Hey everyone, I see lotsa Gen3's with aftermarket wheels. Doesn't that reduce some of the fuel efficiency? I believe it could potentially lower mileage but I'm sure there's different camps that believe otherwise but I can't find anything about this discussion. If not, then can has anyone put 18's on the rear and 17's up front and stiffening the front and middle frame? I know that's two different questions but someone's probably inquiring the same. Thanks, Gnarly Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
Width doesn't matter but circumference has to be within a half inch Ideally you would put on the lightest wheels with the smallest footprint
1/2" of the OEM width? For example, 16x7.5 can be replaced by a lighter wheel at 16x8? Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
Sorry, I meant to say. If oem is 16" then 17" is ok? Even though it's 1" more? How's this? SUMMER SALE ON MT13 15x8 16x8 17x8.5 18x9 4x114.3 4x100 5x114.3 5x100 Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
You can put wheels of whatever diameter you can fit, but you can't have different sizes (tire diameter) on front and back without freaking out the ABS sensors. The more/larger the openings in the wheels, the higher the drag. The wider the wheel/tire, the higher the drag. The closer the wheel face is to the edge of the fender, the more difference in drag the wheel design makes. The further the wheel and tire stick out from the body, the higher the drag. Completely closed wheel faces over stock wheels are worth 1-1.5mpg at 50mph on a Gen 3 Prius vs. the stock wheels without wheel covers.
An ordinary two-way ANOVA of the raw data reveals that the direction of travel (North or South) had a significant effect on the consumption (P=0.0269), but whether or not the wheels were covered had no significant effect (P=0.3690). Directly comparing the means, as the experimenter did in the original post, does not account for the variations within each measurement condition and yields no useful information.
