Please help me choose a tire!

[CBarr31]

My 2006 Prius was 2 years old on 3/28/08 and currently has 124,998 miles so yeah I drive A LOT.

My stock integreties lasted 76,480 miles and I ran them at 36 PSI the whole way around. One thing that is a must is to rotate them frequently and get a 4-Wheel Alignment check every 10-15,000 miles.

I rotate my tires every oil change at 5,000 miles and get my alignment checked every 3rd oil change. When you get you alignment check asked for the computer printout for your records. They usually show all four tires with something highlighted in red when it was out of alignment and now in green being in alignment. Without the printout you don't really know what was in and what was out.

If you keep these records and say your right front is always "out of alignment" it could be you hit a common pot hole on that side or something is wrong with the caster or something else with the tire. So, keep or at least look at your alignment records.

Now, why do you need to do alignment checks so often? No, I don't work for Toyota. Prii are setup to be as low profile and as aerodynamic as possible. Which translates into being very suspectible to being thrown out of alignment by hitting curbs, large pot holes, or other "bumps" in the road.

As a matter of fact you don't even have to hit anything to throw them out of alignment. When my fiancee bought her 2007 Prius Touring Edition I made them check the alignment on it and swap out the Integrities before we bought it. The car had 6 miles on it at the dealership and BOTH front tires were out of alignment.

We talked to a couple of people and they said "Yeah, it's a good idea to always to have any new car's alignment checked when you buy it. They have a tendency to get jerked around on the haulers. Especially the Prii."

Now, onto tires. After doing much research on this website, tirerack.com and others. I went with Michelin Harmony's and went up in size to the 195/60R over the stock 185/65R. I did notice a slight mileage hit but the tire is FAR superior to the stock in all aspects, will last FOREVER and is much much more stable in crosswinds because of the extra width.

On my finacee's touring edition, we had them also put on Michelin Harmony tires and upped them to the 205/60R size. Her Prius is even more stable than mine but has taken even more of a mileage hit. The Touring Editions simply can't run as well as the "Standard" Prius in my opinion. And she doesn't have as much practice maximizing fuel mileage as I do.

I have to keep track of my mileage for work so know exactly that I have got 47.92 MPG over that 125,000 miles. Now that I have driven in "Summer" conditions I've found that the new tire is the equal of the stock tires in MPG. The MPG "hit" I mentioned above is gone.

My fiancee's touring is averging around 44 MPG.

Well, that is my $0.02 worth. I hope it helps someone out there in Prii Land

[havanese_boy]

I have a 05 with the original tires...right now I avg 48.1 mpg, if I go with the GY TT 190/60/15 what kind of hit will I see with mpg?

[JamesWyatt]

Originally Posted by havanese_boy

I have a 05 with the original tires...right now I avg 48.1 mpg, if I go with the GY TT 190/60/15 what kind of hit will I see with mpg?

The Prius is not the world's best handling car anyway, and the biggest difference will come from getting good tires, not from going from 185 to 190.

I can't comment on the TTs, but I put on the GY Comfortreds in 190 and took a pretty big hit. About 8 mpg.

Discount Tire was kind enough to give me full credit even after 4500 miles to switch to a set of Michelin Primacy in the original 185 size. I'm waiting on them to be shipped here...

[havanese_boy]

Originally Posted by JamesWyatt

I can't comment on the TTs, but I put on the GY Comfortreds in 190 and took a pretty big hit. About 8 mpg.

8 mpg? wow...that's not acceptable.

Anyone else have a comment about mpg?

[hill]

Originally Posted by JuliaL

Thanks, Bruce! I completely forgot that Sears does auto work. They definitely have the best deal on these. I can get the tires for $615 out the door, and a $40 rebate on top of that.

In case anyone is curious, here's how it breaks down:
$97.81/tire
$2/tire disposal fee
$3/valve stem
$10/tire balancing
$10/tire road hazard
$70 alignment

I was pleased to learn that Sears does lifetime tire rotations for free. A nice benefit.

Sounds like people are generally in agreement that TT's are a good choice in the 195/60/15 size. I think I'll go ahead and order them, since it's too much of a headache trying to do more research in order to save a few bucks.

Free rotations are part of most all tire businesses now days. Big O, Sears, Costco etc. As for tires? There are 3 or more Michelin owners satisfied for evey GoodYear happy owner. Do a search on PC & you'll find a LOT (including yours truely) of dissatisfied GoodYear people. Costco has a great sale at least once a year. The michelin hydroedg's we bought (after our GoodYears wore out prematurly) have a 90,000 mile warranty! So even if you have to pay a tad more, they're way worth it. We have about 50K miles on ours and you can hardly tell they've been worn. Good luck!

[richard schumacher]

Originally Posted by havanese_boy

8 mpg? wow...that's not acceptable. Anyone else have a comment about mpg?

"8 MPG" given as a *difference* is meaningless. Did he go from 64 MPG down to 56 MPG? Or did he go from 38 MPG down to 30? There's a huge difference between those two hypotheticals in how much more fuel is used, and there's no way to know by quoting only an MPG difference. Fuel economy should be given as liters/100 km or gallons/100 miles, because then differences are immediately meaningful.

64 MPG = 1.563 gal/100mi
56 MPG = 1.786
38 MPG = 2.632
30 MPG = 3.333

Then, if someone says they lost 0.223 or 0.701 we know exactly how bad the hit was.

(ObOffTopicRant: Isn't it wonderful that this forum software provides four dozen different kinds of smilies, yet there is no obvious way to insert a tab or to otherwise preserve a fixed amount of whitespace in a line?)

[havanese_boy]

Originally Posted by hill

The michelin hydroedg's we bought

Did you get the hydro in 185 or 190....

[hill]

I had Costco put the same size on as the original (nearly bald at 14K miles) GoodYear OEM's ... but I don't remember what that is w/o going out to the car.

[ctbering]

Originally Posted by Boo

Hi Julia,

Welcome to PriusChat.

There are many good all season tires out there.

Personally, I like the Goodyear Assurance TripleTreds a lot. So much so that I've had the TTs on three different cars now. They're the top rated passenger all season tire of Consumer Reports, TireRack.com, and TireRack.com's customers. I think you'll be hard pressed to find a better, all around, passenger, all season tire out there for less than $100.

As to tire size, I recommend going with a wider tread size like 195/60/15. You'll get better and safer handling and braking. For instance, when Consumer Reports tested the Standard Prius with its OEM 185/65/15 tires, it found that its 60-0 mph braking distances were a little subpar -- it ranked only in the 30th percentile of the approximately 270 current model cars tested by Consumer Reports. But when Consumer Reports tested the Touring Prius with its wider OEM 195 width tires, it found the Touring's braking to be very good -- its 60-0 mph braking distances were 10 feet shorter than those of the Standard Prius. I think that the Touring's much shorter braking distances are largely attributable to its wider OEM 195 width tires.

Tom,
Thanks for the great recommendation. I have almost 3300 miles on my car and thought I should be ok with tires for the next three years with tires but after seeing these posts on the OEM 185/65/15 Toyota installs on its new cars I am preparing to buy another set of tires at the first sign of traction problems. I think the Tire Rack website is really a great referral, as is your recommendation for the wider tires for the Standard Prius. I originally planned to use Costco and buy Michellins but saw they don't install wider tires. I am real disappointed in Toyota using these tires. All of my previous five new Toyotas had tires that lasted anywhere from 35-50 K depending on where I was living. Terry

[mingoglia]

Originally Posted by ctbering

Tom,
Thanks for the great recommendation. I have almost 3300 miles on my car and thought I should be ok with tires for the next three years with tires but after seeing these posts on the OEM 185/65/15 Toyota installs on its new cars I am preparing to buy another set of tires at the first sign of traction problems. I think the Tire Rack website is really a great referral, as is your recommendation for the wider tires for the Standard Prius. I originally planned to use Costco and buy Michellins but saw they don't install wider tires. I am real disappointed in Toyota using these tires. All of my previous five new Toyotas had tires that lasted anywhere from 35-50 K depending on where I was living. Terry

For those reading this thread keep in mind the stock Integrities work well in the Southwest where we don't have much "weather". Yeah, I'm sure a different tire may reduce the effect of wind at speed, but other than that they seem to be a decent tire with the best fuel economy. I have 19,000 miles on mine and have run 42/40 from the moment I bought my '08 (well, I adjusted it at home the same day and only live about a mile from the dealership). My tires could almost be put back on the shelf and sold as new and I'm quite happy with them. Let me reiterate that I live in a dry climate and have never driven with them in the snow.