I drove to Mammoth from San Francisco last weekend during a snow storm and wanted to report on my Continental DWS06's performance. tl;dr the Golf R Chuck Norris'ed the mountain passes during the snowiest January ever recorded for Mammoth. On parts where the ground was white with snow and salt, my R was glued to the road at 30-35 mph. I drove through several inches of fresh powder to get out my cabin. No problems there. Of course, the plow pushed a mound of snow up to my rear mirror that I shoveled out before backing out of my spot, but that's besides the point. My R dominated a steep hill leading to the resort lodge in 1st and 2nd gear. My sister's front wheel drive with cable chains could not manage the hill and had to turn out halfway up. After shuttling the passengers in my sister's car to the lodge, I noticed two other FWD chained cars were stuck on the hill and blocked passage up to the resort. The only difficulty I faced was convincing chain control that I didn't need chains. He didn't believe my car was AWD with M+S tires that can handle the snow. So after 5 minutes of debate, he relented and asked me to do a traction test where I accelerated rapidly to break the tires loose and immediately brake. He wanted to ensure the car could gain traction right away. Passed with flying colors and he waved me through. I hope I don't have to convince every chain control officer that the R is at home in the snow. The DWS06s deserve a look for anyone who isn't driving in snow full-time. Every time I passed a car putting on chains, I felt the R and DWS06 premium was worth every penny spent. btw, when the chain control guy wanted me to put on chains, he said the snow socks weren't going to cut it. Seeing how well my R did, I'm going to return my ISSE snowsocks.
Reviews of Continental tires
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I have never been a fan of Conti tires, especially anything with "ContiSport" in its name. They come OE on many German marques, and I can't for the life of me figure out WHY other than some smoking back room deal hammered out over loads of pharmaceuticals in the wee hours of the morning. My MK6 felt like a cement truck with its OE Contis. They would flat spot in what seemed like 120 seconds, noisy as all get out and lasted 1/3 of the claimed milage. Ive permanently deformed Contis on my old 05 E55 by just hitting a small chuck hole or bump. This is anecdotal evidence at best, but my money is on the tires being deformed, belt shift or what ever the excuse of the day is.
The DWS06 (mine with about 4K miles) were impressive going up and down snow covered back roads with up to a 12% grade. I had to try if I wanted to break traction except for one time when I braked too hard at a downhill stop sign. Hopefully I'll never need the socks but they don't take up much space so I'll leave them in the back for the winter.
I've got 19" Continental ExtremeContact DWS 06 tires, which (for all season) are rated very well for snow, and also carry snow socks in case extra traction is required (lowered so any sort of chain is out of the question). I've seen many people say that all seasons are the jack of all trades master of none, but they're certainly going to be worlds better than a summer tire. I understand they're not going to be as amazing as a dedicated snow tire, but for the few trips over the mountains to Tahoe that I'm going to make, they should suffice just fine. I drove into some collected snow off the side of the road last year (intentionally, wanted a picture of the R in the snow :laugh: ) and had no problem what so ever getting out. There were other cars parked there as well, an SUV looked like it was spinning a bit of tire trying to get out, so I felt pretty confident that my tires worked well enough.
Tires seem to be wearing fine. The ride is a lot like the A3 I replaced (18\" wheels on a Golf platform). I expect similar wear as my Audi.
Continental wintercontact si is damn good value for money and outperforms blizzaks. I use them on my rwd car and there great. Definitely recommend them.
When it's time to replace my all seasons, I will likely be going with Nokian WRG. I had older generation Conti DWS on my gti and while they were great, the snow traction was only on the first 10k miles of tread. I hear the current Continental DWS 06 are better.
No complaints from the lo pro Continentals so far.
I did switch out the stock rubber to DWS06 @ the 12k mark and lost a little on the responsiveness on the onset. Now, as the tires have warn, it has gotten a little better, but still not as nice as the stock rubber. Hope this helps.
I live in Vancouver as well, and went up to Whistler/Squamish/Cypress in the snow last winter with my R equipped with my "winter" setup of Conti DWS 06 and it was more than fine. She handled it like a champ.
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