Continental Premium Contact 6 vs Continental EcoContact 6: We saw previously how much you lose in other performances if your main goal is to achieve a low rolling resistance tire in our post of Michelin’s latest e.Primacy vs Primacy 4. This time around, we would like to go with another premium brand “Continental” and compare its eco tireline vs its own top portfolio tire. We will pit the Continental Premium Contact 6 vs Continental EcoContact 6 to see whether the tradeoff in having a low rolling resistance tire can be well managed. Premium Contact 6 is a fairly old tire as it was launched in 2016 and has participated in a huge number of press tests over the years while the same can be said for Eco Contact 6 as it was launched in 2018 and has been tested quite frequently over the last few years.
Table of Contents
Results
Results below were taken from the 2022 ViBilagare Summer Tyre Test. A total of 10 tires were tested this year. The graph below shows the comparison between Continental Premium Contact 6 vs Continental EcoContact 6 based on the relevant performance category. The Premium Contact 6 was set as a reference hence at the 100% mark.
Note that for subjective comfort evaluation, we equate 1 point as 5%. Hence for example if tire A is graded 7 while tire B is graded 6, A is better than B by 5%. The natural scaling does not really make sense in evaluation whereby the max number is 5. The tire size of interest is 205/55R16 which is a common tire size for Volkswagen Golf (2018) and the Toyota Corolla Altis (2018). You can check out our latest tire size table for more information.
Wet
Safety has always been the main theme when it comes to the need for wet performances and this holds true for any kind of tire segment. In objective wet braking, the Premium Contact 6 managed to out brake the Pilot Sport 5 by 4.4m ! This is an extremely huge advantage as you will be able to fit a whole Volkswagen Golf in between each other’s braking point. Premium Contact 6’s wet braking edge was transferred also in wet handling as it blazed around the track 3.6 seconds faster than EcoContact 6.
In wet circle test whereby the tires were tested to see its lateral grip limit on wet, Premium Contact 6 ended up being the top tire beating EcoContact 6 by 1.1 seconds after 8 laps. Similar story in straight aquaplaning as the Premium Contact 6 recorded a slipping speed of 81.2 km/h compared to the 77.7 km/h of EcoContact 6. They were much closer in curved aquaplaning as Premium Contact 6 had only a +1.6 km/h edge. Overall the wet performances have been totally dominated by Premium Contact 6 with the biggest difference coming from wet braking.
Eco Contact 6:
- -12.9% in wet braking
- -5% in wet handling (lap time)
- -5.1% in wet circle
- -4.3% in straight aquaplaning
- -2.4% in curved aquaplaning
Dry
After the total domination in wet, EcoContact 6 was closer in terms of dry performances relative to Premium Contact 6. EcoContact 6 was out braked by 2.1 meters by Premium Contact 6 in dry braking. While in dry handling, they were also really close as 1.2 seconds separated them apart with Premium Contact 6 being slightly faster. One point to note is that the Premium Contact 6 came in 1st among the other 9 tires when it comes to dry braking & handling hence it has really proven itself to be a top notch dry tire.
Eco Contact 6:
- -5.8% in dry braking
- -1.1% in dry handling (lap time)
Noise & Comfort
The tables were turned in this category as the EcoContact 6 was 1 point better in both subjective comfort & noise with a overall 3/5 score for comfort & 4/5 for subjective noise.
Eco Contact 6:
- +5% in subjective noise
- +5% in comfort
Rolling Resistance
With an A label rating of EcoContact 6 vs the C label rating of Premium Contact 6, we do expect a big margin when it comes to rolling resistance. This was proven true as the EcoContact 6 has a -1.98 kg/ton advantage in the rolling resistance coefficient relative to Premium Contact 6.
Even though the EcoContact 6 had an outstanding rolling resistance, this did not translate effectively into fuel savings as the rolling resistance from tires only attributes 20% of the car’s overall resistance. The EcoContact 6 ended up with a fuel consumption of 5.07 liter/100km (highest ranked in the test) while the Premium Contact 6 has a 5.26 liter/100km fuel consumption value. The absolute differences were not huge considering a 30% advantage in rolling resistance values for EcoContact 6.
Eco Contact 6:
- +30.6% in rolling resistance
- +3.7% in fuel economy
Price
Taking the price from Sweden as this was the relevant market for the publisher, EcoContact 6 and Premium Contact 6 were almost the same price as they were only separated by 2 euros.
Tire size: 205/55 R16
Premium Contact 6: €92.35
Difference: +2% more expensive for EcoContact 6.
Summary
Overall both tires showed their competency in totally opposite fields. Premium Contact 6 was totally dominant in wet & dry performances while the EcoContact 6 was strong in rolling resistance, subjective noise & comfort. In our opinion, there is no clear winner in this segment comparison and it would ultimately depend on your main requirement.