Continental TrueContact Tour Review

The Continental TrueContact Tour emerges as the brand’s longest-lasting all-season touring tire, promising improved fuel economy and a quiet, comfortable ride. But is this tire really for you? Let’s find out!

The Continental TrueContact Tour is a well-balanced tire, excelling in dry, wet, and winter conditions, with its abundant siping, and X-shaped curved notches, (where its ice traction can be improved). The tire also gives respectable tread longevity and impressive fuel economy, attributed to its unique rubber composition, and EcoPlus Technology. However, there is room for improvement in ride comfort.

For Your Info: After a lot of consideration, I’ve rated this tire the best overall in my list of top standard touring tires. See here: https://tiredriver.com/best-standard-touring-all-season-tires/

Diverse Sizing and Specs

The Continental TrueContact Tour comes in 15 to 19 inches rims, and they have the following specs.

• Speed ratings: T, H and V only.
• Load ratings: SL and XL.
• Tread depth: 11/32″ on all.
• Weight range: 16 to 32 lbs.
• Treadwear warranty: 80k for T and H rated sizes or 70k mile for V rated ones.
• UTQG rating: 800 AA.

Outer Construction

The TrueContact Tour comes with an symmetrical tread pattern, featuring 4 ribs in total.

The two central ribs are particularly the most aggressive in its design, predominantly featuring curved X-shaped biters that serve multiple purposes under varying conditions.

They enhance grip on dry roads and act as effective biters on snowy surfaces. And, as they interconnect the 3 circumferential channels, they also facilitate efficient water evacuation, offering resistance to hydroplaning.

Though most of the wet grip comes form the numerous siping you see. Their multi-angled orientation offer wet grip in all directions.

Now, comparatively, the’s shoulders are less biting/aggressive, but with the presence of substantial in-groove notches and both lateral and linear siping, they still get the job done.

Find all the tires compared with Continental TrueContact Tour.

Internal Construction

The TrueContact Tour tire is built with specific materials and design features to provide a balance between how well the tire handles and how comfortable the ride feels.

It has a single-layer polyester casing on the inside, with 2 steel belts, and spirally wound nylon overlay on top. Moreover, it also features low- to mid-apex belts to provide extra handling stability.

The term “low- to mid-apex” refers to the tire’s sidewall design. It means that the sidewall (having these supporting belts), is neither too soft nor very stiff.

Highway Performance

When examining the overall performance of a tire on dry surfaces, we mainly look at two aspects.

• The overall traction.
• And the overall steering response of the tire.

Let’s check them out one by one.

Overall Traction

The tire’s overall traction is composed of two key components: dry or directional grip, indicative of straight-line traction and measured by stopping efficacy, and lateral traction, quantified by lateral g-forces.

The directional grip of a tire is primarily influenced by the central lugs since they bear the most weight as the tire rolls straight.

Now the Continental tire, with its two central ribs featuring X-shaped, curved in-groove notches, ensures excellent grip.

And although it may appear that these ribs are separated by the grooves, they actually rest on a continuous rubber layer underneath, maintaining stability and optimizing tread’s contact area.

For lateral grip, it’s the shoulders of the tire that come into play, as weight shifts to them during cornering, (and them make the most contact with the road).

Now the shoulder design here is compact, and its a characteristic that I see in many Continental tires. And it makes sense as these compact lugs optimize rubber-to-road contact, supported by foundational supports underneath, that further enhance lateral grip.

So, how does this tire stack up among others? Well, let me put it in this way, to give you an idea.

During dry grip testing, the Michelin Defender 2 (review) takes the lead among its competitors, and in comparison, the TrueContact offers similar braking efficacy, (braking distance was same on average), and just 0.1 less g force in terms of lateral grip.

Steering Feedback

Calculating a tire’s overall dry performance isn’t just about how well it grips the road. Here one more thing is required to complete the whole picture. And that’s steering feedback.

Now when tested, the Continental TrueContact Tour lets you steer really clearly and accurately. It usually does what you expect it to do unless you push it too hard (which often results in slight understeering).

This predictable behavior comes from the way the tire is built, where it combines stiffness with the needed flexibility, (allowing for superior oversteering and understeering balance).

Basically, the tire comes with a low- to mid-apex and spirally wound nylon, internally, and these two help the most when it comes to precise controlling the car’s movement.

But, there’s one downside: The tire could use some accuracy, particularly on-center. What I mean by that? Well, it means that the tire could be more precise and consistent in maintaining a straight path when the driver has finished turning.

And one more thing: It’s overall steering really reminds me of Nexen N5000 Platinum (review).

Wet Traction

In wet conditions, a tire’s performance is mostly judged by how well it clears off water from the tread. This is done by sipes (which basically calculates tire’s grip), and grooves (which gives out hydroplaning resistance).

Now, compared to its peers, the Continental TrueContact Tour is pretty awesome here.

I mean when put head-to-head, in the wet braking test, with its another direct rival, the Goodyear Assurance MaxLife (review), the Continental TrueContact stops 20 feet shorter on average, (from 60 mph).

And in wet handling department, it gives out the highest lateral g forces on average, and comes out with the fastest average lap speeds.

So how it does that, well, grip comes from sipes. The multi directional central siping, combined with rectilinear ones, on shoulders, offer a great combination of lateral and longitudinal grip.

While the overall handling is the result of its impressive wet response, which gives out confidence-inspiring control during sudden steering inputs.

Winter Performance

The Continental TrueContact Tour stands out for its exceptional snow traction, displaying top-notch test results in ice acceleration, braking, and overall handling.

Although it does not come with the 3-peak mountain snowflake rating, it provides commendable traction values.

Note: The 3PMSF symbol is usually awarded to tires displaying a 10% improvement in acceleration over other all-season tires without this rating.

So the Continental’s acceleration and braking performance here is attributed to its two central ribs, predominately. These showcase numerous biting edges, accompanied by plus or X-shaped curved interlocking grooves and abundant siping, (see its tread design again, above).

These features are designed to collect and trap snow particles, enabling better snow-to-snow contact, (which is highly needed for traction as snow adheres better to itself than to rubber).

Moreover, the tire also meets your expectations in the handling department too, where despite its slight susceptibility to understeer, (which marginally affects its overall handling times), it still outperforms its competitors in its category.

But yes, the tire does not do the same when it comes to ice, where it significantly falls behind its peers (the very ones which didn’t offer good enough soft snow grip in comparison).

So why is that?

Well this is mainly because of 2 things, one, it lacks sufficient siping and the siping does not interlock, a feature crucial for ice traction. And two, the tire has a somewhat harder compound, so with more freezing temperatures, those sipes further lose their effectiveness (of gripping ice).

Tread Wear

When it comes to tread longevity, although the Continental TrueContact Tour isn’t absolute best among its competitors, its still appreciable.

The tire comes with a unique rubber composition, which exhibits enhanced resistance to high temperatures, minimizing wear. And its tread is crafted to in a way, so it could maintain a high degree of structural integrity over extensive use.

Basically the tire is pretty light in weight, thanks to its less dense internal construction. And that combined with its lugs having robust foundational supports underneath, less heat is generated overall, as lugs rub against the road.

So you get a tire with an impressive warranty of up to 80,000 miles, (though this is only for sizes having T and H speed ratings. While sizes rated with “V” come with 70k miles).

(And it makes sense since speed rating is directly proportional to rolling resistance, which is to wear).

Fuel Economy

The Continental TrueContact Tour offers a very appreciable fuel economy, when you compare it with its direct competitors.

And this is largely attributable to the tire’s innovative EcoPlus Technology and its lightweight, single-ply construction.

EcoPlus Technology is engineered to minimize harmful CO2 emissions and incorporates compound elements that lower rolling resistance, which in turn contributes to enhanced fuel economy.

For Your Info: Continental introduced this technology is its PureContact LS tire (review), first.

While the tire’s lighter construction, on the other hand, reduces the weight pressure exerted by the lugs as they contact the road, lessening the overall rolling resistance.

Additionally, the tire features a sophisticated tread construction wherein each lug is strategically supported by a continuous rubber layer underneath.

This minimizes, what’s called, lug flexing, enhancing structural integrity.

And with limited bending of the lugs, more energy is allowed to be concentrated on the tire’s rotation, optimizing rolling efficiency and with it fuel economy.

Overall Comfort Performance

Touring tires are typically developed with a prime focus on delivering a seamless and comfortable driving experience on well-paved roads. And here, the Continental TrueContact Tour offers an above-average performance.

On Road Vibrations

Ride smoothness is fundamentally associated with two key factors:

• The tire’s efficiency as a secondary suspension system.
• The overall stability of the ride.

In this context, the overall construction of the tire is pivotal.

That’s why it makes sense why the Continental TrueContact Tour, with a stiffer rubber and a spirally wound nylon cap ply underneath isn’t able to soak up bumps effectively, especially larger bumps.

Though the very same construction also offers this tire with the stability too.

Noise Dampening Ability

The Continental TrueContact Tour typically provides a notably comfortable and serene ride experience, where any noise perceived is just a subtle hum at lower speeds.

Though on highways, (with higher speeds, I mean), this becomes a continuous humming, which overlays the white background noise.

But what’s the main source of this noise?

Well, it predominately comes form its voided up central section, where air hits the walls around, generating the unwanted sounds.

Though the good thing is, the tire incorporates packed up shoulders, with ridges between the grooves. And since this is the main entry point of the air, most of it cut down at the source.

So overall, you still get a quiet enough tire.

Take Home Points

The Continental TrueContact Tour demonstrates a commendable performance in various performance areas.

On dry roads, it gives you accurate steering and efficient grip with its X-shaped notches. And in wet, it provides exceptional braking and handling, attributed to its optimal siping.

Moreover, the tire also impresses in winter conditions, where it features a decent under/over-steering balance.

And same goes for its tread and fuel economy, credited to its unique rubber composition and structured tread, minimizing wear and ensuring structural integrity over extensive use.

However, the tire has room for improvement in ride comfort, particularly in absorbing larger bumps due to its stiffer construction. Where, in terms of noise, the tire producing a “hum” at higher speeds, also could use some dampening properties.