8,000km In: Why the Continental CrossContact A/T2 Is Exactly the All-Terrain Tyre I Was After
A daily-driver test on a Lexus GX550 — sealed roads, dirt tracks, foul weather, and a genuine snow storm through Perisher Valley.
28 Jul 2026
Lexus GX550 · Continental CrossContact A/T2 · LT285/65R18 125/122S · 8,000km and countingPicking an All Terrain tyre for a car that spends most of its life on the road is harder than it sounds. Most A/T tyres make you choose, go aggressive enough for real offroad grip and you cop a noisy, twitchy ride on the bitumen. Go too mild and you're left wondering why you bothered fitting an A/T at all. My GX550 needed to handle the commute, the dirt roads, and as it turned out a blizzard, all on the same set of rubber.
Eight thousand kilometers into a set of Continental CrossContact A/T2s and I reckon Continental has nailed that balance. The A/T2 arrived in Australia in April 2026, aimed at drivers who split their time between city roads and regional terrain rather than extreme off-road use. Which is my brief almost word for word. Here's the full launch rundown.
Before any of the snow and wet-weather stuff, here's where it all started. A fresh set of CrossContact A/T2s in LT285/65R18 125/122S, it has an 828mm overall diameter, straight off the truck and onto the car.
The Setup
This GX550 is my daily driver. That means the bulk of its kilometres are racked up on sealed roads and well-maintained dirt roads: commuting, running errands, the occasional weekend getaway. It's not doing hardcore rock crawling or serious 4x4 work, and I want to be upfront about that, because it shapes everything that follows. Continental pitched this tyre at drivers who split their time between the city and the bush rather than at hardcore off-roaders, so I'm squarely in the target market.
What I wanted was a tyre that could live comfortably in that world: quiet and composed on the highway, planted and predictable in the wet, and still capable enough to handle unsealed roads and a surprise snowfall without drama. So why fit an A/T at all? For me it's plain and simple. All-Terrain tyres just look so much better on a 4x4 than a highway tyre, and I'm not going to dress that up as engineering.
Road Noise: Quiet, As Promised
All-Terrain tyres get a reputation for being loud, and fair enough. Plenty of them are. Here's why. The thing that makes an A/T work off-road is void. This is the empty space between the tread blocks. Continental lists high void volume as one of the A/T2's headline features, because those gaps are what let a tyre pump water, mud and slush out from under itself instead of skating over the top. The catch is that every one of those gaps is also a pocket of air that gets slapped shut against the road and squeezed open again, thousands of times a minute. Big blocks with big gaps between them make a comb, and the road runs a fingernail down it. That's your drone.
This is the bit I care about most, and it's where the A/T2 has genuinely impressed me. I've had some sketchy moments on All-Terrain tyres in the wet over the years, and the complaint is always the same one. Understeer!
Understeer in the wet usually isn't the tyre running out of grip so much as running out of time. You're asking the front tyre's to do two jobs at once. Clear the water sitting underneath them and change the car's direction. When the tread can't shed water fast enough, the front washes wide while you're still winding on lock. In a tall, heavy SUV with a loaded roof pod, it's a horrible feeling. The A/T2's open shoulders earn their keep here the outer edges sit exposed, so water gets flung out sideways instead of hanging around in the tread.
A recent trip to the Snowy Mountains was the real proving ground. We headed up to Perisher Valley during a dump of snow, and the roads in were exactly what you'd expect: packed snow, ice, and low-visibility blizzard conditions for long stretches of the drive.
This is one of the toughest environments you can put a tyre in, so it's worth being clear about something first. Continental doesn't sell the A/T2 as a winter tyre. What it does claim is an advanced polymer compound built to stay flexible and keep gripping across cold, wet and dry conditions, plus enough void volume to evacuate slush. Snow and ice weren't the design brief. Anything the tyre does up there is a by-product.
Even so, the confidence it gave me on the way up and back was excellent. Traction under acceleration was strong, braking felt controlled rather than sketchy, and the car tracked straight and true through the white-out sections instead of wandering.
While I didn't get into deep snow, rolling in through the snow gums with the pod loaded and the tread packed solid with snow and ice was a proper test of whether the pattern could clear the white stuff and keep finding grip. And it most certainly did.
Don't read that as a green light to tackle alpine roads on A/Ts, though. Chains are still the law where they're signed, a dedicated winter tyre will beat this in the snow every time, and what I've got here is one car, one weekend, and a driver taking it easy. It's a data point, not a recommendation.
At 8,000km in, the CrossContact A/T2 has ticked every box I set for it:
- Quiet on the road - comfortable enough that I've stopped noticing them
- Confident in the wet - sharp turn-in, almost no understeer
- Composed on dirt - handles unsealed roads without fuss
- Held up in snow and ice - well beyond what a tyre that isn't sold for winter needs to manage
I haven't pushed these into serious 4x4 terrain, so I can't tell you how they'd cope with rock ledges or deep mud. Maybe I never will. However, we would but I'd love to hear from someone who has. What I can tell you is that as a daily-driver A/T that needs to stay quiet, hold on in the wet and be ready for whatever the weather does next, the A/T2 has earned its place on the car.
If you're running a set, put your experience up on Tyre Review. The A/T2 is new enough that there's barely any driver feedback on it yet — for comparison, the ContiCrossContact AT sitting alongside it carries an 85% rating built from nine driver reviews, and that's the sort of picture the A/T2 still needs. Five minutes of your time makes the next person's decision an easy one. Review the CrossContact A/T2 here.
I'll report back with a longer-term update once we've clocked up more kilometers. Icluding how the tread's holding up and whether that road noise has started to creep in.
Some Common Q&A
Q&A
Q: Is the Continental CrossContact A/T2 quiet on the road?
A: Yes. Across Tyre Review's 8,000km owner test on a Lexus GX550, cabin noise stayed low at highway speed. Usually so for an All-Terrain. Its less-aggressive tread trades a little off-road bite for a quieter, more comfortable daily drive.
Q: Is the CrossContact A/T2 good in the wet?
A: Wet grip was the standout. Turn-in stayed sharp and the understeer that often affects heavy SUVs on chunky tyres was almost absent, giving confident control when weather turned suddenly.
Q: Can the Continental CrossContact A/T2 handle snow and ice?
A: Better than expected for a tyre not specifically marketed for snow. On an icy, snow-covered drive into Perisher Valley, NSW in blizzard conditions, it gave strong traction under acceleration, controlled braking and straight tracking, and kept shedding packed snow to find grip.
Q: Is it a good daily driver tyre for a 4WD or SUV?
A: Yes. Over 8,000km it balanced quiet, comfortable on-road manners with real wet-weather and light off-road capability, while giving a 4x4 the All-Terrain look a highway tyre can't.
Q: What vehicle and tyre size were tested?
A: A Lexus GX550 on LT285/65R18 Continental CrossContact A/T2 tyre's, driven roughly 8,000km across sealed roads, dirt, wet weather and alpine snow.
Q: Is the CrossContact A/T2 good for serious off-roading?
A: This test can't say. It covered sealed roads, dirt and snow, but not deep mud or rock crawling. Therefore its hardcore limits weren't reached. Ideal for daily driving with occasional dirt and snow; committed 4x4 users should seek out harder-terrain reviews.
Q: Who is the Continental CrossContact A/T2 for?
A: Drivers whose 4x4 mostly runs tar and dirt with the odd alpine trip, who want All Terrain looks plus wet and snow confidence without the road noise of an aggressive A/T.
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