ContiSportContact Tyre

kennyb3

Have these on my 3 series - came with the car, bought it a year ago.

does anyone know the optimal psi for these is? info on the door of car is all in german. I have them at 35 at present.

while searching for same i noted on continental site it says they are not great for snow and ice, i ve been skidding a bit but put it down to rear wheel drive. should i consider changing these? if so any suggestions?

Captain Slow IRL

You must be looking at the wrong label if it's in German - your tyre pressure info label should be mostly numbers - tyre sizes on the left hand side and the relevant pressures on the right.

Like this, not necessarily green:


The label should be on the drivers b-pillar, under/around the door latch.

What sizes are your tyres? Assuming they're 205/55R16 all round, you should be looking at 2.0bar in the front and 2.3 in the rear.

Paulw

I'm not sure if my tyres are the same as yours, and know it's car depenant too.

Anyway, I'm using Continental 245/45 zr 18 96w conti sport contact 3 on an Opel Insignia SRi.

30 psi for the front and 32 psi for the rear, according to my car manual.

kennyb3

Paulw wrote: »

I'm not sure if my tyres are the same as yours, and know it's car depenant too.

Anyway, I'm using Continental 245/45 zr 18 96w conti sport contact 3 on an Opel Insignia SRi.

30 psi for the front and 32 psi for the rear, according to my car manual.

is 35 much too high?

kennyb3

Captain Slow IRL wrote: »

You must be looking at the wrong label if it's in German - your tyre pressure info label should be mostly numbers - tyre sizes on the left hand side and the relevant pressures on the right.

Like this, not necessarily green:


The label should be on the drivers b-pillar, under/around the door latch.

What sizes are your tyres? Assuming they're 205/55R16 all round, you should be looking at 2.0bar in the front and 2.3 in the rear.

how do you covert bar to psi?

and i ll prob sound like an idiot but why more pressure in rear?

kennyb3

Does anyone know what the story with these tyres in the snow? it will cost a fortune for 4 new tyres, will i get away with it?

edit:sorry about the dumb questions but i dont have much of a clue and would be grateful if someone more knowledgeable could help

Anan1

kennyb3 wrote: »

how do you covert bar to psi?

and i ll prob sound like an idiot but why more pressure in rear?

The pumps in petrol stations have bar on the scale too. It depends on how much weight is over the rear tyres.

AdyDurn

kennyb3 wrote: »

Does anyone know what the story with these tyres in the snow? it will cost a fortune for 4 new tyres, will i get away with it?

As long as you drive gently, you should be ok in a bit of snow... I had these on my Civic, they're reasonably firm but don't have blindly deep tread from new. How old are they? (in miles)

ED: BTW 1 bar is 14.5038 PSI

Captain Slow IRL

There's usually higher pressure in the driving wheels - fwd cars usually have higher pressures in the front, like the Insignia and rwd cars like the bmw usually have higher pressures in the rear. There are exceptions to this, based on the tire/wheel sizes and what the manufacturer specifies but this is the general rule of thumb.

As Anan said, both scales should be on the tyre pressure gauge.

FWIW - 2 bar is about 29 psi and 2.3 bar is about 34 psi.