OEM tires skidding

That sounds like a good plan, Tim. I just put my name on the list for a 2006, and if they have the Integras, I'll make them do that before I take delivery. I think OEM tires all tend to be slippy on the wet. My wife's Suzuki Grand Vitara had slippy Duellers, and my present car, which I'll trade, a 95 Impala SS had Goodrich Comp/TAs that while grippy in the dry were awful in the wet.

 

:mellow: I think its a shame Toyota puts such mediocre tires on such a fine vehicle. I did some checking on tires after I ordered the Prius. I determined in advance that the Integritys wouldn't make the grade. I ordered Assurance Comftreds from Tirerack and had them sent to the dealer. As part of the purchase agreement, the dealer mounted the new tires. They wouldn't take the Integrity tires since the tires are considered "used" (had 4 miles on them!). I sold the Integritys on Ebay. I'm very happy with the Comfortreds. BTW, the Tripletreds are better rated but would have to go from a 185 to 195 size.
I really wanted the Tripletreds but the dealer recommended against it.
Also, I've had the Hydroedges on another car (Camry). They're great but a bit noisy on the highway.

 

I've talked about this a lot on the Lexus Owners Club boards when people use Tire Rack to make decisions about tires, you have to be careful when it comes to using those surveys as fact. They are simply consumer response surveys and the way they are compared it automatically makes new tires look much better than older tires because the ratings are seen side to side regardless of how many survey responses there have been. The survey responses for a new tire always look amazing with really high reviews while older tires look "just good". This is just fine by TireRack as the new tires have much higher profit margins.

Well, when you look at it a little closer you figure out that the older tires have MANY more surveys used to compute the average scores, for those statistically minded what does that mean? That means the scores will always regress towards the mean when the sample size is increased so obviously the once stellar scores even out to be "just good". In reality its a much safer bet to buy a set of tires with "just good" ratings and 20,000,000 miles reported than it is to buy a set of whiz bang spankin new tires with 9.8's in every category with only 50,000 miles reported. The scores on that tire WILL regress towards the mean as surveys come in.

BUT, when a tire is as poorly recieved as the Integritys, its pretty clear they're not as superior a product as most.

Doesn't mean Tire Rack's surveys are a bad source of info, they're not. You just need to understand what you're looking at. Tire Rack does do independent testing similar to Consumer Reports, but seeing that Tire Rack sells tires, and tires do not all have the same profit margin, they're hardly unbiased.

Can you tell I know a lot about tires? LOL, too much.

 

as in all things, caveat emptor, buyer beware.

I subscribe to Consumer Reports (my wife asks why?). I believe they have the consumer's best interest in mind, that's why I subscribe. That being said, I bought tires specifically based on Consumer Reports' findings and boy oh boy, they may have been top rated Micheling MXV4 Energy's for my then fairly new 1994 525 BMW, but between you me and the bedpost, I had those terrible performers removed from my car in less than two days. They were the COMPLETELY WRONG TIRE for my car, that car specifically. Odd though because I drove a 1999 BMW 525 loaner and marvelled at how it well it handled. I was so pleased at its drivability that I got out of my car just to see what brand and type of tire it was running... Michelin MXV4 Energy's. I was dumbfounded. The point is... you don't know till, as my good friend Jay says, "you go over and see."

Ratings are a starting point. Other users opinions are valid, for them. Put them all together, do the hokey pokey, and you got to figure it out for yourself.

Now, don't even ask about my experience with the Canon G3 Digital Camera and the Fruit of the Loom underwear that I bought on Consumer Reports' recommendation. You don't even want to know.

I had the new Goodyear Assurance Comfortred's were installed today. So far, So good. I'll keep in touch about wet weather performance when we get another rain here in So. Oregon... But I'm feeling like I made the right choice. Goodyear swapped the Integrities out for the Comfortreds and I paid the difference a 'twixt the two.

High mount stop light downward reflectance issue resolved with a piece of 22 ga. flashing and some galvanizing spray and contact cement. Now the high mount stop light doesn't illuminate the dust on the vertical glass below the spoiler (which gets covered with dust each time I drive down our gravel road). The dust which coated the glass acted like a diffusion coating which, each time I applied the brake, caused most of this vertical piece of glass to light up with a bright red glow (Is That A Cop After Me??? I thought to myself as I looked into the rearview mirror?). No Longer an issue.

Love the Prius,

Thanks Toyota, Thanks Goodyear, Thanks to this Great Board!!!

Go PriusChat!

ken

 

Sooooooo? Which tires would you recommend and why? I honestly would like to know. I too have concluded the OEM tires for the Prius won't be staying on my Prius when I get it in January. But after reading your comments multiple times I still have no idea where you are leaning. Please share.

Thanks

p.s. As you can see I live in snow country. So any comments about an all season tire which does well in wet and snow would be appreciated.

 

I am currently running Goodyear TripleTreds (195/60/15). They get good reviews from other Priuschat members, and good marks from Consumer Reports (top rated All-Season in 10/2005 issue). I got the TripleTreds because of good experience with them on our Subaru Forester. Even with AWD, the Forester with it's two year old OEM tires could get pretty squirrelly on snow-packed and icy roads. With a new set of the TripleTreds, traction and handling in heavy rain and on snowy roads was greatly improved.

I have become a firm believer in investing in good tires, and find that any tire with less than 1/2 of its remaining tread becomes marginal for driving in sloppy/icy/snowy conditions (at least if you live somewhere that your roads do a lot of up and down and round and round -- as they do in West Virginia).

Other All-Season Tires recommended on this forum include the Goodyear ComfortTred and Michelin Hydroedge.

 

Thanks. This helps me plan for my Jan 06 delivery. I live in a hilly Lake Michigan fishing community prone to lake effect snow and I also have some ugly hills and turns at the end of my daily commute. I'd rather just keep one set of all-seasons on so I'm ready for most of the heavy stuff in any season.

So what's the mileage hit with the GTTs? Any difference?

 

The Tire Rack reviews are great for reading the user experiences (eg: "I put these tires on and they were so bad that I skidded out of control and caused an 80-car pile-up on the freeway"), but the ratings numbers are absolutely *NOT* usable for comparisons between tires..

In order to use the ratings for comparisons, the user must have tried *all* the tires on the list, but this is absolutely not the case.. The surveys simply ask for an opinion rating on each aspect of performance of a single tire with no guidelines and no controls.. So, you've hit the nail on the head that new tires will always tend to get higher ratings due to the hype factor, and that the initially impressive "10" rating does not necessarily mean that the tire is any better than some other tire that only got a "7" because there's no common base for comparison and in fact, most users probably have *NOT* tried both brands of tire...

In that regard, the CR ratings are more useful, but the problem here is that CR never publishes their test methodologies in detail nor the raw data, so although their ratings may be impartial, the set of measurment criteria or the test methodology used may be flawed.. This is actually true of many other tests done by organizations other than CR- the comparisons may be perfectly valid given the test conditions, but the tests themselves may not be representative of actual driving conditions.. Take the Hydroedge results for instance- although I have not tried the Tripletreds, and they may actually be heads above the Hydroedge, in my driving experience in the real world, the Hydroedge certainly do *NOT* have "mediocre hydroplaning resistance"; quite the opposite, they are the best of any tire I have driven, so something is certainly questionable about the test methodology..

 

Since I put the TripleTreds on our Prius just about the time the weather was starting to take its turn towards winter, I won't be able to give a real definitive answer. I was averaging about 58 MPG and with the TripleTreds dropped to around 55 MPG. However, with the temperatures continuing to drop my mileage is now just over 50 MPG. Too many variables for me to make an accurate determination. I will know a lot more after I have more time and miles to compare.

My guess (which can probably be confirmed by other PriusChat members) is that there will be a 2 - 3 MPG loss with the TripleTreds. I would love it if this weren't the case, but will happily trade a couple MPG for the added safety.

 

Thanks. Even with the mpg hit it's still better than my TDI -- I have to nurse it to get 47 mpg in any season with the stock skins.

Thanks again for the input -- I had Mich Hydros before on one of my Golfs. Super handling in wet weather. Really, you had to push it to spin out. But on a Prius you folks seem to think they're noisy so maybe not such a good fit with smaller tires (more rotation???).

 

I notice the noise from the Hydroedge mostly on turns, but it's not really that different than any other tire on the straightaways..

 

I think I mentioned ours are being replaced with Michelin MXV4+ next week.

I labored long and hard on the decision and thought about the Hydroedge's, the Comfortreads, the Falkens, etc. I have the MXV4s on my Lexus and love them, they're a low rolling resistance tire (my mileage on the Lexus increased 2mpg or so over the Toyo TPTs that were on it before) and the rain traction has been good, and they were on sale so thats the route I went. My fiance' (its her Prius) didn't want any mileage reduction so I figured it was a pretty safe bet.

For you since you live in snow country I'd reccomend getting snow tires first (I think if anyone lives in a climate where they will regularly drive in adverse snow conditions they MUST have snow tires) and if you don't want to do that going with something like the Hydroedge or the Triple Tread probably.

Could they have been different speed ratings? The MXV4s come in an H and a V and something like that BMW would need a V. If you put H rated MXV4s on yours you might have noticed some slushiness and squirrelyness. I have MXV4's in a V rating on my Lexus.

 

We'll see. I inquired w/ the dealer where I'm on a list and didn't get a straight answer. And as Lessachs mentioned in the post after yours, the dealer wouldn't take the Integrity tires as "new" since they had 4 miles on them.

With as much complaining as there seems to be about the Integrity tires, one would think Toyota would explore different options (or at least make a better tire available on some of the higher priced option packages).

I'm leaning toward the Michelin Hydroedge or the TripleTreds based on what I've seen here. But I'll probably run by the library and check out the 11/05 Consumer Reports article that was mentioned by somebody.

Thanks to all of you out there that have made the switch from the Integrity to something else for giving your input.

Finally - anyone know why the dealer recommended against a 190/65 tire? Too far off on revolutions per mile maybe?

 

Mr. Tim:

I too considere the Tripletreds for my new 05 prius, however the closest size that I could find listed anywhere were the 195-65-15's which is nearly 1/2 inch taller. Got to this website to check out what this larger diameter tire will do in rpm's. I have no idea if the 06 prii will have different tire sizes than the 05. Anybody else know the answer?

Tire size Calculater: http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html

Looks like there would be a difference of 24 rev's per minute, with the spedo reading 2.1% too slow so that with the 195's on (if they'll fit!) your spedo will read 60mph when you're actually traveling 61.3mph.

Food For Thought. I personally would have gone with the Tripletreds first base on cross referenced reviews in Consumer Reports and User Surveys at Tirerack.

Can someone riddle me this: How come the Tripletreds (with 3+ million total miles reported) and Goodyear Comfortred (with nearly 1.5 mil. miles reported) were so disparately separated in the Consumer Reports article #1 for TripleTreds and #13 for Comfortred. I imagine it had something to do with the somewhat non-scientific nature of Consumer Reports' research. Con. Reports says they contracted the testing to an outside company who drove only 6400 miles in a specific kind of car. They determined the tires' rolling resistance on a dynamometer (because virtually NO TIRE COMPANY PUBLISHES THEIR ROLLING RESISTANCE SPECS!!! AND WHY NOT??? Scaredy Cats!

So there you have it, trying to find the right tire for the Prius based on your driving conditions, driving style and budget. Who know it would be so complex?

Enjoy the process and let us know which shoes you put on your, as the good 'ol country boy at our local tire dealer called it, "HyBreed!" or as the other good ol boy asked about the Prius, "Is that ONE OF THOSE!" To which I replied YUP!

BTW, I tried to break the tires loose pulling rapid circles, at 45degrees F, during our 3 rain of the season here in So. Oregon and the tires stuck like glue!

More to come!

Stay connected (as least to the road!)

Ken

 

Just had the MXV4s installed the other day. Aside from the place putting rim edge weights on and then popping the plastic trim back on so it gaped around the weights and thinking that was "okay" (made them fix that right away) what a huge difference! The car is immeasurably more pleasing to drive now, smoother and quieter and the mileage has picked up a little. Money well spent.

 

the OEM's really do sound bad and I had my vsc light up too!!
So I just put on some Assurance Comfort Treds' after reading all your comments regarding OEM....my dealer didn't do anything but the tire company exchanged the Integrity with 7,000 miles on them so it wasn't a complete bust.....still $240 bottom line....which is still ridiculous to pay after just buying a new car!!!....where/who can I write/bitch to @ Toyoto??? since I had no luck with the dealer or Goodyear!!

all feed back is welcome.....maybe if enought of us complain, we'll get results....

 

Berkley!

I both screamed bloody murder (nicely of course!) to Toyota's Customer Care line, made them give me a case # and then called Goodyear. I worked thru Goodyear and they (at dealer cost) agreed to replace the Integritys with the Comfortreds (as the TripleTreds were to tall (1/2" taller which I was told by my tire guy was too much of a difference) for my 05 - DANG! 'Cause them TripleTreds sure have great customer (TireRack) & FWIW Consumer Reports great ratings. Oh well. The Comfortreds, while not be much quieter, sure grip wet, slushy and dry road quite well. Our temp's just started dipping into the low mid 30's and we've started having some snow, ice/black ice here and I haven't yet had a problem, but winter is still 6 weeks away!

Stay connected, enjoy the new feet on your Prius and SCREAM BLOODY MURDER TO TOYOTA for choosing a butt, dumb, terrible tire!!! Demand Better! Be Empassioned. Get Up, Stand Up!!!

Thanks, Ken

 

YES!!! SWO3ES!!! YES!!!

Enjoy your 'new' car!

Ken

 

Just the other day on a highway in our area (Denver Hwy 287 for those living around here) the guy in front of me decided he wasn't going to go through a light. He was gobbing off on his cell phone and I think he just looked up and saw yellow (didn't realise that the light had just turned yellow) and jammed on the brakes to a pretty quick stop. I was about 2 seconds behind him and had to get on the brakes pretty hard. Car skidded and veared right before I slowed down enough that I wasn't skidding anymore. Not real happy about that. Made me kinda glad I didn't increase the tyre pressure. I'm gonna cancel my warranty and buy it through PC. I'll take the money I've saved and get some new tyres. Any suggestions? I'm gonna look into the MXV4s since I've seen them mentioned here.