Tire Questions: I was online, on tirerack.com, and I was reading lots of horror stories about the Goodyear Integrity tires that both of our cars came with. Most of the reviews said the tires hydroplane easily and are very slippery in rain. Only a couple of reviews were even slightly favorable! With only 140 miles on her car, my wife hit a rock on the road, and the rock cut the inside sidewall of her R/R tire. Instead of replacing it with another Intergriy, I put 4 new Michelin Weatherwise II tires from Sears on it. I want my wife to be safe, and I can't see wrecking a 30 thousand dollar car over $500 worth of tires. Has anyone else had problems with the Goodyear OEM's? I don't know yet if it has any change in MPG with the Michelins, 'cause she is still on her first tank of gas. Since I have the same car, maybe I'll keep the three tires for my car, depending on if they are as bad as people say. Any comments?
The Goodyear OEM tires are not very good, despite the name. Many of us swapped ours out long before they wore out. I put Micheline MXV4+ Energy times on my Prius, both for the better traction, and also for the low rolling resistance. Tom
My husband is going to need new tires soon. I believe he replaced his Goodyear originals with Bridgestone, not too long ago actually, and they are wearing down very fast. Which Michelin would be best? We are in So. Cal, his commute is about 30 minutes on freeways, we do get rain so it can't be slippery. He is hard on his car. And, does Costco carry these, and if not, where should he go?
I've had no problems with my Integritys and I've got over 40k on them now. They are starting to wear down so I'll be replacing them in the fall. After much research on tires I've decided on the Nokian i3. The tire is inexpensive, has a very low rolling resistance, and the company is EU based and has a decent environmental outlook (tries to reduce their pollution). A lot of people report MPG loss when they switch to Michelins and a lot of other tires so I am trying to avoid that, at least in the long term since it is expected to take a MPG hit with ANY new tire. Although it seems like Michelin MXV4s are about the next best choice.
So far so good on my Integrity tires. I now have a little over 10K and they seem to perform well as expected. The tire seem to do well on wet pavement, but I usually slow down whenever the pavement is wet and drive safely (don't really want to know when and at what speed will my tire start to hydroplane). If I get good descent mileage and service on my first set of Integrity tires, I may very well stick with the same brand.
People who are dissatisfied are much more likely to write a blog about it on the internet than those who are satisfied. So there is a bias right there--on Tirerack and elsewhere. I have driven close to 1000 miles on the Integrity tires, and I think they are just fine. Quiet, handling OK, good traction and gas mileage. I do not expect they will last longer than about 30K miles, as they are an OE tire. There are probably a million of these tires in many new cars, and Toyota would not use them if they weren't satisfied with their performance. They are low priced partly because so many are made. My Goodyear dealer told me they are a good tire. That's my experience, FWIW.
You should check out one of the great threads on this board, nyprius' http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-modifications/20573-tire-upgrade.html thread. It's now quite long -- 31 pages -- but there's lots of good discussion there, and you should at least read nyprius' initial post.
I haven't had any problems with my Integrity tires and plan to keep them until they wear out. At that point I'll probably repalce them with a set of Michelin for a little better handling but a small mpg hit.
I have over 11,000 so far on my Integrity tires and I really like them. I will (depending on there cost) go with them when these wear out..I also was at the Toyota dealership last week and noticed that there where Integrity tires on a lot of different models seen them on corolla's and Camry's
Here in Ohio my Integrities became practically undriveable in the snow this winter after they hit approximately 24,000 miles on them. Extremely dangerous. Just to note I originally liked the tires when they were new.
64,000 on my OEMs. It hardly ever rains in LA, and I've only seen pictures of snow. Straightline accel with wet tires invokes the overly protective TC, but thats the only issue I've ever seen. Keep the pressures up (i run 40/38), and they should be fine. Don't know about snow, but why would you want to live where it snows anyway?
