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Prius C & 14" Rims for Winter Tires

Discussion in 'Prius c Accessories and Modifications' started by Matthew Roscoe, Nov 23, 2014.

  1. Matthew Roscoe

    Matthew Roscoe New Member

    Joined:
    Nov 23, 2014
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    Location:
    Saint-Lambert, Quebec
    Vehicle:
    2014 Prius c
    Model:
    Four


    I have a question about winter tires that I am trying to figure out. I recently bought my first Prius! The 2014 Prius C with the premium upgrade package. I love the car but it comes with 16" rims. The specs for the rims are P195/50R16. While I have very awesome summer tires that give me excellent MPG I am having a very hard time finding decent winter tires for this rim size.

    From my previous vehicle I have very good winter tires (or at least ones I like) Michelin Defender XT's but they are on a 14" rim. Specially they have a rim size of 185/70R14. They only have about 5000km of wear on them and so I would love to reuse them if possible. I have several online tire size calculators and none of them seem to provide me any information suggesting that this is a horrid idea but I have to admit I do not fully understand what they are all saying so I was hoping that someone here might be able to help me to figure out if this would be an okay idea again.

    The main reason for asking is that re-using tires that cost $150 a pop and buying new 14" rims for them is much cheaper than having to buy 15" rims and new tires.

    An example calculation that I did can be found below:
    [Broken External Image]:http://imgur.com/BhHNdgw
     

    Attached Files:

  2. kingnba6

    kingnba6 Active Member

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    Location:
    NY
    Vehicle:
    2013 Prius c
    Model:
    One
    not a direct answer to you but you said you are using summer tires on the stock 16s? what MPG are you getting? i plan on getting summer tires with alloy wheels and then steel wheels with snow tires.
     
  3. Matthew Roscoe

    Matthew Roscoe New Member

    Joined:
    Nov 23, 2014
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    Location:
    Saint-Lambert, Quebec
    Vehicle:
    2014 Prius c
    Model:
    Four
    Hey,

    I am still in the breaking in period but on average I am getting around 4.7 L/100km or ~50MPG. I have had drives as good as 3.2L/100km (highway & city). This is still not close to the 3.6/4.0/3.8 l/100km or the 78/71/74 MPG I was promised though. That is using the stock alloy rims that came with the car.

    * I just looked up to USA EPA specs on the 2014 and they are 53/46/50 MPG which if that is the case then my car is dead on to their promised performance.

    I just checked with my local tire store and they said using 14" rims should be fine I would just see a 2% difference on my speedometer (shows 100kmph actually doing 98) but I am okay with that. I will probably also go with cheaper alloy rims in the winter as well because I want to keep the rotational resistance due to the extra weight of steel rims low (not sure how much of a difference this would actually make still looking into that) but the acceleration is slow on the C all ready don't need to add more making electric acceleration even harder (slower).
     
  4. Boberic

    Boberic Junior Member

    Joined:
    Mar 4, 2014
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    Vehicle:
    2013 Prius c
    Model:
    One
    1) The electric acceleration is what is making your car acceptable. The transmission and gas engine are what make it weak
    2) No matter what anybody tells you... when something weighs 2500 lbs you will not notice a difference of 20 lbs added or removed ANYWHERE on that something. The idea that lighter wheels will save you gas or give you faster acceleration is hogwash.
     
  5. ztanos

    ztanos All-around Geek!

    Joined:
    Jan 10, 2013
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    Location:
    Cumming, Georgia
    Vehicle:
    2012 Prius c
    Model:
    Four
    2... on something that can be effected by .01 drag coefficient, every bit of efficiency is paramount. Even weight on the wheels. It may not be extreme, but it will do something.