continental dws air pressure

[webby]

I'm wondering what pressure you're running in your car. Please mention your car/year. How much over stock pressures are you running for decent cornering etc? I'm seeing reports on websites from stock pressure to 48psi all around on some cars.

 

[ethlar]

i run 205/55/16s on my 2006 FA1 at about 42psi for daily driving

 

[webby]

did you run that same psi with the previous tires?

 

[ethlar]

previous tires were goodyear assurance tripletreads and i kept them at about 36-38. I noticed that the Continentals felt softer on turn in at that psi which is why i bumped them up to 42

 

[webby]

thank you for the input sir.. I need to play around with them

 

[ethlar]

at one point i actually had staggered the pressure, i think the rears were higher than the fronts by 4psi, but i stopped that after a while cause i got tired of tweaking after tire rotations, and i didnt feel i needed it after upgrading the rear sway bar

My brother has them on his completely stock FA1, but he isnt particularly in tune with his car and keeps it too dirty for me to take it out and do a comparison.

Put them on my moms 06 Accord at about 32 psi all around, huge improvement over the stock Michelins, but ive never been fond of how the accord handles compared to the civic to really take it out for a spirited drive

 

[webby]

so once you altered the psi to those figures, did you feel like the tires handled well?

 

[ethlar]

yea once i got the psi up the tires felt much more secure

what are they doing that you dont like and what car do you have them on?

 

[webby]

Feels like I'm trying to operate a cessna airplane or a jetski. First trip on the highway or a bend in the road and I literally thought I was going to crash. The car feels horribly unstable, and it feels like I went back in time to drive a boat with the body roll. That's why I started looking to see what others had their psi at. I'm seeing people say they've got them at 32psi with no complaints, all the way up to 48psi. The limit on the tires is supposedly 51psi. I've never run pressure in tires anywhere near that.

 

[ethlar]

the unstable boat feeling is how id describe them at 32psi, i think youll see a huge improvement going to the low 40s. I used to ramp up pressure to 50+ for autox, though i never autoxed with the continentals.

 

[Nix]

Where did you pick em up and $$? These are probably the tires going on the wifes sedan in the spring.

 

[webby]

read through users experiences here - the entire thread
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1786141

or google "continental dws soft" or "dws soft sidewall" and you'll see a number of car forums complaining.

I see continental offers a 60 day return policy (you can swap the tires for another continental tire if you are not satisfied). At least one user in that thread said he drove on them and immediately went for a return because he didn't want his wife driving on these tires. If I had to give my opinion at this point, I'd have to write a novel. To be called "ultra high performance all season" tires... I think is a joke. You shouldn't have to go to 40+psi to have confidence you're not going to lose control of the car on the highway or in a lane changing maneuver. I'm going to mess with pressure more over the coming weeks, and return them if I can't get them to feel better. The sidewall is way ...wayyyyy too soft on these tires in my opinion. Yes, they have decent grip/traction in wet weather...but that doesn't change the way they react to steering input. Some people think these tires are great if you get the pressure right... or have a few thousand+ miles on them.

tirerack -
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Continental&tireModel=ExtremeContact+DWS

 

[Nix]

oh wow. Jeez I thought these were like a really good tire from what I had read. Maybe skip em then..... I had general altimax hp on my accord and had the same soft sidewall issue. Lots of unsteady feeling until I upped the psi. Let me know your impression after playing around and driving a bit more.

 

[Nomar06]

This reminds me to check the pressure on my tires. On the highway I can feel a little wobbly feeling when changing lanes, nothing crazy but still there.

 

[k757]

I have had these on my car for about 5k miles. I have also auto-x'd them for two events; the tires are good tires. Don't know about soft sidewalls. I keep the pressure around 36 cause when what the car recommends is too soft (even so for the stock summer tires). Still a great all purpose tire


-Keith
'11 WRX

 

[RaskyR1]

I just put the DWS tires on my car about 2 month ago. While I do feel the sidewalls are a bit softer than the stock Michelin's the car came with, I have no issues with them and they are much, much better in the snow than my previous tires. Not sure how someone could say they are unsafe???

I keep mine at 34psi.

 

[webby]

you have dws not the dw right? Because the DW is dedicated for summer/spirited driving... still reported to have a soft sidewall though. Both tests by tirerack mention soft sidewall.

click "tests" tab a little ways down the page
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Continental&tireModel=ExtremeContact+DWS

click "tests" tab again
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Continental&tireModel=ExtremeContact+DW

Some people think these dws tires are the greatest thing, and others seem to think they are the worst. It's like they are producing 2 different tires.

 

[k757]

you have dws not the dw right? Because the DW is dedicated for summer/spirited driving... still reported to have a soft sidewall though. Both tests by tirerack mention soft sidewall.

Some people think these dws tires are the greatest thing, and others seem to think they are the worst. It's like they are producing 2 different tires.

They can't be that soft of a sidewall as I've raced with them (and won!) I really don't know what people's problem is with them. The tires also took me through a 13" blizzard (yes, AWD car) and they dealt well with snow. They do well in auto-x, are very quiet on the highway and also really good in crazy snow. I mean, really, what is wanted from an all season tire?!?!

In this video, you'll see some sideways action but I attribute that to the all seasons just not being sticky enough for what I wanted to do. I won my class by nearly 2 seconds which was mostly due to my aggressive driving.

edit: my tire pressure was 40 psi in the video

 

[webby]

I've seen your vid in another thread... it's nothing like my experience. It's laughable it's so different. If I had a camera in my car and did that course.. this is what the background would look like. It's almost as if the shop took my entire suspension off the car when they put the tires on.

 

[ethlar]

i wonder if you have a bad tire or set, my sidewall moved more than i was used to when i first got them, but not to the point of feeling dangerous, ive got close to the biggest sidewalls they make with a 55 series tire