Continental tires..my experience

[b33p3rmcg]

General grabbers 15000 miles and shot.
Continental Cross Contact 10000 miles and shot.
In the first instance they prorated 2 of the 4 tires. My most recent experience was with the Cross contacts which I purchased after the grabbers were useless. I purchased the CC tires in the last week of 8/11. Had the vehicle inspected on 4/28/11. 2 rear tires failed inspection and the fronts just barely passed.
Took back to Jack Williams(where I purchased them) and explained my frustrations. Rep told me they back their tires and they would have a look. After looking he asked me if I had any paper work stating they were aligned and rotated. I told him they did the alignment but I rotated the tires myself, once( which by their own brochure, which continental's name is on) states rotate every 5000-8000 miles. The rep called continental and they would not back the tires because I did not have any paper work for alignment or rotation!
Emailed JW headquarters when I got home, with the reference number which shows them the alignment was done by them 2 weeks prior to the continentals going on the vehicle. No reply as of yet.(5 days)
Buyer beware!! Jack Williams does not back their tires! They hope the manufacturer backs the tires. Continental does not back their tires. I learned the hard way. No More Continental Tires for me!
Let me assure you I don't buy tires and then just drive until they fall off. I check air pressures and during the milder temps I take the wheels off and clean them and pluck stones from the threads and such. But 8 months of driving 10000 miles and the tires are useless????? These tires are also on my wife's vehicle and she is not an aggressive driver by any means!
I just had to vent and give everyone a heads up! Thanks for listening!

 

[waskly]

just going to throw out something if you are eating up tires every 10-15k miles, i would say something is wrong with the front end, tracking of the vehicle.

alignments are done, but if something is falling off or not, most people that do alignments dont care, as long as the car drives straight or the wheel is straight and its sort of tracking straight.

also you can have an "alignment" with steering wheel and tires that it drives straight but the alignment is wrong.

 

[Varsity]

Thanks for the warning. I'm always interested in hearing people's reviews of tires, but I'm also annoyed at how little some places/companies care about their customers. I don't do much driving either, but I would think you should get a lot more than 10k out of them. I have Firestone Destinations and I'm alright with them for now.

 

[JDraper]

If you're running through tires every 10-15k and they're not high performance (soft compound for traction and handling), there's something wrong with the vehicle. Even though you had it aligned right before the tires went on, there's no guarantee that hitting a pothole or a curb didn't put it out of alignment and wear the tires out quickly. It's also possible that you have a bad balljoint or tie rod end that is causing the tires to wear too quickly.


I wouldn't put the blame on the tires, especially after you've been through two sets of different tires that quickly. Something else is going on.

 

[b33p3rmcg]

Let me try to make this more clear. First of all this is not an Explorer. I am trying to make the Buyer beware. The vehicle originally had good years tires on it. Model? I don't remember. This SUV is light in the rear end and would slip getting out of my driveway. Didn't stop it but would spin and such. I thought I could find a tire with a little more grip to help it. Researched Tire Rack and decided on general grabbers. Bought a set from Jack Williams. New tires, aligned, balanced the whole works. 1 year and 15,000 miles later, (rotations by Jack Williams in between) 2 of the tires were shot and the other two were borderline. Got prorated for only two because the other two were a measurement shy of falling under continental's warranty. When I brought the vehicle in for them to inspect the tires I had them do an alignment to rule out Pa. roads from causing the wear. Everything was still in specs. The tires wore out prematurely but wore even.Of course you can't get a prorated discount unless you buy from the same manufacturer so I switched to Continental Cross Contacts.
Now understand the alignment and new tires was done within 2 weeks of each other. 8/10. In december my wife said her brakes didn't feel right so all 4 tires were pulled and brakes inspected. While the tires were all off I rotated them. On April 29 2011 I was told the tires wouldn't pass inspection. The 2 rear tires had the wear bars showing. I needed two new tires. The fronts passed but barely.
Take the vehicle to Jack Williams and express my frustratiion. Not to worry because Jack Williams backs their tires. After inspecting the tires the sales rep asked me if I had paper work for alignment or rotations. I told him you guys did the alignment and I did the rotation. He called continental and they refused to prorate the tires. Tough luck for me was the message. When I got home I pulled the receipt from my file showing JW did an alignment 2 weeks prior to the new tires. Rotation in December by me wasn't good enough.(although no where in the paper work does it say it has to be done by JW or any other business?
I may sound frustrated but 2 sets of tires in 25000 miles when 1 set is advertised for 40000 ...how would you feel.
The point everyone is missing is that a Pa. Inspection by a reputable garage found nothing wrong with ball joints, tie rods, brakes or anything else. Everything was good. In 2-4 weeks I'll be completing the set of new tires and I'll have an alignment done again. I'll let you know if there is a problem. But I highly doubt it! This vehicle is driven by my wife who is anything but aggressive.

 

[GRNMACHINE]

Went thru a few sets of Conitinentals on Taurus. ZERO percent chance I would every buy any set of Contintentals again. Their customer service (which I could only contact via email) was worthless. No help, broken english, no concern. 2 different models of Continentals, premature wear and belt seperation.

 

[my98nnj]

I had an issue with Continental tires on my BMW, so I'm not surprised. Premature wear on one rear tire caused the belts to come through. Absolutely nothing wrong with the vehicle's alignment and tire pressure was maintained correctly as well. It was so strange how one tire was completely gone in less then 20K miles while the other 3 had plenty of meat left on them.

 

[jremington59]

I'm running Continental Contitracs on mine with no problem. I will say I waited all winter to rotate so I had wear on the inside fronts. But the backs showed no wear in 11,000 miles.