Low Rolling Resistance replacement tires: Current List

Deleted, OT

 

This might be a dumb question, which isn't necessarily a new thing for me, but is there such a thing as an LRR Winter Tire? I would imagine that's kind of counter intuitive, though. Only reason I asked, is that my winter tires probably only have 1 more year left on them, and that might be pushing them a little. I've been very happy with their performance over the 2 years I've used them. I did get my TireRack winter tire catalog a couple weeks ago, but clearly rolling resistance isn't part of the information.

 

I haven't heard of them but that's a good question. There should be an "LRRW" classification for winter tires so people could pick the easiest rolling winter tires, even if they never come close to a LRR summer tire.

 

Nothing dumb about asking for winter LRR tires but why not look at the tires in the first post of this thread?

Any tire marked "Green X" is LRR. And F8L put it under a category called Ice & Snow in a thread about LRR tires. Is that not obviously winter LRR enough?

Another option would be to go to tirerack, search for a tiresize, turn off Summer tires, turn off All-Season Tires, turn off Light truck tires, and then click show LRR only.

Doing that for 195/65/15 gives us the tire F8L listed and one more making the short list

Michelin X-Ice Xi2 w/ Green X

Pirelli Winter 210 Snowcontrol Serie II

There aren't a ton of choices for Winter LRR tires but they aren't hiding either.

And If for some reason you don't like the actual LRR "winter" choices you could turn on the All-season choices and sort by winter performance and look at these as well.

Michelin Energy Saver A/S with Green X

and if you still didn't find what you wanted you could consider that the Hankook Optimo H727 isn't officially LRR but only used a little over 1% more gas than the Michelin HydroEdge Green X which is LRR so if it isn't LRR it's darn close. And the Optimo H727 has good ratings for winter use so they are worthy of mention here.

So that's at least 4 choices for low rolling resistance winter/winterish tires.

 

There could easily be a reason why I posed it in the thread, but that's OK, I'll let the snide comments roll off. Obviously, nothing easy to access has ever slipped past you in your life, to feel a need to make such comments. My bad.

OTOH, thank you for posting the tires in your reply. Unfortunately, while I'm at work and thought of that, I couldn't easily get to the information.

 

I was surprised when I got another email reply from Michelin regarding my questions concerning my MXV4's LRR rating and loss of mpg.

We have received your latest email with additional questions. New tires at full tread will not register the same as worn tires with very little tread. Your email states that in 4,000 miles, you have already noticed an improvement. This improvement will continue throughout the life of your tires. Also, related to the Green X marking, this could be something as simple as the country in which your tires were manufactured, or if the plant of manufacture has adapted the Green X sidewall marking into their manufacturing process.

I still am not sure whether my 195/65R15 tires are truly LRR or not. This guy is saying that they are

 

I was going for mildly snarky in a friendly way. If I came across as going over the line from friendly to obnoxious then I truly owe you an apology.

I've made more mistakes in the last 4 days than I kept track of so you missing one small section of a very long winded post in a long winded thread is definitely smaller than the worst of my mistakes this week.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

 

Just threw on 4 Kumo eco solus KR22s ($81/ea - local Goodyear - $73 Tirerack without shipping).

Running 42/44 PSI - old tires were getting to the cord - so they were dead. They were at 44 all around and were very noisy (stock BF Goodrich) - they made it 43K before being put out to pasture.

The KR22s have a noticeably softer ride (a good thing) at pressure, and are far quieter. Don't have enough miles on them to really notice any difference in mileage (i've always gotten around 48, and these are doing the same in their limited use). They're rated to 100K - if they come close, I'll be more than happy. As it stands, I think they're better than the stock Prius tires - so it's a win win...

 

Also just placed a deposit for this same tire at the local DiscountTire. They matched the tire price with TireRack and their out the door after tax and shipping was $413 after tax. I was expecting to pay closer to $430. Seems they are coming from Texas so it will be a little while. Not sure why, but there seems to be a general lack of certain LRR tires in stock at various places in this size right now.

 

834 195/65/15 Michelin Primacy MXV4#

I installed these tires on my car about 5 weeks and 5 tanks of gas ago. These did not have the green x marking. My mpg has decreased and average of 4 mpg since the new tires. These are not LRR tires but they are much better and safer in the rain.

 

Good info, thanks for posting it, but it'll take until next summer to give you solid numbers.

New tires give worse MPG for several reasons and we are going into colder weather so until you put a few thousand miles on them and then go through a warm spell you won't see the best MPG your new tires can do.

 

I think what we should do is start a new (hopefully sticky) thread for Fuelly-using members to note their ten-tank mileage figures before and after tire changes. That's the only way we can create a reasonable data set which accurately demonstrates the before and after effects of a given tire change.


I have 32,000 miles on my 2010 Prius and the tires look perfectly good, so without somebody wasting an enormous sum of time and money, the best solution is to put the power of the Internet to work for us.

 

Tires fitted today. It's like renting a car now, you have to turn down the various upcharges like siping, tpms, wiper blades and such. They were very insistent on the TPMS repair and offered to knock the price down from $10 a tire to $5 and couldn't believe that I was refusing. Anyway, they honored the original price. Tires seem good so far. Tread is certainly deeper, so that should help for rain and snow.

 

To me, rebuilding the TPMS sensor (replacing the rubber seals) is no different than installing new valve stems on old-school wheels. It's a service that should be done at every tire replacement.

 

The consensus on the web is that you are better of not rebuilding the TPMS sensor and save that money for replacing the sensor when the battery gets low.

Why pay $10 a TPMS to change a seal when a new TPMS is $30 and you'll have to do that later as well?

The answer to that depends partly on how often you change tires. If you go through a set of tires every year going for the 299,999+ club then you'd be wasting money to do it every time if the TPMS battery will last 7 to 10 years and the seal is good for anything more than a year (and it should be good for 5 years at a minimum). Maybe for someone changing tires that often they could "rebuild" TPMS every 4th year and replace the sensor at the 7 or 8 year mark? But you could just as easily replace the TPMS sensor at the 6 year mark instead.

If you are like me and buy used cars and drive very little, I would probably keep a single set of aftermarket tires longer than the OEM TPMS sensor would last. No sense tearing the tire off the rim to replace a seal. Eventually I'll just go to tires without TPMS sensor or I'll put aftermarket replacement TPMS sensors in when the first one fails.

So what about the in between driver that isn't going for the 299,999+ club and doesn't keep a set of tires for 5+ years. Say your tires last you 3 years. If you "rebuilt" the TPMS at the 3 and 6 year marks you've paid 2/3 the cost of replacing the TPMS, probably better off to just replace the TPMS sensors at the 6 year mark if you want to be proactive.

And if you don't want to be proactive in the blind sense get your tire person to show you the sensors. If the rubber seal is cracking make the decision to replace the seal or buy new sensors. If it looks OK (no cracking) have them put it back in and save the money for when there is a problem.

 

You are correct that rubber degrades more with time than miles, so your example of a high mileage driver does make sense. I think many of us are so used to changing those valve stems with each set of tires (since they were often free) that we failed to realize that it was probably a waste of money. However, you cannot check the condition of the seals on the TPMS because the washers used to seal the assembly to the wheel are one-time use crush washers.

 

If you are changing your tires one time use crush washers aren't affected? So you could change tires without rebuilding and be OK but you can't visually inspect?

 

I wonder what the failure rate might be for re-using a crush washer might be. I think the last time I looked, TPMS prices were much higher than $30 each, unless you get them off ebay and likely used at that point. They are about $300 for a set of 4 new off TireRack, which is probably close to what a dealer charges for them.

I think the TPMS kits were around $5 per tire the last time I needed them, which isn't terrible. I'd hate to re-use some pieces, have it fail, then have to worry about losing pressure, getting to a tire shop, etc. Although, I'm not too well versed in the rate of failure one might expect re-using the parts, but for something that cheap compared to the cost of tires, might as well just replace them. I bet one could get them online cheaper, but I doubt it'd be much cheaper.

 

If you are only replacing the tires then the TPMS sensors are not removed from the wheels. The valve stem cores will be removed and reinstalled in order to provide a strong enough air flow to seat the tire bead, but the sensor will not be removed from the wheel.

As far as I know, there’s no way to inspect the condition of the rubber seal since the seal is on the underside of the sensor and is mounted flush against the wheel.

When I was getting new tires last night, the price for a TPMS rebuild kit was $4.00. I did not have my sensors rebuilt since my car is only four months old. However, I have seen leaks from sensors on a 3 yr old GTI and a 4 yr old Prius before.

 

Good job! Thanks for the effort!

Just a thought, does it make the choice easier by adding a poll?