Conti tyres on Audis

[tnas@euronet.nl (Tom Nas)]

My $.02 on the subject:

I might have mentioned this on the list before, but Pon BV, the Dutch VAG
importer, has a majority stake in the Conti tyre importer here, so every
VW, Audi, Seat and Skoda here is taken to a special facility by the
importer, where nothing else is done all day and night but remove tyres
ands substitute them for Contis. They make a bundle out of this by selling
all new other-brand tyres to the fast-fit outfits, and even more because
most people know bugger-all about tyres and let their dealer put on
whatever the car came with 'as they seemed to last forever'. I don't have
to tell anyone on this list that long-lasting tyres are not necessarily
nice-driving tyres. That's what most Conti tyres are made for, including
(as my recent Passat test drive showed- CZ91s on Centra alloys) their
high-end stuff. I never try to drive a car equipped with Contis 'on the
edge'. BTDT, it's no fun ending up backwards on a highway on-ramp.


I used to drive my old Jetta on Contis, because, like the car, they were
cheap (free even) and lasted forever. Anyone who drives an old 1.3l 55hp
car like he was on the track is mad anyway, so I just took it easy. The car
made more noise, what with the worn gearbox and rattling dash, than the
tyres could ever make, so I turned the stereo up and didn't care. On my
Audi however, I quickly replaced the brand-new Contis with Pirellis. The
out-of-round experience went out with the discontinuing of the P6 series,
and those new P2000s, P4000s and P5000 Vizzolas really are *very* good.
Gone were my aquaplaning days, and these tyres enabled me to corner at
least 15mph faster before it started to slide. This is to me what good
tyres are all about. Life is still OK at about 40k miles, tyre noise is
low. On my car, these tyres just seem to work very well.

I was invited for a presentation by the Dutch Conti importer some time ago,
along with a couple of VAG mechanics. The guy who did the presentation
asked for the opinion on Conti tyres among the assembled company- and got
lots of four-letter words, 'not on my car, mate' and 'the leasing firms
always make us take off the Contis and put on others'. Hmmm...

However, I suspect that several tyres have different formulations for the
Euro vs. US market, so YMMV by 100%...

Sorry for the waste of BW, I hope this info is of any use to you.

Bye,

Tom
1988 80 1.8S, Pirelli P2000 185/65-14 forever...


PS- I can relate to Phil's comments about the huge amount of different
products Conti makes. We had a very hard time identifying all products when
we toured the importer's huge warehouse...

 _______________________________________________________________________
 Tom Nas                                          Zeist, The Netherlands
 tnas@euronet.nl

           "The prince wants your daughter for his wife."
              "Well, tell him his wife can't have her."
                                         -- Blackadder III