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Last updated 7/17/2024 - Originally published 7/17/2024
Written by SimpleTire
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There’s a reason why for most drivers of sedans, coupes, minivans, crossovers, and SUVs, all-season tires make the most sense and are the most popular choice for everyday driving. All-season tires are a versatile and capable kind of solution for year-round driving; they deliver dependable traction in everything but heavy snow, competent handling, a quiet and controlled ride, quick response and road manners, and a generous treadwear warranty. That’s why all-season tires top the tire market year in and year out as the single biggest-selling category of tires.
When it comes to premium all-season touring tires for crossovers and SUVs, there are several great options. Let’s take a closer look at the Continental PureContact LS and Goodyear Assurance All-Season as both feature great values and great performers in their own right. These tires have commonalities and contrasts, as well as, unique strengths and weaknesses. Let us get a closer look at those in this head-to-head comparison.
In the course of this product comparison, you’ll see us make frequent reference to SimpleScore numbers – if you’re not familiar with that, SimpleScore is the ranking system that the SimpleTire team developed for tires. We look at reviews and other data points to arrive at a numerical value of 1-10 for the categories of traction, longevity, and handling for each tire and an overall average SimpleScore. It’s a quick and handy way to get an at-a-glance idea of a tire’s capability and performance in those respects.
Our SimpleScores for these tires are as follows:
As you can see, these are tires that each have their strengths and weaknesses but are not quite equivalent to each other. SimpleScore is a handy at-a-glance tool, but it’s also a 30,000-foot view that doesn’t give you a comprehensive, detailed idea of what to expect with a tire. Let’s go in for a closer look of these tires:
If you’re familiar with Continental tires, you probably already know what to expect with the PureContact LS. The Continental PureContact LS is a tire that offers grand touring levels of ride comfort and low noise, along with admirable handling, road manners, and year-round traction. A solid center rib enhances road feel and steering response, and stable tread blocks in the asymmetric tread pattern all contribute to the PureContact LS’s great cornering and steering feedback, earning it a SimpleScore of 9.4 for handling. The PureContact LS is designed for long tread life too, with cutting-edge technology such as temperature-activated polymers in the tread compound that are designed for excellent traction, low road noise, and long wear (with a 70,000 mile limited manufacturer tread life warranty) – SimpleTire’s SimpleScore for longevity with this tire is a solid 9.7. For traction in rainy or light snowy conditions, there are Continental’s +Silane additives in the tread compound, along with a system of circumferential grooves, sweeping grooves, “traction grooves” that trap snow to provide snow-on-snow friction, and sipes in the shoulders, all adding up to a SimpleScore of 9.7 for traction. SimpleTire’s price on the Continental PureContact LS starts at $140 per tire.
So what does the Goodyear Assurance All-Season bring to the game? The Assurance All-Season is another tire that’s designed for grand touring levels of ride comfort and road manners, along with consistent traction year-round. Its large, stable shoulder blocks boost cornering and responsiveness by helping to counter the inertia of cornering that can lead to tread deformation and squirming; instead, it keeps the tread face firmly glued on the pavement during hard maneuvers. Multiple biting edges in the tread groove pattern and a dense network of sipes work together to deliver a confident grip in snow or slush and wide tread grooves route water or slush away from and behind the tire’s contact patch to mitigate hydroplaning on wet roads. Internal construction details of the Assurance All-Season include a polyester cord body with twin high-tensile steel belts, and its tread compound is designed for long, even wear and dependable traction in wet or dry weather. Goodyear backs the Assurance All-Season with a 65,000 mile limited manufacturer’s tread life warranty. SimpleTire’s price on the Goodyear Assurance All-Season starts at $102 per tire.
So how do the Continental PureContact LS and the Goodyear Assurance All-Season stack up against each other in the traction category? Really, it’s not even a close comparison, with the Continental pulling down a SimpleScore of 9.7 vs 8.5 for the Goodyear. Why such a big disparity between the two? Reviews have noted that Continental’s exclusive +Silane additives give their all-season tires a real advantage in wet or wintry weather. That along with the entire suite of sweeping grooves, circumferential grooves, sipes, and traction grooves for snow make a real difference in performance on wet or snowy pavement (as well as dry pavement), and that increased grip also means better braking performance, acceleration without wheelspin, and shorter stopping distances. Our decision:
ADVANTAGE: Continental PureContact LS
With a SimpleScore of 9.4 for the Continental and 8.4 for the Goodyear in the handling category, again, this one’s not even close. All the tread elements that give the Continental such surefooted traction also help with handling, which is consistent and controlled, right up to the limit. For good cornering ability, any tire needs enough rigidity to not deform and suffer “tread squirm” as you make it around the turn. The connected tread blocks, stable internal construction, and solid center rib of the Continental PureContact LS all figure into its excellent SimpleScore for handling, along with rave reviews from customers. Our decision:
ADVANTAGE: Continental PureContact LS
When we talk about SimpleScore for longevity, it always comes down to the limited manufacturer’s tread life warranty, and the Goodyear comes in with 65,000 mile coverage vs 70,000 miles for the Continental. Either warranty package is pretty good, but a difference of 5,000 miles of coverage is enough to move the needle in the Continental’s favor, with a SimpleScore of 9.7 (excellent!) vs 9.0 for the Goodyear. It’s an easy call, in this case. Our decision:
ADVANTAGE: Continental PureContact LS
The question to ask yourself here is, what do you really need out of a tire for a sedan, minivan, or crossover? If you’re looking for year-round grip, a refined and quiet ride, handling that’s direct and consistent, and long tread life, all-season tires like the Continental PureContact LS and Goodyear Assurance All-Season would be great options for you. Where they don’t excel, however, is in deeper snow and slush – neither tire has the M+S rating for mud/snow traction or the 3 Peak Mountain Snowflake rating for severe winter service (to be fair, the bar is set fairly high for the 3PMSF rating), and most all-season tires don’t do well in those conditions. But if your expectations are more along the lines of what a premium all-season tire can deliver, you’d be doing fine with either of these.
Here’s where we get to the nitty-gritty. As you can see, the Continental outperforms the Goodyear in all the pertinent SimpleScore categories as well as the overall average SimpleScore. That doesn’t mean, though, that the Goodyear isn’t a good tire with thousands of satisfied drivers to show for it. The other factor that needs to be brought into account here is cost on the front end, with the Continental starting at $140 per tire vs $103 per tire for the Goodyear. That’s a pretty considerable price gap when you figure on a set of four tires (along with the mounting/disposal fee and taxes). So it kinda comes down to budget concerns as well, and it’s understandable that if you have an older, depreciated vehicle with a lot of miles on the odo, you might be reluctant to spend a lot of money on tires. We’d break it down this way: if cost isn’t a big consideration, go with the Continental PureContact LS. If you’re on a bit of a budget and don’t want to empty your bank account for a set of tires, go with the Goodyear Assurance All-Season. You can’t go wrong either way.
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