somebody help me with this tire. i want to change my tire from michelin [summer] to use all season tire due to i have bad snow winter in my place. is there any one use Avon Tech M550 A/S OR Continental ContiExtremeContact? which one better tire? good tracktion and no noise. thanks for helping.

 

I had the Avon Tech M550 A/S on my 04 G35 (put about 10k mi on them), and have them now on an 05 Acura TL (put about 25k mi on them). I think it is a great tire. The dry weather performance is not that different from the OE Michelin's on the G35. Of course not as good at the absolute limits, but in "normal" street driving, you would be hard pressed to feel a significant difference.

BUT, where you do feel a HUGE difference is in wet and light snow traction. The Avon's have amazing rain traction, and actually do pretty well in light snow as well. IMHO, it really is an "all season high performance tire". The only drawback to them is a fair amount of road noise, but to me, that is a small price to pay for excellent dry performance, plus great rain and light snow performance, plus long tread life (rated at last 72,000 mi), plus very reasonably priced. If you autocross or live in California or Florida it's probably not the right tire for you, but if you live in the rest of the country and drive on the street, it's a good compromise.

I have no experience with the Conti's, have always been curious how they performed.

 

If you have "bad snow" in your place and you want all-seasons, I'd probably opt for the ContiExtremeContact. I have those on my other car, and the snow traction is awesome. My wife's TL got stuck in the snow last year, but my other car wearing ContiExtremeContact made it out and was able to climb our hill in 8" of snow just fine.

If you look on Tire-rack, I think the contis are the highest rated performance A/S tire in the snow.

 

Why would you say there not good for FLA? I am soon to be in the market and have looked at those a few times, living in Tampa this peaks my interest. From what you say there godo dry and in the rain so im confused

 

It looks like snow is the key thing. Barring snow, any of the ones mentioned should do well in the rain. The flash rains you get in FLA often have folks sticking to the side of road for a short time anyway.

 

based on the tire rack, continental have higher rating in snow, but have lower rating on the others. is it continental tire noisy ? avon is less noisy? thanks.

 

i've got the avons on my 04 coupe..they replaced the pilot sports. So far so good with the avons..they have decent traction in the rain although I felt like I lost dry traction compared to the pilots. Unless you haul-a$$ in the G, these are for strictly street use, these tires are not too shabby for the price. There is absolutely no noise from these tires, they ride real smooth.

It doesn't snow too much here in NC so i could'nt tell ya how they perform.

 

I live in St. Louis, went through last winter with the Avon 550A/S no problems. Light snow they are fine. I have 15,000+ on these tires (18" on an '04 Coupe), really like the tires. Not loud, handle well. Like was previously mentioned, if not autocrossing and you have one set of tires, I would absolutely do these Avon's again.

 

I have been using the Avon 550 a/s for the past 20K and for what they are they are an excellent tire. They don't grip like the pilot sports but they can hold their own in corners (unless you are driving @ 8/10 all of the time ). I was able to drive through some nasty snowstorms earlier this year when I lived back east (the looks I got from some suv drivers stuck in the snow was priceless ). I would not hesitate to buy them again.