Continental have officially announced availability of the new Continental AllSeasonContact in the UK! 

Could this be the Germans manufacturers answer to the hugely successful Michelin CrossClimate? We'll be sure to publish a full test as soon as we get try the new tyre, but for now here's the press release.

Continental launches AllSeasonContact

With the new AllSeasonContact, Continental is offering a tyre for urban use in moderate weather conditions. For this all-season tyre, Germany’s leading tyre manufacturer has come up with an innovative blend of tread design, compound, tyre contour and construction. In doing so, Continental has achieved a considerable reduction in the weaknesses previously present in the winter and wet- weather properties of tyres intended for all-year use, while at the same time the AllSeasonContact offers the best fuel efficiency in the premium segment for all-season tyres.

The new AllSeasonContact will be available from UK dealers from September. For the first year, Continental is starting out with 33 articles for rims from 14 to 18 inches and approved for speeds of up to 165 mph. As a tyre that is also suitable for use at colder times of year, it bears both the snowflake/alpine symbol and the M+S marking. On the EU tyre label the new Continental tyre scores a B rating for wet grip and rolling resistance. Continental sees the new AllSeasonContact as a tyre suitable for drivers who cover lower mileage and drive in and around urban areas in moderate weather conditions. For all other drivers, in the interests of maximum road safety Continental continues to recommend fitting tyres that have been specially developed for the relevant season.

The focus during development of the new AllSeasonContact was firmly on good winter-driving characteristics, safe handling in all weather conditions and excellent fuel efficiency. With a perfect balance between these individual tyre characteristics, the new directional tread all-rounder lines up alongside the other successful products in the Summer- and WinterContact family. For winter use, Continental’s chemists have developed a silica compound with a high proportion of resins for good grip on wet wintry and snow-covered roads. The high proportion of silica ensures good grip on wet roads while the composition of the resins, originating from the Cool Chili technology of the WinterContact TS 860, make for good grip on snow-covered roads. This adaptive compound enables the new tyre to match its adhesion to wet wintry and snow-covered roads – a key requirement for tyres intended for use all year round.

The tread design of the new AllSeasonContact also brings together proven elements of Continental’s premium summer and winter tyres which are noted for their safety. For example, the directional tread has been adopted from the current family of winter tyres. At the same time, the open tyre shoulders ensure good aquaplaning characteristics. The rigid pattern of the tread surface with its low number of sipes ensures precision handling and short braking distances on dry asphalt. These are characteristics more typical of summer tyres, which also need to deliver high levels of safety in the wet. The outcome is a tyre ideal for use in summer and winter conditions, especially in view of the fact that in Central European winters it rains one day in three.

In addition to its safe handling characteristics, the tyre’s construction has been designed to offer the best fuel efficiency in its class. This makes it particularly suitable for cost-conscious drivers who rarely need to drive in extreme weather conditions. To achieve this level of fuel efficiency, the tyre designers have created a perfect balance between material distribution, tyre geometry and material thickness. A comparison of tread depths illustrates this point: While a typical winter tyre has a tread depth between 8.5 and 9.5 millimeters, a typical summer tyre now has between 6.5 and 7.5 millimeters. The basic rule here is that low tread depth also makes for good fuel efficiency. So with its tread depth of 7.5 to 8.5 millimeters, the AllSeasonContact sits right between the two specialists. When combined with the optimised sidewall geometry, this guarantees very low rolling resistance, helping not only to save fuel, but also to ease the load on the environment.