Tires - Continental Pure Contact - experience / opinions?

I'm due for tires on my 2011 Elantra, and since I'm in New England I am looking for a balance good winter, rain, and dry. My commute is 65 miles each way and is 90% highway.

The weather can vary drastically between home and the office, for example the recent storm dumped 5-6" of heavy wet snow followed by freezing rain at my house, but only rain by the office

The car is a DD appliance and will be traded in when close to 100K (52k now so probably 18 months), so I really don't want to buy winter only tires and rims. If the weather gets really ugly I can work from home, but want good snow performance so I don't get stranded at the office if the forecast is wrong/changes.

So far my research says the Continental Pure Contact is my best choice, but wanted to see if anyone had experience with them before spending $700 on tires out the door (installed, balanced, aligned)

Thanks, Joe

What's the UTQG treadwear on those? I had some Conti's (MINI Cooper takeoffs) on my xB for a while, but they didn't even last 30k before I was scared to drive on them any more.

The UTQG is 700 AA for the 205/55R16 H speed rated.

On Edit: The OEM Hankooks have held up so far, and haven't reached the wear bars, but definitely too thin for comfort in heavy rain, or winter weather.

I am not sure about the Continental Pure Contact but I have a lot of experience with Continentals in general. I have Conti Extremes on the RX7 and Conti Extreme DWS on my DD Soul. I think they are a good all around performance tire at a reasonable price. The DWS stands for Dry, Wet and Snow meaning they are a good all season tire. Continentals are OEM on the high end Porsches and MBs so I guess that says something. Anyway, don't mean to sound like a commercial but after owning nearly all tire brands available at one time or another, Continentals always seem to be my go to tire of choice.

I decided to go with the Conti Pure contact. The local shop had them in stock and came within $10 (total) of the TFT chain and tire rack.

I'll update on how they after I get some miles on them. Probably not until the second or third week of January since I'm on vacation until the 2nd.

I see you got some. For anyone else needing a "winter" based all-season tire:

Nokian WR G2. "All-Season"...that is weighted towards the winter end of the spectrum.

Nokian WR G2s served us well on an MPV. Very few tires are REAL winter tires AND capable of good performance the rest of the year. These are like that.

Don't forget that winter tires are made for the cold, not just the snow, so they would be an asset even if one of your locations was a couple of degrees warm enough to be raining instead of snowing.

We had gotten a set of Conti Pro Contacts when they first came out on my wifes old Eclipse. They were pretty good in the snow and the tires lasted a really long time.

Just a quick update - wanted to wait until I had some time and snow exposure.

Over 3K miles on the Conti's with no major complaints.

Traction: So far snow traction has been excellent. No excessive intrusion by nanny systems like ABS and Traction Control. The only times they have been active is when I was playing in a parking lot to test the traction. Wet and dry have not produced any surprises, and have been consistent no funny behavior on fast corners.

Ride/noise: I've been running them at max sidewall rating of 51psi, and the ride is firm but not harsh. I will probably experiment some with tire pressures to see if I can reduce some of the effects of high winds on the highway, although the car never really had a strong centering tendency.

Summary: No regrets so far.