I have a 2016 model 2 and it’s time to replace the tires. Has about 45k on original tires and meat still on them but are starting to show dry rot from being 5-6 years old. I’m trying to decide if I want to keep LRR tires on the car, or do I just go with regular tires. How much of a fuel economy hit do the cars take with regular tires? How much more comfortable is the ride?
If you drive lots you can save a ton of money on MPG, especially if you boost tire pressure into the upper 40's... But if you're just putting around town and only fill your tank once or twice a month buying the cheapest tires is probably a better bargain. And not sure what you mean by "dry rot" as tires are not organic material and don't rot... Perhaps you mean oxidation?
Thanks for the replies! Dry rot an automotive term used when the rubber is drying out, turning hard, and cracking. I might just put regular tires on then. A soft comfy ride is more important to me than losing a few mpg.
"Regular" and "LRR" labels are very nebulous, often misapplied. Plug in your car stats on tire rack and see what's available, read the reviews.
Bisco nailed it. LRR tires are rather hard that's why they get good mileage at a ride sacrifice. I would rather have a nice soft quiet ride. I love Kumho tires. There cheap and ride so soft and nice for about 25000 miles lol. Tire rack will deliver right to your tire store.
For my money, the "LRR" stamp was mostly about tire manufacturers trying to create a new category to exploit for premium pricing, a way to get the buyer to think most of the competition wasn't appropriate for their eco-car. Guess what? A hybrid on "ordinary" tires is pretty comfortable and scores almost as well as the LRRs for fuel economy. I'm planning to put General RT43s on ours when the factory Goodyears wear out. This is due to past experience with the Generals on another lightweight hatchback. They really improved the comfort of our Hyundai and I hold the same expectation for them on our Toyota.
The G2 when new came with Goodyear Integrity's good god what a pos tire that was. Hard as a rock. I would imagine new Prius 2018 LRR tires are much better. I'm on my second set of Cooper's on my other car really nice riding tire and not that expensive.
We just replaced our 2019 Standard Prius's OEM Dunlop Enasave 01's (LRR tires) at 42kmi. and 4mm tread depth. They wore evenly, stopped well on wet roads, ride and noise were fine, and the car averaged ~ 57mpg (measured, it would have been higher except for two coast to coast trips at 80mph). Last week we replaced them with Michelin Defenders and saw a 18% mileage drop. A few percent is to be expected from the new rubber and tread depth, plus maybe 5-6% more because they aren't LRR, but this was a shock. The tire store will exchange them and we're considering either another set of Enasaves.
I had a similar experience, albeit in 17": went from Michelin Pilot HX MXM4 (came with car when new), to Michelin Primacy MXM4. The Primacy's say "Green-X" on the sidewall, but there was a significant drop in mpg. I opted to just be patient; mpg very gradually came back.
