Goodyear Comfortreds Ain't All That

[gil123]

Sorry to start yet another replacement tire thread and sorry to knock the trend of folks who sing the praises of the Goodyear Comfortreds as a great replacement tire, but I wanted to give my contrarian view.

I replaced the stock Integrity tires shortly after I got my 2005 Prius. Chose the GYCT largely based on positive info on this site and TireRack.

My observations are:

Yes they were an improvement over the stock tires but that's not saying much.

They were pretty decent in snow and rain the first year or so, and then went downhill quickly.

I would say I got no more than 15-20k of decent traction from them and the last 20k have been miserable on anything other than dry pavement. At 42k (about half their rated life) they are useless and unsafe and I am about to replace them with Michelin Primacy MXVs. If anything whatsoever falls from the sky, they slip and traction control comes on frequently--- and I am not an aggressive driver.

The other comment I will make is more general and may apply to other tires. Part of the reason for the premature wear seems to be consistent with overinflation. I never put more than 38 rear and 40 front (and I know some of you go even higher), and was religious about maintaining PSI. I rotated and aligned on a regular basis.

The two strips of rubber down the middle of the tire are worn totally smooth, yet there is tread left on the outer and inner edges. Clearly follows the wear pattern of overinflated tires, even though I was only going a few PSI above Toyota recommendations.

So my lessons learned and 2 cents for what they are worth is:

I would not but the GYCT again.

Whatever tire I use on this car, I will stick to the factory PSI because the GYCT tires cannot tolerate the higher inflation rates recommended on this site. If there is a marginal mileage gain from overinflation, it is more than offset by cutting half the life from the tires. I would prefer a little extra traction, safety and tire life than be slipping and sliding to squeeeze out that extra MPG.

[PriusSport]

The Goodyear manager told me it wasn't worth the extra cost to upgrade to the comforttred or the tripletred. He said the Integrity was decent enough for normal driving--just lower tread life than the others.
Somebody on this site said they found the best pressures were around 38/36 for mileage, handling and wear.

[F8L]

Your center tread wear problem is not consistant with the observations based on the Integrity tire. My guess is the construction of the GYCT is different such that even a bit of overinflation can cause a problem? I have the opposite effect, super overinflation is causing a TINY bit more wear on the edges. It's barely a noticable difference though.

Good information on the GYCT. Thanks!

[Devil's Advocate]

I got about 50,000 miles out of my comfortreads before they actually self destructed! Now trying some Pirelli 3000's. But the Goodyear's were OK up until within the last 1000 mikes they just got weird bulges and self destructed. Went through 4 tires that way. Did get some money back because the tires were rated for 80,000.

So I don't think I could recommend these. But I will say that I don't recommend spending over $200-$250 for a set of tires on the Prius installed.

[bulldog]

I only have 33K miles on my GYCTs, but so far they have treated me very well. I will see about rain traction this coming winter, but I have well over 20K last winter in the rain with no issues. We don't get snow around these parts so no comment on that. I have not noticed any of the wear issues at this time yet either. I use them with 42/40 PSI in the front and back.

One of the reasons I got the GYCT was for less road noise, where they have done very well. I was also able to trade the INtegrities on these GYs so the price was very good.

Funny enough I was also thinking about a Michelin low rolling resistance tire for the Prius in the future. Let us know how you like the Michelins in terms of noise, comfort, traction and MPG compared to the GYCTs.

[Tideland Prius]

You might wanna check the PSI again. Keep in mind, the PSI we use are for STOCK tyres. Once you change to something else, all bets are off. My Nokian WRs are rated a higher PSI than the Integrity so it's up to me to decide the PSI. If I had run the stock PSI, it would definitely be underinflated just because it's not maxed out at 44PSI but some higher figure (which escapes me at the moment).

[Vincent]

Love my GYCT's.
Replaced my Integrities at 15K miles and there's a world of difference between the quiet, better wet traction, longer wearing GYCT's and the crap OEM's

[driverx]

I would not buy the GYCT again either. I bought it based on positive comments here and other sites. Handling wasn't all that great and reduction in MPG is just not cool (Avg 37MPG) I didn't buy Prius for handling, I bought it for MPG.
Anybody want to trade your OEM tires for slightly used GYCTs?

[rkskeet]

I replaced the OEM Goodyear Integrity tires with Goodyear Comfort Tread all season tires shortly after purchasing my Prius this past March. Therefore, I haven't had the opportunity to test the car in pure winter (snow) conditions yet. I live in central PA and will encounter snow during the winter. Generally, the roads are well plowed and treated when snow hits. But where I live is in a home development that gets plowed on the later side of the plowing schedule and the roads can pile up some snow amounts..

I am interested if anyone has had any or some experience with the GY Comfort Treads during the winter season while driving their Prius?? Interested to hear your comments, thanks..

[Marlin]

I used to be very happy with my ComfortTreds, and even bought a set for my wife's Prius too, about 8 months after getting them for mine. But these days, after about 25K miles, they are begining to act like the stock Integrity tires used to.

When I got them, they worked great. No more slipping on wet pavement. I could gun the engine onto a busy road on wet pavement, and at most I got a little chirp from the tires and no traction control engagement. For about 14 months they've been great.

But this spring, 25K into the tires, with lots of tread left and proper inflation, I'm slipping all over the place on wet pavement. If I'm not real careful, the traction control will engage when I pull out into traffic on wet pavement. There's been a couple of times when it engaged two or three times in a row while trying to get up to speed after turning right onto a busy road. They're not behaving any better than the stock tires did.

I will not be buying them again.