We got new tires for my wife's Mazda3 today after some minor alignment problems and lack of rotation led the OEM set to an early demise. I feel like a little bit of an idiot, but I think everything worked out OK. Here's the story:
I had done some research and one of the tires I had looked at as a frontrunner were the Continental ContiProContact H rated grand touring all season tires. When I talked to the guy at the shop about ordering them I referred to them as "Continental ProContacts", oblivious to the fact that both ContiProContact and ProContact are actual and distinct models!
When we got home from picking the car up, I noticed the "EcoPlus" branding on the tire, looked it up online, and discovered what happened. So, instead of the semi performance oriented all season tires I thought I was getting her, I got her low rolling resistance, fuel economy tires. This isn't really a problem though. She drives the car fairly spiritedly but it's not a sports car and I'm sure these tires will handle just fine. To boot, if they do help fuel economy they'll probably push her over 30 mpg on the normal commute (further closing the gap between her 2.3 liter Mazda and my 1.8 liter Honda) and they have an 80k mile treadwear warranty. Also, the tires are QUIET (of course they're new and the tires they replaced were always pretty bad in that respect).
I haven't seen much about these tires online though, so this will be kind of an experiment. Anyone have any thoughts on them?
I had done some research and one of the tires I had looked at as a frontrunner were the Continental ContiProContact H rated grand touring all season tires. When I talked to the guy at the shop about ordering them I referred to them as "Continental ProContacts", oblivious to the fact that both ContiProContact and ProContact are actual and distinct models!
When we got home from picking the car up, I noticed the "EcoPlus" branding on the tire, looked it up online, and discovered what happened. So, instead of the semi performance oriented all season tires I thought I was getting her, I got her low rolling resistance, fuel economy tires. This isn't really a problem though. She drives the car fairly spiritedly but it's not a sports car and I'm sure these tires will handle just fine. To boot, if they do help fuel economy they'll probably push her over 30 mpg on the normal commute (further closing the gap between her 2.3 liter Mazda and my 1.8 liter Honda) and they have an 80k mile treadwear warranty. Also, the tires are QUIET (of course they're new and the tires they replaced were always pretty bad in that respect).
I haven't seen much about these tires online though, so this will be kind of an experiment. Anyone have any thoughts on them?