Gen 4 Noise and Comfort level

Thank you!

 

Are you going to the PriusChat event in Anaheim today?

 

I wasn't aware of that event, and made other plans for the weekend. Have a nice day sir.

My Three seems to be fine with the Toyo tires inflated at the Max pressure of 41. Still has a soft smooth ride. Handles good. But the "Max" pressure is only 4 or 5 PSI over the recommended pressure... so I guess there wouldn't be much notable difference in ride. My MPGs did go up by 3. So that's good.

 

All quiet enough except for tye wind noise.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

This is our fourth Prius. My wife is driving the 2012 and I went from a 2008 to a 2016 4 loaded with the TOYO tires.
The difference night and day - thats ride handling and comfort and I am talking about the 2012 not the 2008.
Love the new prius except for the lack of storage and fog lights...

 

congrats, all the best!

 

I changed from a 2016 Gen 4 17" tyres Bridgstone's to a PHV 2018 Toyo nanoenergy J61 and these are the worst tyres ever. The gen 4 on the Bridgestone's Potenza was very very quiet. These Toyo's very noisy, especially over concrete and course asphalt, thinking of binning then already just because of the noise. On a German magazine site they came out worst for dry and wet braking coming 50th out of 50! There was 14 metres difference between the best and worst in wet weather brake distance. Longer than the longest school bus, frightening! That alone makes me feel like chucking them, they spin up easily in the wet so not confident about their braking ability.

 

We've got 9500 miles on the 18' Prius 4 and it is noticeably more quiet and comfortable than the 10' Prius 4 we had. I drove the 2010 168,000 miles until it met an untimely demise. I've driven the 2018' 900 miles in a day and just made a 600 mile round trip last week. The seat is more comfortable and the noise is not bad. I do tend to have the stereo up louder than normal when I'm alone though though. The 18' has Toyo's at 50psi and I ran Ecopia's on the 2010.

 

Update on the Toyo tyres , yes I did chuck then in the end, I don't know how Toyota approved them for OEM fitment. I did consider offering them to anyone but thought better of it, killer tyres! I fitted Goodyear Vector 4 seasons gen2 and they are much quieter and more important they grip! Last night they were tested to the limit, I was driving from Stoke to Buxton (one of the highest parts of the Peak District) A53 in freezing and snow conditions on my way to see a show in Buxton Opera House. The road so far was clear, light snow either side of the carriageway and the road was well salted, I passed Flash Bar Stores (the highest village in Britain) the road was clear but snow was falling. As I moved over the county line between Staffordshire and Derbyshire the road gritting stopped. The road had light drifting, I checked the brakes to see how much adhesion there was, ABS kicked in but I slowed without incident, I continued much slower. Up ahead I saw hazard lights, I found a group of cars at the top of the long descent into Buxton. Several drivers were debating
whether to continue, they were having trouble standing up! Further down the hill, a car had gone off the road, a tractor was coming up the hill towards us very slowly. The farmer stopped and said he had just pulled that car back on the road, it was an ice sheet, the tractor was just coping. There were about 10 cars now behind me, several were turning round with difficulty. I pulled back and turned on the Macclesfield road A54, the tyres never slipped. They closed the road after that and it only reopened near midday.

 

Can I suggest you use a bigger font - I zoomed in to read it - but it messed the flow of text and I had to keep moving the screen left/right to read it. thanks.

I think any of the "ECO" tyres are lesser grip. I've got Bridgestone Ecopia & frankly, they're not much good. They're less than ½ worn (40,000km), but I'm almost ready to throw them away and put performance tyres on instead.

 

I just traded our regular tires on our other car for Ecopia 422 Plus' and they are a MASSIVE improvement over the non-LRR tires that were on there, and I mean in regular conditions and on snow and ice. I really like those tires.

 

Alan sorted. I was using the standard font at the time, never realised it came out so small. In your part of the world I would not have thought you would be worrying about grip with all that heat. Yes these Eco tyres are like the Bridgestone and Metzler originals that they fitted to Jap and German bikes, hard as nails. All the bikers said "See if you can get some dry mileage in during high summer then throw them." Toyo's were soft and no grip! Coming up to winter I was not chancing my arm, they had to go, 3000 miles was enough
I just noticed "The 18' has Toyo's at 50psi and I ran Ecopia's on the 2010." that's well over pressure! That would seriously affect the already poor grip and make the ride very hard.

 

Yes - heat - when I got in my car at midday, it showed 42 - that's Celsius. I think the real temperature was 39. Glad I don't have a Sunroof.

Yes, I don't have snow or ice, but even on wet roads, the ECO tyres are more prone to locking up - just not a secure as normal tyres. Dry roads - yep not too bad, but will squeal if I attack a bend too fast - at a speed which my previous FOCUS would have taken in it's stride. It had wider tyres too - 205/55-15 Continentals, in a lighter car - but with more grunt (Diesel).

 

Two comments. First, my 2018 Two-Eco came with these Ecopia tires OE. I've have enough cars and tire changes over the years (including one case of taking Michelin up on their 30 day no-questions-asked take-back policy -- yes, they do) that I can say with confidence that the Gen-4 Prius with Ecopia 422+ tires is a great combination. Using school-house grading, I'd give this car-tire combo an "A-". It's only a "minus" because there's some extra noise at highway speed, but nowhere near objectionable. Great otherwise, but of course, in being in Florida, I can't comment on the snow and ice aspect.

As for the original topic (started in 2016), I find the car a solid improvement in all aspects of NVH, at least as compared to my previous Gen-2 (I know, the OP asked for comparison to Gen-3). The Gen-2 wasn't bad, but the Gen-4 is noticeable better. In one aspect, though, the Gen-2 was awful. The roof had such poor sound insulation that in a heavy rain, the "drumming" rendered conversation nearly impossible, and telephone use actually impossible. I haven't experienced a southern summer downpour in the new car yet, but so far, it seems like it will do better. We'll see.

 

From what has been said previously, they might be an American Market tyre only - though could be elsewhere. We get these instead here:

 

Yeah that's the trouble with ep422 plus: there's a japanese, us and mexican version, each with tread diff's, and other stat variations.

The only Ecopia I'd consider is EP20, consistent tread pattern and comes in one size (196/65R15). Still, its traction is abysmal once a bit worn, and it gets increasingly noisy.

 

Much nicer to drive IMO, but still noisy.
Maybe a little bit more quiet than gen3 but I'd say 5-10% difference not much.

But cornering, directional stability and handling is much nicer in gen4.