Continental Sport Contact 3
 

What are your thoughts on these tyres?

I have just had a full set fitted to my car and to be honest I am not impressed with them.

I previously had Potenza RE070's all round, while the tram lining was an issue as the tyres had only 2mm left on them, the grip and feedback from these tyres made up for the tram lining.

However, with the SP3's the road noise is much reduced, there is no tram lining and high speed stability is vastly improved, probably due the the lack of tram lining.

I have only done about 200 miles on these new boots so maybe I am being a bit quick to judge them, but I find the feedback from the tyres to be dull. The grip is there in a way, but it seems to take a split second for the car to settle into the grip.

On the RE070's the grip was instant and feedback very apparent.

What are your thoughts? Should I give them a few more hundred miles or ditch them and get the RE070's back on?

Ultrac Sessanta....

another vote for the Ultracs

I'm using them and find them very good, the best tyre I have used to date. Give them a bit of time to bed in. 200 miles is nothing. Most of the tyres I've tried have taken a good 500+ miles to bed in before the greasy feel has gone off them

My tyre dealer dies not deal with Vredestein unfortunately, otherwise I might have gone for them

I have been doing a lot more driving today and in all fairness they seem to be giving a lot more grip.

The delay in grip as I explained above has gone, instant grip like the RE070's is no occurring.

Not sure on the feedback yet, but early indications show that the RE070's are better with that.

But if these Continentals improve over the next few hundred miles then all is good.

They are certainly performing 10 times better than what they where yesterday, road conditions are the same so it had nothing to do with that.

I would say it was more the fact that the tyres where not scrub in.

Hi, from my experience the RE070's seem to be midway been a 'sport' road tyre such as the Vredestein Ultra Sessanta, Goodyear Eagle F1 or the Continental sports contact 3 and a track day tyre such as the Toyo R888.

They certainly out perform other manufacturers 'sport' tyres for grip, turn in and feed back in the right conditions but they are not so good on greasy winter roads or in standing water.

I’ve ran two sets of RE070’s, a set of Toyo T1R’s and a set of Sessanta’s on my Spec C and found it’s a comprise once you change from RE070’s you either end up with a good all round ‘sports’ tyre or two sets of wheels one with RE070’s on for the summer and one with less extreme tyres on for the winter.

The new Toyo R1R’s look promising but I haven’t had any experience of these.

I think that I will give the RE070's another try in the Summer.

For the moment I am very happy with the Conti's now that they have scrubbed in :)

Good choice mate - these tyres will become VERY popular.

I had the Contis SP3's fitted to my Sti hatch 365/430 maybe 2000k miles ago.

OK they will never be as good in the dry as the REO70 (had them before on a modded 285/285 Bug wagon) which are the nuts for summer.

BUT in every other condition I prefer the Conti's.

Also worth noting that in the two EVO tyre tests this year - the Contis won 1st place both times - beating the Michelins and Goodyears.....

Ultrac Sessanta have great turn in but are lacking everywhere else... imo they are the 'cheap' option.


A

NB. Conti are a different tyre but are fitted as standard to some serious high performance machines.

Yes you are right, Continental do a Sport Contact M3, which is specifically for the E46 M3.

Which is what I always had put back on my M3 even though they where nearly twice as expensive as say the Vreds.

SP3 and RE070 are not really comparable.

SP3 is a pure road tyre.

Not a bad tyre, but defo not in class with a semi-slick RE070.


Toyo R1R is similar to RE070, but offers better wet grip. R888...wet grip? Only on damp roads. A snif of puddles and you're off the tarmac..

Im running Yoko Advan Neova AD08's, and very impressed- wet grip is much better than expected, but large puddles will be an issue! Sidewalls are fantastic, as is he feel and grip.

I'm running conti SP3 on my RS6 and i find them very good especially on such a heavy car.Very grippy once bedded in and i find them better than ultracs but they are a more expensive tyre.I have recently changed the rear 2 tyres to the new conti 5P which have superseeded SP3 and they are better still but they come at a price

come standard on the RS, i love em

Conti sport 5's seem to be the new king of the hill.

The 5 P isn't replacing the 3, it's designed for bigger cars.

The 3 is still holding it's own in the group tests. It's a great tyre.

I'm a bit late replying to this one, but I'm looking to replace mine after 2 years of use on my Blob Wagon.

I've had 20,000+ miles out of them and have found them to be a fantastic all rounder, with performance in the wet superb.

I'd rather not pay £120 a corner fitted, but with that sort of wear, its hard to argue.

Will be replacing like for like :thumb:

20k miles!

You must be driving around at 20 mph everywhere!

No, not at all. They have the characteristic wear to the tops of the side walls, which to me suggests some enthusiastic driving at times :)

It'll be interesting to see what your wear rate is with them.

well these have won all the group tests and ill try these next when i do a wheel swap so why not use r888s for the 2 weeks summer we have lol