BF Goodrich G-Force Comp-2 A/S tires transform ride quality

The awful 17" Toyo tires that came on our 2012 Prius v Five are finally history due to sidewall curb damage on one of them. They were nearly worn out anyway after only about 20,000 miles of use.

The ride comfort improvement with the BF Goodrich tires is astonishing - maybe because they are much "chunkier" tires with wider "body" and tread and they are not Low Rolling Resistance tires. I'm guessing that they hold a higher volume of air.

Fuel economy is down a couple of mpg's but who cares. Our Prius finally doesn't ride like a lumber wagon. Those OEM Toyo tires were utter crap.

We bought the Goodrich tires at Costco - lucky they had them in stock since my wife was going on an 800 mile road trip the next day.

 

There is no alignment problem. The treads on the Toyo's wore uniformly and were at about 4/32 inch which is widely regarded as the minimum for safety in rain. The tire pressures were kept at 33/32 psi per the label on the door post and air added or drained as necessary as ambient temperatures changed but jolts over expansion joints and potholes were still extraordinarily harsh. If the one Toyo tire hadn't been damaged, the set would have been replaced anyway before next Spring due to the tread depth. The snow wheels/tires will be going on the Prius only two months from now.

My wife isn't interested in maxing out tire pressure to get better fuel economy. She wants comfort. She didn't buy the Prius for its fuel economy but because it is a Toyota, has PCS and DRCC and is reasonably small. (She refuses to drive the larger vehicles I prefer and buy for myself.) One reason the Toyo's might have worn faster is that the car has rarely been driven out of town - only about 1,400 miles on road trips. It's rare for my wife to wear out a set of tires on "her" cars. Her tires usually "age out" and are replaced long before they wear out.

 

All I can tell you is that the difference was extremely noticeable and unexpected and that the noise and pain from expansion joints and pot holes seemed much less.

To get a fair comparison, I suggest that you set the cold pressures of your Toyo tires to the settings shown on the driver door pillar before driving to Costco - 33 psi front, 32 psi rear assuming that it is the same for the 2017 as the 2012. Then verify that your new tires are set to the same pressures.

The Comp-2 tires provide a much more compliant ride than the OEM Toyo tires but there are likely still better tires out there. We didn't have time to look around due to my wife departing on a long trip and Costco was the only place we called that had the tire size we needed in stock ... and the Comp-2's were the only tire they had in that size.

Looking back, maybe I should have mounted the snow wheels/tires prematurely and then taken my time to find even better A/S tires. My wife was perfectly happy with the OEM Toyo tires as she now is with the Comp-2's - she's not much into cars as long as they get her to where she wants to go. My "job" on the Prius is only the keep it washed and fueled.