Best Affordable tires for Gen 2 prius with better MPG and snow traction ?

Low rolling resistance, good snow traction and cheap, is a tall order. If you get separate snow tires, the quest gets easier.

 

Yeah, you are asking a lot. LOL What do you have on right now? I have not found any all season tire that get good mpg (most likely LRR tire) to have decent snow traction. Might be doable for first year or two, but would not trust any non-snow LRR on snow with less than 6/32 inch tread left. I don't have any experience with any of three you listed, but look for sale, sometimes you can get very nice expensive brand tires for cheap. For dedicated snow tire with very good fuel economy, Michelin Xice 3 have proven to deliver for me. I just ordered a set online from Discount TIre Direct for less than $60/tire after discounts and multiple rebates.

Oh, BTW. Welcome to PriusChat!

 

Expect really bad traction no matter what in snow and ice... That's a problem with Prius... As for saving $20 a tire buying cheaps ones... You'll pay three times that much for all the money you lose barely getting 40mpg. Maybe try http://SimpleTire.com Last year on Black Friday I was able to buy near very best high MPG tires as (4) bridgestone ecopia ep422 for $68 each and free shipping and I found a local shop to put 'em on for only $20 each. Best part is that because I didn't buy the tires and installation at same time, I've only had to replace the two worst tires and the other two are still waiting for almost a year now for the the tread to finally wear out. Saved a ton of money and didn't scrimp on tire quality doing it this way. Also boosting tire pressure up to mid-fourties PSI is a big help in boosting MPG too!

 

What’s that saying? You can have 2 of these options but not all 3?

 

Those actually got some good comments regarding snow traction of this tire, but maybe it's from buyers, trying to convince themselves as much as anything? The tread doesn't have the fine siping of a snow tire, and I don't think it'd be the softer rubber formulation of a snow tire.

If you resign yourself to separate snows the options for a cheap and LRR all-season open up up a lot. You can also run the tread down lower, knowing they don't have to get your through winter.

 

Run dedicated snows and be done with it. Start piecing together a second set of wheels, have the snows mounted to them and then you get the most out of your all season LLR tires by swapping them right ahead of the first snow flake. You will most likely take a mileage penalty with snow tires of which gets compounded by the colder Michigan weather. As has been said, it's difficult to serve these three masters at the same time.

 

Michigan is deep-freeze in winter. Snow tires are extra hassle, but worth it in the long run. Your regular tire tread lasts longer, and your regular rims will be in better shape. Having them off the car through winter you can wash/wax them thoroughly too.

This is what we used on third gen for rims. The third gen tire is a bit wider/bigger, but maybe the rim is the same spec:

snow tire: Michelin X-Ice2 195/65R15
Corolla steel rim, part no: 42611-02471 (2003-2008 corolla or matrix, CE, LS, S)
steel rim lug nuts, part no: 90942-01007 (plain, open-ended, galvanized)

 

Check the TEST RESULTS on TireRack for the General Altimax RT43.

https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/testDisplay.jsp?ttid=227

I don't remember which tire fits the Prius. I have both the T and the H rated ones, I think, on two different Toyotas. Great tire regardless of the speed rating.

Great tire. Great test results. Great price. Snow, ice, rain. All tops according to TR and several other ratings sites.

I started a thread about it a year or so ago.

 

Bumping an old thread.

Does it make any sense to look for an LRR tire for use in snow? The snow itself is going to add quite a bit to the rolling resistance, and it will be much worse as the snow depth increases. There is a pretty comprehensive paper on this topic here:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350690120_The_effect_of_water_and_snow_on_the_road_surface_on_rolling_resistance/link/606da2c9299bf13f5d600a56/download?_tp=eyJjb250ZXh0Ijp7ImZpcnN0UGFnZSI6InB1YmxpY2F0aW9uIiwicGFnZSI6InB1YmxpY2F0aW9uIn19

They also look at resistance when driving in shallow standing water. The paper doesn't cover it, but I would imagine that the rolling resistance from driving in several inches of mud or on loosely packed sand would be so substantial that the contribution from the tires would be secondary.

 

Up here in Pacific Northwest I've done lots of 700 mile drives through all three states in non-stop rain and I can assure that my MPG was awful on LRR tires and if there's any chance of snow building up on the freeway I'll drive along the coast even though it's an extra couple hours. But probably worse than the tires is that I was two or even three times as tired at the end of the drive because of how much more attention is required to not crash.

 

Kingergy STs are amazing. Avoid the GTs and PTs. I've run them on 3 cars before (2 company cars included) and recently put them on my Prius C. One of the best bang for your buck eco tires. Doubled up on a couple promotions and got a full set of 3 installed this summer for around $300.

 

The link I posted had some data from people running tests with certain amounts of snow and water on the ground. However, if it is actually raining or snowing there is another effect - water or snow that hits the car and sticks to it, even for just a few seconds, has to be accelerated from zero (assuming it was falling straight down) to the speed of the car, and that will exert a force on the car opposite to its direction of motion, ie, drag. Water that bounces off a leading surface and then is blown around or over the car will also exert drag. In a light rain or snowfall these forces shouldn't be too large, as they would correspond to accelerating less than a kilogram of water (in one form or the other) from 0 kph to around 100 kph (at highway speeds) per minute. If the amount of precipitation was higher the car might need to accelerate tens of kilograms of water per minute. At that point though maintaining highway speeds becomes so dangerous that any sane driver will have slowed down dramatically, and that in turn will reduce the drag.