Sorry if covered already, but has anyone done research, read into differences between these two tires. It seems that the lower base models are switching to the Continentals. I love my Michelins and only added air to them once this summer. The dealer told me that Continental is made by Mercedes? They are staying away from French products? Any big difference between performance and such? thanks

 

I guess the weather comes into the decision to go continental. But, also, does anyone notice any difference between the Michelin Sport Pilot 1 and the Sport Pilot 2?

 

I don't think Continental AG is owned by DCX. However, Continental does own General and Uniroyal. Continental also manufacturers electronic stability control system and braking systems for vehicle manufacturers including Daimler.

Probably the best place to get information on performance of these tires is at Tirerack.com. You can search for tires compatible with the Crossfire. From there you can look at the tire "Test Results" and "View Test Result Graphs." The only trouble is you won't find most of the tires compared against one another in the same test.

For example, you can see the PS2s results in this test:

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/bs_RE050A_rd.jsp

Unfortunately, there are no test results for the Continental ContiTouringContact CW95 (grand touring all season). (Assuming that is the tire you are referring to). But since the PS2s are given a rating of 7.87 and the Continental ContiSportContact 2 (max performace summer) tires rated a 7.31, it is safe to say that the Michelins will outperform the Continental summer or all-season tires. How big a difference would probably be proportional to how the vehicle is driven. I'm sure you'd notice on an autocross course or at the track.

 

Winter weather would be the only performance advantage of the Continental all-season tires. The Continentals also should be given consideration from an economical standpoint - they have a significantly higher treadwear rating (360 vs. 220) and they are about $40/tire cheaper.

I doubt many have owned both tires on the same vehicle so any differences would be hard to infer. But the PS got an overall rating of 7.46 in Tirerack's testing FWIW.