Bought a 2010 Prius II around Feb. 1. So far, so good. No real problems, except the right rear wheel cover fell off sometime around mile 2500. To my delight, the missing ugly wheel cover revealed a pretty good looking allow wheel underneath. Except the alloy has a gaping, empty hole in the center of the wheel. Rather than pay a king's ransom to replace the lost wheel cover, I asked in the dealer's parts dept. if an OEM center-cap was available to fit the Prius wheel. YES! Turns out there is, so I ordered 4 center caps for less than $60. They arrived about a week later. Plugged them into the holes, and away we go with good looking alloys now instead of those beastly wheel covers. Has anyone else gone this route with your wheels?
Really? Nah, just kidding. I think just about everyone with the 15s have done so. There is a thread about using electrical box filler caps for less than $4. Look good painted too. Welcome aboard!
Many, including my self. Agree with you on the duct tape over stained glass approach to the wheels. Its like a treasure find when you pop those cheapie covers off to reveal what never should have been covered up. Do a search for "wheel centers" if you are interested in what others have done.
The first thing that i did when i took my new baby was to put out the ugly wheels covers. And i bought these from the Toyota dealer for 60,00€.
I didn't even save those plastic wheel covers. After seeing the alloy wheels I realized it was time to send them to the plastic recycle pile. And the the Prius is much faster now....smile
The aerodynamic impact of removing the wheels is not known. Your MPG may increase if you remove the plastic wheel covers.
Or decrease. The effect the wheel covers have on mpg has to be so small that it isn't even on my radar.
The MPG did not increase or decrease after my plastic covers were removed. And IMO those plastic covers are butt ugly and cheap looking.
The PC regulars invited to the prerelease events ~15-18 months ago, who were able to talk directly to Toyota engineers and staff, indicated that the covers did increase MPG. The magnitude was not publicly quantified, but Toyota was having to squeeze many things ever so slightly more to achieve that landmark 50 MPG EPA label, instead of a 49. If removing the covers would increase MPG, I can't believe Toyota would have left them on.
I've had my Prius for 7 months now and one of the first things that I did was remove the ugly wheel covers. Don't know why Toyota thought they needed to be on there, don't care! I'm more concerned with their "tweeking" the onboard MPG calculation,.....some say 6% descrepency. To me it looks like that was their easiest fix for getting 50mpg! If they make a negative difference in my FE, then so be it, as they are "BUTT UGLY"! If those alloys hadn't been under them, I'd have been buying aftermarkets for it. Either that or I would have held out for the V I really wanted, most of which were not coming to this part of the country!
Sorry I meant decrease MPG. I agree, the main reason the wheel covers exist is to make the car more efficient. I actually removed the front license plate to make the car more aerodynamic.
For a different look (and retention of the purported MPG savings of the wheel covers), you might consider getting Chrome Wheel Skins, which are a knock-off of the OEM wheel covers in chrome. They only cost $55 for a set of 4 shipped. I have them on my Gen II, and think they look swell. 2010 TOYOTA PRIUS 15" CHROME RIMS HUB CAPS WHEEL COVERS: eBay Motors (item 380242274590 end time Jul-12-10 12:49:06 PDT)
I live in La Jolla CA where Ferraris are common. In fact, the town only has two dealerships a Ferrari-Maserati and Lamborghini-Bentley. There are Prius all over. If you pull into one of the fancy restaurants in any other "economy" car besides the Prius people will probably think you work there. Last Sunday I was at the gas station and a black Gen III Prius pull in with black 18-inch wheels. It also had pimped front and tail lights. Although I cannot exactly say what was done to them, they look different. The car looked amazing. I wouldn't be surprised if Gen III after market spoilers and other parts become available to cater to these markets.
