with the ground compared to rubber-to-snow contact, owing to the inherent tendency of snow particles to adhere to one another. This results in improved traction and stability on snowy surfaces, making navigation more secure and controlled.
Fuel Efficiency
The Continental PureContact LS tire isn’t exactly a champion when it comes to saving fuel, but its still not that bad after all.
It incorporates EcoPlus Technology, designed to reduce harmful CO2 emissions and utilize compound elements that decrease rolling resistance, contributing to fuel economy.
Moreover, the tire’s comfort plus tech, is also pretty helping here, as it evenly distributes the tire’s weigh across the tread, so each lug has less weight pressure on itself.
And that coupled with reinforced foundations beneath all the lugs, the amount of (lug) flexing is reduced, conserving energy and contributing to its overall efficiency.
This synergy of technologies works together to optimize fuel consumption while maintaining tire performance.
Road Noise
The primary culprit behind road noise is the air’s movement within the tire’s tread. These particles usually find their way in, predominantly through shoulder voids, and create a disturbance by hitting the tread walls.
This actually results in a couple of things, where one is the tread vibrato, then there’s in-groove resonance, impact tones and so on.
Now, the Continental PureContact LS is just okay here. Not so bad, but not good either.
It manifests a subtle, yet distinct, higher-pitched tire noise where impacts resonate noticeably within the vehicle’s structure.
And looking at the tread it makes sense, as its shoulder area has clear lateral grooves, which don’t restrict air particles coming in.
Though it could have been more pronounced, were it not for the tire’s advanced compound that mitigates in-groove resonance, it doesn’t reflect or amplify noise, reducing the echo of disturbances.
To Sum Up
The Continental PureContact LS demonstrates a balanced overall performance.
It offers superb lateral grip and hydroplaning resistance while maintaining adequate traction in winter conditions too (though it does not offer the 3 peak mountain snowflake rating).
Moreover, its advanced design having EcoPlus Technology and +Silane additives, optimizes its fuel efficiency and provides you with the needed longevity, backed up by its 70,000-mile warranty and a 700 treadwear rating.
And yes, the tire also offers notable vibration absorption abilities, but has room for improvement in steering responsiveness and noise reduction.
