Help me decide on wheels --- OEM 17's vs 15's

Put 17 in rear and 15 front you get Same gas mileage

 

Lately, I've been getting 51-52ish mpg computerized on my stock Five, which translates into 48-50ish mpg actual. 50.5 mpg on stock 15s is a little on the low side but that of course depends on your driving route, condition, etc. If my wife were to drive it, it would take a bigger mpg hit.

Put on the 17s and hypermile back up to 50.5 mpg. I pulse and glide just enough to get 50 mpg actual, which is where I'm comfortable with.

 

I added the 17's yesterday and was really concerned after driving at 32 psi as set from the tire dealer... My mpg took a dramatic hit. I went back and had them increased to 38/36 psi and now it feels like my mpg is pretty close to the factory 15's at 35/33 psi.

The ride feels so much more stable (also firmer) and I think they glide much better than the 15's did at 35/33 psi. It seems mpg suffers with lots of stop and go (repeated pulsing with the bigger/heavier wheels) but is not affected when you can glide on good road surfaces. I say go for the 17's unless your driving routine is mostly stop and go... the repeated pulsing is definitely better with 15' 195's

 

PSI is huge when it comes to mpg. I picked up the Yokohama Avid Envigors and was worried that I had chosen a bad tire for LRR yesterday when i was at 32 psi... but after driving with them today at 38/36 I don't really have any complaints.

I just drove 5.6 city miles (lots of red lights) to the Central Market and got 56 mpg according to the HSI... took me 17 minutes and .34 cents in gas. I am actually getting better mpg's than I did with the 15's at 35/33... although I never tried increasing my psi on the factory wheels.

BTW if you don't want to think about your driving and get good mpg's I would stick with your 15's...

 

Or look at oem's and say what's 10 mpg hit for looks

 

Plenty of owners are perfectly content with their stock Five. The advantage of going with factory 17s is they won't look funky unmodified.

You won't. Factory 17s are a hot commodity.

 

Use the money you get from selling the 17s to buy 16 inch aftermarket or the 16 inch touring wheels from the Gen2.

Upgrade but little to no hit on mpg.

SCH-I535

 

Yes. I recently installed a set of the CT200h wheels with Michelin Primacy MXM4 tires. I inflated the tires to 33psi/32 psi per the service manual, and I was averaging about 39.5-40mpg in-town with my lead-footed driving.

For today, I inflated the tires to 38 psi/37psi and took it a bit easier; I ended the day with 43.6.

Actually, some of people at TGB4 mentioned that the chief engineer had a document which stated the mpg loss with the 17" wheels. I don't remember the exact number, but I'm sure someone will chime in here with that figure.

 

I switched my new Prius IV wheels to the factory 17" wheels/Yokohama YK580 tires within the first week of getting the car....the ride/driving difference alone was well worth it ...... let alone how great it looks. Keep infl. to around 37-38psi and avg. 43 mpg driving it hard. It's all about personal preference/priority.

 

I must be getting old. One of the great side benefits for me of switching to a PIP was that it got me back into 15 inch non-low profile tires, and a passable ride. The slight improvement in handling from low profile tires is definitely not worth the huge increase in ride harshness, especially on bad local streets. The mpg hit according to the toyota engineer's notebook and other people's experience is 2 to 3 mpg. I'm convinced it was more like 4 to 5 mpg for me, due to more stop and go short trip driving in my case.