Winter tires?

I must disagree. Those look better that your stock 19 inch wheels, imo.

19 inch wheels look like they were mandated by wheel repair shops.

 

It is that time of year already. I got a '23 Prime in January and toughed it out through the winter. Now it's time to get set up with winters.

I think the stock wheels look fantastic and I haven't found any others I think look decent at all. I also don't want to go down in wheel size because I think it compromises the look of the car. (Keep in mind that in Alberta, winter tires are on half the year.) Lastly, I don't want to have to take the vehicle in twice a year to get wheels mounted, balanced, and installed.

My plan, then, is to buy a second set of stock rims and get winter tires installed on those. Yes, stock rims cost a lot more, but if I'm spending upwards of $50k CAD, on a car, an incremental $1200 for stock rims over steelies makes sense for me..

The only real issue I'm perceiving is that this isn't that easy to do. The only place I can find stock wheels online (in Canada) is Toyota Parts Direct. Can dealerships generally bring these wheels in, or would you advise just buying them myself and taking them into a dealership or tire shop to buy the tires and have them mounted and balanced?

 

I wouldn't spend so much money on stock wheels but to each their own. You can order them through the dealer at an exorbitant price, even in Canada. They'll order them for you at the parts store. At a quick glance on toyotapartsdirect.ca, they're about $400 a pop with no tires or covers in 17". Some dealers will have their own websites but most I've seen in Canada don't seem to update and Alberta might be different. Personally the 17" wheels scratch easily and the covers seem to leave pretty hefty marks on the wheels. You could also check if anyone near you is selling any of these or Camry wheels. I found plenty of aftermarket wheels that I think look good but it depends on taste and budget.

Otherwise if you insist on the dealer, it'd be around $560 a pop. Ordering them online would be easier and cheaper. Go to any shop that can mount your tires and either change them yourself or have them do it. Or bring it to the dealership and they'll swap them out. I think Toyota website has sales every so often but I don't recall how often. The US ones seem more frequent.

 

There “may” be stock steel rims, that is, a Toyota steel rim, with 100% compatibility, including hub opening. 17” Camry or RAV4 steel rims perhaps.

with 5th Gen if I’m not mistaken TPMS sensors can be automatically detected? Not sure of the details on that.

FWIW with our Gen 3 I purchased snow tires mounted on older-style 15” Corolla steel rims, sans TPMS sensors, turn-key through dealership. They charged me $70 CDN apiece for the rims, and $31 total for a set of plain, open-end, galvanized lug nuts. I used that setup for over a decade, then when I replaced the snows swapped rims for 15” Prius Plug-In rims (2012~2015 model year), nice looking alloys (see attached). I purchased those used, from PriusChat member.

whatever you go with, definitely good to have centre caps on the hub openings; otherwise they rust up like crazy. Keeping a thin coat of anti-seize on the hub face is worthwhile too.

 

Dang, "Looks" means a lot to you.....

You know, in the dark of a long, dirty winter in the Great White North, nobody can tell the difference from >50 feet if you have 'Good Looking $1200 alloys' or $40 plastic wheel covers over durable and cheap to replace Steelies.
Do people sometimes accidentally slide into curbs up there?

Just for reference,,, I had Steelies, Mich Ice-X, TPMS installed, mounted, balanced, required lugs, shipped to my door for $806,,, years ago, on sale. And with a $30 TPMS relearn tool, I'm set for a very long time.

Here's a thought experiment:
Ask the wifey if you should spend $1200 on a winter Vaca to the Tropics,
or on some wheels that you feel "Look Good".

 

Technically Camry and RAV4 rims have a slightly different offset than the Prius (Gen 5 at least) but share the same hub size and bolt pattern. I did see some people put the new 17" Camry wheels on the Prius and it fits. If I recall, offset on the Camry is +42 and the Prius is +40 so it's pretty small. Might just make the tires look a bit more tucked in the wheel wells than flush. You can play with the offset, plenty of +35 I've seen people run. In general, they'll both fit but most steel rims look the same. He might be able to get cheaper used alloys than steel rims.

I got a set of used alloys and nearly new tires for less than $600. Swapped my stock 17" to 225/55/17 and the handling is day and night. I'm actually surprised the car isn't throwing any alerts for my lack of TPMS on the new wheels.

 

Any chance they have sensors? I’ve heard Gen 5 will recognize compatible sensors, maybe with just a little driving.

 

Heh, I forgot to ask when I got them and but assumed they didn't since everything was already mounted. I have an RF scanner and was going to check if I can pick up anything from the wheels and see. Currently the TPMS screen has "--" on each wheel when driving. I was sure the TPMS light would turn on but it hasn't so far. If they have sensors, I'll get to try that feature of having a second set of TPMS!

 

Too bad you're not close to Colorado as I'm selling my OEM 19's with the OEM tires for $600

 

I put my snow tires (205/65R16 Michelins) on 16” steel rims and they work great. My dealership recommended aftermarket “clone” sensors for my steel rims.

Basically, they cloned the 4 IDs from the OEM sensors, so the car will automatically detect whichever set is on the car. Works fine.

I was told the Toyota sensors were considerably more expensive (~50%?) and required more time for programming/etc, and also that they had encountered “issues” with this sensors in steel rims, so who knows. They were recommending the cheaper option so why complain?

And through the winter, they worked fine. If I parked near my garage (where the other set of tires live), I would sometimes see the pressure indicators flip between the two tires, as it was picking up mixed signals (and there were a few PSI difference), but of course that resolves as soon as you drive away.

My best piece of advice to anyone buying new sensors is to make sure you buy them from the same place doing the install, just in case there is any compatibility issue, they can’t blame you and charge additional reinstall fees. (Been burned by that before…)

 

Do you know which sensors they used? Asking in case I'll need some haha

Aside from cloning them, they could also have used the feature for a second set of TPMS sensor the car has. This way you can go in the menu and pick set 1 or set 2 when you swap wheels. From what I've seen of the programming it's not that complicated but does require a tool for it.

 

I just got aftermarket sensors provided by the installer when I got my tires last winter, and they programmed them to work with the car. They got disconnected once somehow, and then I did the reprogram setting and they worked again. So there's a way to make them appear to the car without fully cloning the existing sensor code.

 

We live in the same city, used to have the same 2010 Prius, and now the new Gen 5 Prius Prime. What the odds! We just got the new car after 10 months' waiting at the dealership. Purchased a set of P205/65R16 Winter tires with steel rims from a seller on Kijiji at a very reasonable price. The wheels are in very good conditions and used to be on a 2017 Camry. The clearance between the brake caliper especially the front ones and the 16" steel rims is tight, less than half inch IMO. Other than that everything looks & runs fine.

 

17" rims are a safer bet. There was someone here that got 16's, reported they needed to shift hidden wheel weights, they were brushing the caliper. And they're about 1/8" thick:


^ this is two layers, stuck together.

 

I have 16’s and they fit fine, but they are on steel rims with the hammer-on weights on the outside. The clearance is certainly close; I would not be surprised if inside stick-on weights caused interference. Personally, I don’t see the value in buying alloys for snow tires, I think steel rims with decent wheel covers make more sense for the snow & salt anyway.

 

Yeah I’d agree, that was me for over a decade. On the flip side, we’re west coast (mild winters), and retired, driving minimal, and typically just sit it out during “snow events”. And I had those plug-in alloys just lying around, lol.

 

I totally agree!
And if the average person, not you or I, of course, were to accidentally slide into a curb,, which season would that take place in?

 

Fyi thats how the "official winter wheels" (17") look like in Germany.

 

Lol, I am not retired yet, but I do work from home so my driving is pretty minimal these days. Nevertheless, I still believe in maximizing safety, so snow tires are a worthy investment regardless. On my 2014 PiP, I also used the alloys from my Gen 2 (2006), since I kept them when I basically sold the car for parts with the steel rims. It was nice having the alloys as my snow tires since they were “free” and looked nice (and they held up well enough to corrosion that they didn’t leak), but I couldn’t see myself spending more for alloys, unless I got a great deal on them (ie equal or less than steelies).

 

Yeah, seriously. That’s another reason I like the fatter sidewalls for the winter. There were some snow tires options in the OEM 19” size, but that would be pretty insane imo. Not to mention I don’t want to run my nice rims in the salt, nor pay for another expensive set of 19” rims, alloy or not…. Just seems like a no brainer to save the money on a cheaper and more widely available tire and rim. Winter is not about style, but function, lol.