Prius F rated tires?

[findlj]

Hello all,
A friend of mine, who happens to be a Honda salesman, was telling me about Toyota using a very fuel efficient "F" rated tire on the Prius, which would be a very poor tire in snow, heavy rain, etc. Any experience with driving the Prius on snow covered roads? How did it handle it?
Thanks!

[theorist]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(findlj @ Aug 18 2006, 08:28 AM) [snapback]305244[/snapback]</div>

Hello all,
A friend of mine, who happens to be a Honda salesman, was telling me about Toyota using a very fuel efficient "F" rated tire on the Prius, which would be a very poor tire in snow, heavy rain, etc. Any experience with driving the Prius on snow covered roads? How did it handle it?
Thanks!
[/b]

"F" rated = truck tire load rating, 12 plies and 95 psi, NOT used on a Prius
salesmen =

Honda uses some tires with FE (for fuel efficient) at the end of the name, like the lousy Dunlop SP20 FE on some Civics. Perhaps your friend saw FE on the sidewall and thought that FE is a rating?

Read around here and you will find that the fuel efficient Goodyear Integrity tires that Toyota puts on the Prius and Corolla (and Honda puts on the Pilot) stink. They offer low rolling resistance but are lousy in just about every other way.

Those really concerned about snow covered roads will use dedicated snow tires like Michelin X-Ice, Blizzak, Dunlop Graspic, Nokian, Guardex, etc. This is somewhat more important in the Prius because the traction control is a little hyper vigilant at low speeds or no speed on heavy snow. This is not to get traction, but to protect the electric motor from damage resulting from spinning to fast without resistance.

As far as Toyota and Honda, both use some really lousy tires on some of their cars. I found the Firestone FR690 on our Civic to be the worst tires I've ever owned. Luckily one blew out at 80 mph after 20,000 miles, prompting a replacement with Falken ZE-512 tires. The difference in the handling and safety was like night and day. This experience prompted us to replace the Integrities on the Prius right away. The TireRack survey illustrates how lousy many OEM tires are. I encourage anyone concerned about traction and safety in a Prius, Civic Hybrid, or many other cars, to upgrade the tires, and to use dedicated winter tires during severe winters.

Not all fuel efficient tires offer such lousy traction. The National Academies' Transportation Research Board has published energy and performance characteristics of the nearly 200 passenger tires. The Camry Hybrid and Accord Hybrid use the Michelin MXV4 S8. The VW diesels and many Audis use the Continental ContiProContact. Many cars come wearing the Goodyear Eagle RS-A. These all provide decent, safer traction.

[jayman]

I don't believe there is anything "special" about the Goodyear Integrity, especially when you consider the price. I disliked my Integrities so much at less than 10,000km I had Michelin Harmony put on. Slightly better ride, no difference in fuel economy, and MUCH safer in the rain.

For winter I run dedicated winter tires on steel rims. First winter I had Dunlop Graspic DS-2 (Much better than Harmony on snow and especially ice) and the next winter I had Yokohama Ice Guard 10 (Much much better than Harmony)

[Rancid13]

So far I've only had one experience driving the Prius in the snow with the OEM tires. We spent a week in Mammoth, and it happened to be the week that it snowed a record of almost 7 feet in 4 days (early April of this year~I'd had the Prius for almost 2 months)... I was a bit worried about how the car would handle in the snow/on the icy roads due to a lot of complaints I'd read here about it, but I had not a single problem whatsoever. There was one instance where there was some brief slippage while slowly (below 5mph) creeping down a steep driveway which was in the shade and therefore very slick with ice, but within a split second the traction control kicked in and the car righted itself.