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Continental ContiPremiumContact 5 review

Another great all-round performance takes the victory

Another great all-round performance takes the victory

With so many tyres appearing for a second time, it’s useful to refer back to our 2014 test in this popular size. While most have retained their ranking or been overtaken by new designs, the ContiPremiumContact 5 has been little short of transformed; it was only fifth last time. We know tyres are developed over time, but this is a radical change – and it’s remarkable as the design, on sale since 2012, has already been replaced in some bigger sizes by the PremiumContact 6.

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If it has a weakness, it’s rolling resistance; the tyre would use close to three per cent more fuel than the best. Elsewhere it is hard to find fault as Continental’s engineers have upped performance across both wet and dry surfaces. It starred on the handling tracks, winning on both (albeit sharing dry glory with Hankook). It had an agility and directness others could only dream of. For a comfort tyre it was pretty sporty next to rivals.

It was a similar story on the wet track where it felt sharp and showed good traction out of turns. One of Continental’s performance targets is braking, and it had a big margin in the wet – more than three metres over the next best. Getting close to the best in the noise test secures another win for this tyre.

Buy the Continental ContiPremiumContact 5 tyre from Black Circles here

Price£67.34 
Dry handling 100%1st
Dry braking 92.70%5th
Wet handling 100%1st 
Wet braking 100%1st
Wet cornering 95.80%5th
Straight aqua 97.50%3rd
Curved aqua 90.10%4th
Rolling resistance 85.20%4th
Cabin noise 98.80%=6th 
Overall100%1st
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Products editor

Kim has worked for Auto Express for more than three decades and all but a year of that time in the Products section. His current role as products editor involves managing the section’s content and team of testers plus doing some of the tests himself. 

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