I am having difficulty finding a thread on tire recommendations for my 2002. I will be on my 4th set of tires (85000 miles) and want to replace them with something different than the OEMs. I see that it is possible to use 185/65/14 rather than the original 175/65/14, but is there already a discussion concerning which tires are best? Thanks!
There are only about 100 tire threads on here and I think I read through all of them. I just got a set of Michelin Defenders on mine a couple of days ago. I used TireRack.com and had a local place put them on for me. Too early to review them.
http://john1701a.com/prius/documents...de_classic.pdf look at page 13. I have a 2001 prius also and will be changing the tires soon since the original owner put the wrong size tires on this vehicle.
Having gone through a few different tires, we had EXCELLENT luck with Michelin Hydroedge. I felt that the vehicles handling greatly improved. We did lose about a 1-2 MPG. But we got 70,000 miles out of our first pair of Michelins. Granted, they were rated for 90,000. But Costco gave us about $20/tire discount on our next purchases. Which I think were GoodYears. These only lasted about 35,000 miles. So the next set of tires we went back to Michelin Hydroedge.
In the OEM size I would get the Michelin Defender. We don't know a lot about the mpg it provides but even if it is 1-2mpg worse than OEM the crazy high tread wear warranty should make this tire one of the lowest cost/mile to. The current champ is the Michelin Energy Saver A/S and following closely is the YOkohama AVID Ascend. I would chose any of these over the Hydroedge.
Thanks, my brother has the Michelin Energy Savers on his 2005 Prius. Would they be just as good on a 2002?
I have not seen a drop off in MPG with the Defenders, but I have done other things to the car so I can't say if all will have similar results.
Just one more question--on the Michelin website, it states that the Defender in the 175/65/14 has a max load @44psi of 1047. Wouldn't this be unsafe, as John's link says to be sure it can support 1102lbs.
I also noticed this at TireRack.com when you search for 2001 Prius. Important Notes: Tread patterns must often be tuned to accommodate different tire widths. While tires shipped will match your order's specifications, photos used only represent typical sizes. Vehicle comes OE with XL tires. SL will work at mfg. suggested pressure levels (35psi Front, 33psi Rear).
My 2001 Gen 1 came with a brand new set of "Primewell" (Indonesian ?) 82S tires. I bought a used alloy wheel on eBay and a fifth Primewell tire at one of the "usual suspects" retailers and had it mounted and balanced and then installed as the right rear tire (Primewells are uni-directional), and inflated to 42/40. The original right rear tire thereby became my full-size spare. The set is doing well, but I intentionally restrict this car to in-county driving; for out-of-county driving, which includes a mountain pass and two difficult climbs/descents, I use my 2012 gen 3.
Four years late to respond to that post, but for future readers' reference: you can see the relevant specifications and the math gone through here. TL;DR is there are two different safety standards you can try to meet, one the us Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard, or a more stringent one from the Tire and Rim Association, and you won't meet the stricter TRA standard (but neither do the tires Toyota originally sold on the car), but you do meet the FMVSS (as did the original tires, of course). It's possible Toyota spec'd XL tires for reasons other than load capacity, such as sidewall stiffness. It also matters whether your tire size has a letter P in front or not. The differences between P-metric and Euro-metric ratings are not just different numbers, but entirely different schemes for what the numbers mean, as also explained in that linked post and following. -Chap
