thinking ahead to winter (wheels and tires)

Aren't there some Prius c with steel 15" rims and all-seasons, at one of the levels? Just get four of those rims, and snow tires in the OE size? Then the odometer should stay (roughly) the same, accurate. See if you can skip the TPMS and wheel covers, and you'll have a kosher snow tire setup.

 

It's a toss-up. I actually wonder why I've got snow tires sometimes, it's starting feel like a California suburb here, of late, global warming I guess.

Still, if you're getting temperatures below 7C (45F), traction will be better, even on bare roads, with snow tires, due to their softer and better gripping rubber. And with snow/ice, the aggressive tread and dense siping makes all the difference.

If you've got the storage space and wherewithal to swap the tires yourself, it affords you an opportunity to detail your nice alloy rims while they're off the car, and keeps them of the road in winter. And as long as your mileage is not so low that you need to replace tires due to age, they're not that much of an expense, you've got more tread depth to go through.

If you DON'T get TPMS, it's a lot less hassle. You can get the electronics to re-introduce the sensors with each swap, but the price is not trivial. It just get's my back up when the cost of a solution seems to outweigh the problem, I gave them a pass when getting snows.

The main downsides are extra rim expense, storage, and hassle.

 

Just put in your car info, On Costco or tirerack, it'll show what's available.

I went with Michelin X-Ice, very happy with them, mpg not bad either. They spend the vast majority of time on bare roads, work out fine.

One time I put them on, then about a week later asked my wife how they were doing: she'd forgotten the snows were on, lol.

 

Two problems:

1. It's very rare for seller to part with TPMS. They're easily transferable to whatever new rims he's getting, and his car "recognises" them. If he get's new TPMS, they will have to be initialized. And their cost rivals aftermarket alloy rims. Each. So, very rare event.

2. If you were to get TPMS from seller, your car won't recognize them. You'll need to get them initialized, which is somewhere between $50 and $100 through the dealership. Or you can read up, get the electronic equipment required, start doing it yourself. And the process needs to be repeated every time you swap between tire sets.

I think it's now legislated in the States, you're supposed to maintain TPMS all the time, regardless of what's on there. I don't believe it's the law in Canada as yet. I'd think you should be able to skirt the regulation for snow tires. Well, I'd hope so. If not it's going to cause an underground install business and/or a reluctance to get snow tires. The current Toyota iteration of TPMS is, in a word: onerous.

What I did was get four steel rims, with regular (non TPMS) valves. No level of Prius Hatchback has a steel rim: it was explained to me at one dealership that it's a "flagship" vehicle. I phoned a few more and one suggested a Corolla rim. They also suggested plain, open-ended galvanized lug nuts. That's the route I went, I think the rims through them were $70 apiece.

 

Rims don't come with TPMS sensors. Also, for fit I think your best bet is the Prius c steel rims. The only reason I mentioned Corolla rims is there's no steel rim option for the regular Prius.

It's a little presumptuous of me to keep suggesting steel rims; some go with aftermarket alloys. Still, steel rims, preferably stock Toyota rims, will be cheap, compatible, and have the snow tire "look".

 

Living in MI I absolutely believe in snow tires. I grew up in the Boston area some 50 years ago and also used snow tires then, I'm sold on them. My C2 came equipped with steel rims. I was able to obtain new snows mounted on new Scion steel rims on Ebay at a reasonable cost. I had my local tire dealer install TPM's. I wish I hadn't done that. Apparently the Toyota TPM system can only accept so many codes. Every changeover requires resetting the TPM system. Although done at no cost to me, the resetting usually has to be done several times to take, a pain in the rear. My advice get snows on steel rims and forget TPM sensors. I should add, however, that I worked as a semi-truck driver my whole 50 year working career. Even with working TPM's I check the air pressure in my tires weekly. If a person is unwilling to check his/her tire pressure on a fairly regular basis TPM's are a good idea. I've driven my C2 through 2 MI winters and have never even come close to getting stranded.

 

This was my first winter with my Prius v. I went to a local tire store and bought 4 steel rims, about $65/each. I took them to Costco, during their Michelin sale and bought 4 new Michelin X-Ice 3 tires and had them mounted, without TPMS. You'll just have to put up with the little annoying indicator on the dashboard for the few months you run without TPMS. When I swapped back to original tires, the TPMS light went out. My partner put the similar tires on his Prius C last winter. He had to go to work (41 miles each way) during one of the blizzards and didn't have any problems with the snow.

 

Check the price of the proper Toyota steel rims, you might be surprised.

 

Very good find, thanks! I've bookmarked this. In Canada I don't believe it's advance to this point. When I got my snows on rims, through a dealership in late 2010: the service writer quite humorously asked if I wanted TPMS sensors on the new rims, while not too subtly shaking his head.

One thing I can see this doing is advancing sales of "4 season tires", as replacement on the OEM rims (with the original TPMS sensors), as it becomes increasingly onerous to have snow tires on rims. The various scenarios put owners AND shops in a frustrating place.

Maybe there could be a legal argument in the courts: that the need for safety of decent snow tires at reasonable expense, without onerous and ongoing TPMS related expenses/hassles, outweighs the need to monitor tire pressures.

Or, that Toyota is responsible to design a system that does not have the current $ and hassle factor.

I like the latter, I'm not a luddite, like the safety factor of TPMS, but...

 

Very interesting link regarding TPMS in post #16, here:

thinking ahead to winter (wheels and tires) | PriusChat

I guess that thread is what got me in a lather.

 

for Mas I'd consider getting Nokians. They are all-season low rolling resistance tires which do well in snow. eNTYRE comes in 195/50R16. WRG3 unfortunately doesn't but 205/50R16 is +1.7% to Four stock and +0.4% to all other trim stock 175/65R15, close enough should not be a problem if you replace all 4.

 

That's the thing: mandatory TPMS, in particular implementations with high inititial and ongoing expenses, are discouraging sales of dedicated snow tires.