Tire Upgrade

I'm having them installed at the Toyota dealer I bought the Prius from. Also having a four wheel alignment done. They seem to have a knowledgeable service department, however it never hurts to mention those issues to them.

 

Sweet. I'll look forward to your experience.

 

Four nice new Yokohama Avid TRZ tires were installed on Friday.

Funny thing, they installed one of the tires inward side out even after I told my maintenance associate to make sure they were installed correctly. Oh well guess they don't install too many asymmetrical tires at my dealer. Good thing is they fixed it right away and about 15 minutes later I was on the road.

I only have about 200 miles, 38F/36R PSI, on them so this is just an initial impression review. It has been three years since the stock Integrity tires were new, but from what I remember of them the Avid TRZs feel much tighter and quite a bit stiffer than the Goodyear tires which was to be expected. Cornering response with the Avid's is much better with none of the sidewall compression I used to feel in tight turns. Braking response seem excellent, however I'm going to let the tires break in good before I really try testing stopping distance. I can’t comment on wet traction as it has hardly rained since install. These tires do seem to transmit a bit more road vibration into the steering column and driver seat; however I did not find it objectionable. Road noise and overall ride comfort were excellent but not quite ideal. I've resigned myself to the fact that the Prius will always be a bit of a stiff ride owing to design considerations.

According to the MFD mileage impact is currently around 2-3mpg. Some of this decrease can be accounted for by the decreased rotations per mile of the TRZs. I would expect the MPG difference to decrease a bit as the tires break in. With the terrain in Central Arkansas I've managed to average around 49mpg hwy and 46mpg city with my previous tires.

The only negative issue I've found with these tires is a tendency to get a little car weave when driving on grooved roads. There are only a few sections of highway around here that are grooved but the effect is the same on them all. This may have something to do with the TRZs diverse tread pattern especially for a 185 width tire. Hopefully the tread will settle in once I've put some more miles on it. I never felt a loss of control with this effect, but I did feel the need to steer a bit more to counter the effect.

Thus far I'm pleased with my purchase and look forward to seeing how these tires do once they've got some more miles on them.

 

4 new Bridgestone Ecopia 16's rolling last night. Smooth quite & stable was the 1st report. 40mph gusts last night. 42f/40r.

 

Well, my turn...

Just went to get a LOF and tire rotation (first time since back in SoCal). Store would not rotate the tires due to "excessive wear on outside and inside edges. CA law was what I was quoted..They now have about 38k on them. They are Michelin HydroEdge, purchased when my 05, pkg9 Prius was only a few months old...

In a recent post, I indicated that "it looks like I'd get about 40k more" out of them. I neglected to factor in the edges of the tire. Wow, was I wrong. I suppose I should have checked more posts about tire wear. Especially tire edges. For some reason I took this wear to be "normal".

In retrospect, my earlier post reflected poor wet handling of the HEs. Duh. I nearly lost it on the interstate near Memphis when I encountered standing water in my lane at about 45mph (65mph limit). It was raining so I was slowing down anyway. If the tire can't sipe water away from the center, this would be expected. Another "duh" for me. Had I totally lost control, this might be very different post.

Cut to chase, so to speak. I have an appt with Mossy Toyota here in the San Diego area first thing in the morning. I'll post the results of that meeting. Any experiences with this dealer?

Wow. When I closely inspected the edges of all four of my tires today, it looks like they all have been under-inflated badly. I check the pressure every two weeks or so religiously and have used several tire gauges. This is why I thought this was "normal" wear. Alignment was checked just prior to my last cross-country drive and was found to be in spec. These tires have NEVER been under-inflated.

I called Michelin and was offered a 25% break on a new set. "No way.", said I thinking that it was tire issue alone.

The way the wear presents itself looks like it turns the edge sipes into edge-dams. Actually blocking the water path to the outside of the tire. This could explain the poor wet performance I had noticed.

Lesson learned: Check PC posts more carefully. You guys are great!!

With MUCHO respect,

PDP

 

PDP, what psi are you running your HydroEdges? I'm running my Integreties at 50/48 and they still wore out first on the outer edges.

PA P

 

Pretty interesting reading all these posts on wheel and tire sizes. Seems like many have tried different size tires on OEM wheels and some have gone to 16 inch aftermarket wheels or eventually bought the Touring Package when it became available.

We, on the other hand, with less than 2 months on the GY Integrity tires, were already looking at replacements for our '05 Prius. What sealed the deal was a trip from Maine to Florida. Highway travel was wiggly at best and rain performance was awful. While in Florida, I set out to see if I could get rid of the OEM rubber. On an internet journey, I cruised to Toyota in Germany, and found out that their Prius was equipped with nice looking 16 inch wheels and 4 disk brakes instead of our disk/drum set up. Americans shorted again!

Found a shop near Orlando that was willing to find out with me, what offsets and widths would actually fit this car. They had not had a Prius in their shop yet. After a few different rims were tried, I ended up buying a fairly inexpensive set of Motegi MR7 wheels with a 42 or 43mm offset. We looked at the tires and sizes available and after some lengthy discussion, settled on 205/55 16 GY TripleTreds, that I believe had been recently introduced in early 05?

Instant, night and day improvement in driveability. The Prius became stable and quite linear down the highway. Gone was the inability to set the car into a single smooth radius after initiating a turn. I had been enjoying getting great fuel mileage, but now I was actually enjoying the drive. Plus, our Prius now had a set of wheels and tires that actually filled the wheel wells and were set flush with the body. Above all, we had a car that didn't scare us in the rain or cross winds.

Experimented with tire pressures and settled on 42/40 psi and was able to achieve great mileage. I normally get 52-56 MPG in Summer and my wife usually achieves 50 to 52 for the most part. We don't drive the Prius when the roads are snow covered and salted in Winter. We have an old used Saturn SW2 that we are sacrificing to the Winter Salt Gods.

When we get a dry period and the roads become clear, we do drive it. Temperatures in the teens and 20s allow 46 to 48 MPG, while I see 44 to 47 MPG on the screen after my wife drives it. A real road terror, no doubt! Under ideal conditions in the warmer seasons, I have averaged near 60 MPG on local errands. Much of our driving is done on rural roads, some hills and not a lot of city travel. So I don't think that the larger wheel/tire combo has done much to mileage.

The TripleTreds got noisy toward the end of their lives and the Prius cooked a set when a slight bind in the rear passenger side drum brake/hub developed. Did not show up until the tires started to cup and get really noisy on that side. While I was rotating the wheel, I happened to turn the drum and noticed the three slight binds on each rotation in the same place. With the wheel mounted, the innertia did not allow the binding to be felt as it was spun by hand.

Anyone still on the OEM Integrity tire should check out the other tires that are available for the Prius, unless your driving is limited to slow city crawls. Mine were gone in less than 5k miles. Best thing I did for this car. I'll be looking at the new Bridgestone Ecopias this summer if 205/55 16s are available.

Sorry about the length of the post, but I wanted to relate our experience with this set up.

 

My Integrities are starting to wear out as well on the edges. Nearly 20,000 miles on my 2008 Package 2. What do ya'll think of the BF Goodrich Traction T/A T-Rated? $66 a tire at Tirerack doesnt seem too bad, and the last set of BFG's were on my Tundra and lasted 30k with heavy offroad use.

 

I'm using the Michelin Primacy MXV4's here in Southern California and they're great! Much quieter than the Integrities and a much better ride as well. The difference between the two tires is astounding. America's Tire Store will give you a great price as well and match any other dealer, even Costco.

 

just replaced mine last week. GY factory ones made it to 40,082 and just hit the warning marks. im so glad there off. replaced them with BF comp pro.($320.00)
my car can launch faster now (no track light:cheer2
turns great and doesnt feel like it wants to drift into turns

I HATE NEW TIRES on these cars. i reset my mpg when they were installed. from 57 to 42. slowly the mpg is going up.

werd thing did happen, its been cold and raining all day long here. my mpg started at 40.1 and is now at 42.2 (current od is at 41,500)drove 60 miles on side streets with stop lights. i guess the tires like the rain or there loosing that new thing.

 

Two years later.... and your post is still very helpful! I can't help but wonder if there are any changes or updates?

 

Stock tyres in Europe are 195/55/16 well in UK at least but lots of us are going for 205/55/16 or even 215/45/17 with aftermarket 17" inch rims

 

I just hit 30k, and I am almost down to my tire bars. I am going to Costco today to check out tires. I saw the other thread about the BF Goodrich Traction T/A's. One thing he didn't mention was MPG's after the new tires....

 

75000 km on my car. Perhaps 15000-20000 of that or so was on snow tires.

Original stock tires in the front, newer but stock tires on the rear. Front tires must be replaced now. (Actually, they probably should have been replaced a while ago.) Rear tires still have lots of tread on them. (I got 2 new tires because somebody stuck a pin in one of them a couple of years ago.)

Get 4 new tires, or just two?

I live in Toronto, and want all seasons. I have decided I don't want snow tires alternating with summer tires. Most of the time Toronto has no snow, and I don't like snow tires on pavement.

Oh and what are the most popular in this thread? Something like these?

Goodyear Assurance ComforTred
Goodyear Assurance TripleTred
Michelin HydroEdge

I think I'd prefer non-directional threads, for ease of rotation.

How to calculate the math with regards to tire sizing? I want to keep the same rims. Sorry if it's already been mentioned, but I haven't read the entire 40 pages of the thread. If you could point me to the pertinent posts that'd be great. Or should I just specify 195/60R15 and be done with it?

 

This weekend I had Installed 4 new Bridgestone Ecopia 100's Stock size. From the 50 or so miles I have put on them, they seem awesome, compared to the Integities, granted it has been 40 thousand ago that Prius had new skins, but I donot remember them being this quiet. Just a note, if you get new tires, check to make sure they have at least the posted pressure. I run 2 over front and rear. After I run a tank through, I will post again

 

Is that 2 psi over the door jam recommendation or over the sidewall max?

I'm running my Fuel Max's 2 psi over the sidewall max and they also seem very quiet.

PA P

 

Maybe he meant 2psi higher in the front than the rear?

I run 5psi/3psi higher than sidewall max (47psi) on my Nokians. I like the stiffer handling and the lower rolling resistance.

 

I just put 8000 miles on my hydroedge tires, notice small increase in mpg and somewhat nosier on dry day and much noisier on wet days. This is compared to the factory tires.

 

So, bottom line: if you were going to replace the OEM tires on your 2008 today, what would you choose for a Prius in the Northeast, where snow, ice and hills are a factor? I'm mulling some choices but don't really have a favorite and need to make a decision very soon.
Thanks!