Low Rolling Resistance replacement tires: Current List

I bought Michelin a/s energy saver tires last week. WOW. What a difference in my mpg. My wife drives it and has been getting around 35ish mpg. This past week it was 41mpg. I drove it today on the highway since the new tires. Going I got 70 mph ( yes there were a few down hills). Anyway. Round trip on highway was 47 mpg. ( according to my console). I usually have been getting low 40 to upper 30's. Wish I bought these last year.


iPhone ?

 

Not sure why my pictures are posting twice.

 

Looks like it's been about a year with no additional responses and I see no answer to my question. My 2013 needs new tires soon at about 37,000 miles (Goodyear Assurance). Sam's Club is out of stock on my first choice, Michelin Energy Savers, but they have two choices (both out of stock) and I have only seen discussion of the AS tire. They have one Michelin Energy Saver 195/65R15 91H that does not indicate all season. It's $139.22 each, and has the following rating:
Treadwear: 400
Traction A
Temperature: A.

The second is the AS all season,P195/65R15 89T. It's $113.02 each and has the following rating:
Treadwear: 480
Traction A
Temperature: B


So, there are two Michelin Energy Saver tires out there. The one with a lower treadwear rating is about $26.00 more expensive. Any reason to even consider that one (unless you live in a very hot place for the better temperature rating)? Thanks.

I posted this question first attached to an old question in another section.

 

That's the "summer" variation of Energy Saver, the initial iteration. Wonder too: how old are those? All tires have a four digit number now. It's first two digits are week of year, and second two are year. For example: 0315 are made in jan of 2015.

I'm always reluctant to go chasing something that's really hard to find, maybe look at the competition?

 

Ordered a set of Michelin Energy Saver A/S 195/65R/15 today from Costco that will be installed later in the week.

Currently have Yoko Avid 33S and have been averaging 56.4 MPG over 6500 miles. The 33S attract nails - All 4 had at least 1 nail needing puncture fixed or tire replaced.

Will be interesting to see the MPG with the Energy Savers A/S.

 

I went to Costco and they told me Michelin is out of stock on the Energy Saver AS tire, but Costco's local supplier showed 34 in stock. I bought 4 of them and the cost was $498.15, that is out the door installed price. It also includes road hazard ins. I'm running on the OEM Avids and they are a shade above being illegal tread acording to the Toyta Dealership. Costco is going to call me when they get the tires, I'll make an appointment to have them installed. I'll keep this thread posted on how the tires perform.

I may be making a trip to Florida from SoCal to see relatives, if so that will be around a 5200 mile round trip, so that will be a very good Hwy mileage test.

 

Keep us posted Shakeum. We would like your opinion on the Mich. Energy savers. You do well with the original, will be interested in new tires results. Hal

 

I have 52,000 miles on my Defenders and they're getting really noisy, might go with something else next time, maybe the Ecopias.

 

The Michelin Energy Saver "AS" tire is the most fuel efficient tire you can buy in the U.S. for the Prius. If anyone
out there knows of a more fuel efficient tire out there in the U.S. please let us know.

We are on our 2nd set of Energy Saver AS tires (195x65x15) on our 2010 Prius. 2-3 mpg increase over factory Yoko Avid tires.
Nearly 70,000 miles on 1st set; 30,000 miles on 2nd set and still going strong. I keep all tires @ 44 psi (max. sidewall pressure)
and they wore and are wearing perfectly...

 

Tirerack has the Energy Saver A/S 195/65/15 on back order. I like them so much on my Prius I was going to grab a set with 4 new 15" rims for my Leaf.

I still may do so it just might take some calling around to see who has stock.

Worst case I put the : P205/65R16 instead which will cost me 3 pounds per tire more and 2-4 pounds per rim more depending on if I stick with the OEM rims or pick a lighter aftermarket.

Tire manufacturers sure don't make it easy to get the size and style tire you want when you are trying to go narrow tires with a larger diameter to correct the speedometer. They want to force wider tires with larger diameter.

Turns out the Leaf is worse than the Prius for over reporting speed due to RPM of the OEM tires. It's something like 1 to 2 percent for the Prius depending on the rim/tire choice but the Leaf is more like 3 to 4 percent off.

 

Maybe repeating myself, but: there's really no point to "correcting" the speedometer, it's legislated to read high. Going to larger OD tire's will through off your odometer, fwiw.

 

It's legislated to stupidity. I shouldn't have to guess the fudge factor from car to car I get in and drive.

My coworker and I have the exact same make/model/year car but different tires. If I drive his car instead of mine I'm not sure how accurate the speedometer is without doing research on tirerack.com before I drive it.

I have no problem when that is the difference between one car being accurate and the other being off by 1 mph.

I do have a problem when that means one may be off by 2 mph and the other is off by 4 mph.

I hate driving a car at what I think is the speed limit only to find out later I was doing 4 under.

edit: fwiw I found out you can change the speedometer +- 2.5% using the MFD on the Leaf. It was set at 0% and I just adjusted it in software by 2.5%. That should get rid of the worst of the inaccuracy and get it back to a reasonable fudge factor.

It also negates my strong desire to buy a different outer diameter tire. Now I can just buy one with better rolling resistance and not even think about radical changes.

 

There are two A/S tires, Michelin A/S and Premier A/S. I assume everyone is talking about the former. But how about the latter? tirerack reviews praise the premier as the top of the line though they cost more than the continental purecontact.
I called Costco because they are running promotion on the Michelin and they will void the warranty if I do an alignment, fail to maintain air pressure, fail to rotate, etc. So many but's which Sears does not care about. Whats your take on Costco strict policy?

Do you recommend alignment for a set of new 4 tires?

 

Working backwards:

I wouldn't get alignment with new set of tires.

Costco's just using over-the-phone scare tactics. You can rotate your own tires, monitor inflation. Probably what you hear depends a lot on who picks up the phone.

There seems to be a typo in your first sentence: did you mean to "Michelin Energy Saver A/S and Premier A/S"? My largely uninformed take: Energy Saver has the edge in LRR, Premier for handling, grip, braking.

 

I think you are confused using the term "Michelin A/S". There are at least 6 tires Michelin makes that have the A/S at the end of the name. I'll ignore the "Michelin Pilot Sport A/S" family for the rest of this post as you apparently haven't seen those 4 tire names yet.

There is a "Michelin Energy Saver A/S" and a "Michelin Premier A/S"

The Premier A/S has better cornering and braking.

The Energy Saver A/S has better efficiency, lower rolling resistance (aka better MPGs)

How about if I copy the tirerack ratings here (note they are inexact based on user reviews), Energy Saver on the Left, Premier on the right.

7.5 9.4 Hydroplaning Resistance
7.3 9.5 Wet Traction
7.7 8.7 Cornering Stability
8.4 9.2 Dry Traction
8.1 8.7 Steering Response
5.7 8.6 Light Snow Traction
4.6 8.0 Deep Snow Traction
4.7 8.1 Ice Traction
8.3 9.4 Ride Quality
7.7 8.8 Noise
8.0 9.3 Treadwear

If you want better traction the Premier A/S are better but you'll pay a price in MPG.

If you want better MPG the Energy Saver A/S are better but you pay a price in traction.

I live in the south and snow/ice traction aren't an issue to me. Heck I drive in the snow when it snows here for the fun of it.

But if you live somewhere that is snows often enough that you no longer think of it as fun to drive in the snow then you might want something with better cold weather handling.

 

Quick Update - we seeing improvement from 56.4 mpg (Yoko Avid 33S) to 58.9 mpg (over 950 miles driven on new tires) since installing the Michelin Energy Saver A/S.

 

I am looking at putting 4, Michelin Energy Saver A/S 195/65/15 on my 2012 Prius. These will be the 1st replacement tires since the car was new. I cannot help but notice that there is no mileage warranty on this particular size tire. Only "(Damaged/Defective Only)" Why is this when the same tire in other widths are guaranteed for 65K miles? This is quite confusing. I would also like to know if any of you who have this tire on your Prius notice less noise. The original tires were quite noisy and although hugher mileage is very important, blowing out my stereo speakers to compensate for the noise is completdly unacceptable.
For $9.00/tire Wal-Mart offers "Lifetime Spin Balance, Rotation and Valve Stems." Perhaps the small investment would be worth it considering there is no mileage guarantee? You tell me. I am the noobee around these parts.---- Thank you all, in advance.

 

Well first question is what was your OEM tire? Toyota uses at least 5 that I know of.

for 195/65/15

Goodyear Assurance Fuelmax (noisier than the ecopia EP20s)
Bridgestone Ecopia EP20 (quieter than the assurance fuelmax, but still noisy)
Yokohama Avid S33D (generally disliked on priuschat)

and pretty much all 3 are considered crap by any serious driving enthusiast.

for 215/45/17

Bridgestone Turanza EL400-02 (noisier than the 15" tires and also crappy)
Toyo Proxes A20 (no tirerack ratings)


The Energy Saver A/S will be superior in every way to the OEM tires outside of possibly snow/ice traction if that even matters to you.

I can't speak to the mileage warranty but I haven't noticed any wear issues with mine running around 45 PSI.

edit: tirerack says the warranty is 6 Years / 65,000 Miles (S,T,H-rated only) 6 Years / 55,000 Miles (V-rated only), I'm not sure why you think there isn't a warranty on a specific size.

 

Our 17" came with Michelin Pilot HX MXM4. Just to add to the list. And the Energy Saver's don't come in that size (215/45R17). What comes next for us seems to vary, day-to-day lol. Right now, partially swayed by your report, I'm thinking the Premier A/S.

We've managed to do ok for mpg with the Pilots, can't see the Premier's being much different. Unless the Pilots were some custom batch, aiming for lower rolling resistance??

 

Energy Saver A/S comes in 215/50/17 which is just fine for the Prius, in fact it's a better size than the 215/45/17 you have. The RPMs are 845 vs 815 so it'll correct the speedometer by ~3.5%.

as for the Premier A/S you'd want the 205/50/17 which is 828 RPM.

recap on the tire sizes

215/45/17 845 rpm (speedometer will read high)
205/50/17 828 rpm (speedometer will read close to neutral, slightly high at high speeds)
215/50/17 815 rpm (speedometer will read neutral)

Three styles of tires, 3 tire sizes. Don't lock your search to a single tire size.