Tire damage and repair options

The sidewall is relatively thin so it cannot be safely repaired. I'd recommend replacing the damaged tire as well as the most worn tire out of the other three.

 

You need to replace this tire immediately. You want to be looking back on this decision saying "I'm glad I did the safe thing and replaced that tire to keep me and my family safe". You don't want to be saying "I really wish that I had replaced that tire before that bulge blew out on the highway and caused that rollover. Its too bad I can never walk again".

Tires are the last place to be cheap...its the only thing that connects you to the ground when you're hurtling down the road at 70MPH...and when a sidewall gets to the point where it bulges its already really bad and failure is imminent. That can happen very quickly...as in you wouldn't be able to tell until you were looking at the tires when the car is upside down on the side of the road.

Honestly? I'd just replace all 4 tires. I just replaced mine with Yokohama Avid Touring-S tires from Tire Rack. Cost me $277 shipped and theres a $40 rebate right now, so when you factor that in they were under $300 installed. They are GREAT tires and on top of being safe you'll love how much better the car rides and drives than it did on the crummy original tires. If you just replace two (you cannot just replace one) then you'll always have them mismatched when its replacement time, and for safety reasons I like to have the same tires...and tires in the same state of wear on all 4 corners.

If you absolutely won't replace all 4...replace two and put the new ones on the rear. But replace all 4.

 

Wow, that is very dangerous. Try to avoid driving the car from now until you get it fixed. I had the same thing happened to me and got it replaced immediately.

For me, I had a damaged sidewall on my RF tire at about 15,000 miles. Original tires too, like yours. I got only one single tire replaced for with the exact same tire as the other 3. And now I am rotating only the 3 "old" tires when I get tire rotations to let the "new" front tire wear quicker. The newer tire will never catch up in wear, but it will help extend the life of the other 3. Eventually, I will buy 4 all new tires. But I have had absolutely no problems with only replacing one tire.

In your situation, I'd recommend replacing just 2 new tires, putting your newest tires on the front of the car. Make sure they are the same dimensions and grade for best results.

And finally, no the tire guy is not trying to rip you off or upsell you. What you have is potentially a very dangerous situation and it does need to get fixed ASAP.

 

All great advice, the tire people will give you a proration on any tires bought there ( for whatever that is worth) but, it's something! Change the tires. ASAP!

 

Its never a problem until its a problem. You have two tires on one axle that have different handling and traction characteristics, that is a huge nono.

Need articles?:

Top Ten Tire Safety Tips - MSN Autos

What to know about selecting tires

You're going to feel pretty silly for having "saved" $60 by not buying a companion tire for the same axle if you loose control of the car and have an accident. Is it unlikely? Yes...but is it worth the risk for $60? Hardly.

Incorrect advice. When installing two new tires you always mount the new tires on the rear, whether its a RWD or FWD vehicle.

Need a link?: Tire Tech Information - Where to Install New Pairs of Tires?

Please listen to me...I know what I'm talking about.

 

Your literature is written for the average Joe who doesn't know anything about his tires. I bought the exact same tire, brand, model, size, etc etc and consulted with several tire shops. I am a savvy Prius owner who knew what he needed and the OP is simply asking for our advice - not some cut dry formulaic rhetoric the president would give.

Any monkey can find articles on the web and take them out of context. The world isn't black and white. There are exceptions to everything. Learn to live by this Steve, and then, maybe you will know what you're talking about.

 

Is that really necessary?

You mean the same tire shops that won't mount tires of lower speed ratings on cars? The same tire shops that mounted the directional tires I bought backwards? The same tire shops that used clip on weights and then crammed the trim rings back onto the Prius? The morons at tire shops don't have any idea what they are talking about.

So now you're calling me names?

I didn't take this article out of context at all. It is an article about where to mount tires when you only buy two...and I posted it on a discussion thread about mounting tires when you only buy two. How is that out of context? Its perfectly in context.

Just do some googling. Find some advice that says to put new tires on the front and mount the old ones to the rear and post it here. Find an article or advice written by someone who has some credibility too as I have done and show me that I'm wrong.

What great knowledge of tires and the Prius do you have that negates the laws of physics?

If you think its okay to just replace one tire on an axle when the others are significantly worn and you want to mount new tires on the front and not on the rear, I am sorry but you don't know what you are talking about and your advice is unsafe.

I think it may be time for another PriusChat break. I swear this is the only place in the world somebody would get called a monkey and have to listen to a political statement when giving advice about tires. The arrogance is...incredible here sometimes.

Do what you want. To everybody else: replace tires in pairs and mount the new ones on the rear.

 

Noname, you asked for our advice so I will answer. I would choose #2. Just replace the tire and be done with it. It happens to everybody, this is just car maintainence. Buy the exact same tire (new) as your other 3 tires and dont look back. You have good life on the rest of your tires so there is no need to buy more than you have to right now and no need to make things complicated. Ask your tire shop and they will agree with you.

 

So you are disagreeing with yourself?

I bet they don't...in fact your tire shop may refuse to even do that...many do for liability reasons.

Its your decision Noname. My and my family's safety is worth $60 for a second tire to me. Is yours to you?

 

Why wouldnt you be able to rotate the tires if you replace 2? You most certainly can.

 

Absolutely not! I just paid under $300 installed for 4 tires. What you need to do is go onto www.tirerack.com and find an installer in your area. Pick out the tires you want, here are the tires I just had put on my wife's Prius:

Yokohama AVID TOURING-S=

I am very happy with them. I shop tires to death and before this purchase I did research and deliberated for a month. These tires are a great value and the car rides great on them. My wife drove to Richmond and back today in the rain and was very happy with them.

Shipped to central NJ those tires are $273.24 with a $40 mail in rebate, so $233.24. You can have them installed for about $16 a tire, so $297.24 installed for 4.

They'll arrive within 2-3 days of ordering them. If you want it done quicker, you can print out the cost from TireRack and take it into a shop and have them match the price including the shipping and installation. The price of tires just at a tire shop is WAY out of line.

The cheapest way to do it is to do all 4 now because you get that $40 rebate (assuming you want those tires). However if money is an issue now you could buy two and then buy two more 5-10k miles down the road and then rotate them at that time and put the additional two on the rear and then you'd be able to rotate.

You can get 2 of those tires for $136 shipped, plus $32 installed brings you to $168 for two. If you replaced one tire you'd have to buy the OEM Goodyear Integrity (which is a crappy tire) and it would cost you $86.06 shipped plus $16 to install, so $102.06 for one new Integrity tire installed. So its only $66 more to buy two good new tires than it is to buy one crummy Integrity.

This is the OEM tire: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires...ota&autoYear=2004&autoModel=Prius&autoModClar=

And its only $195 more to buy 4 new tires that are much better quality than the OEM tires than it does to buy one Integrity.

I hope that helps somewhat...

No, he/she can't. The two tires she buys are going to have much deeper tread than the original Integrities. For safety reasons he/she needs to keep the tires with the most tread on the rear...rotating them to the front and putting the more worn Integrity on the rear would be the same as mounting the new tires on the front originally, which should not be done for the reasons I've already put forth.

Now, to be fair the front tires are going to take a lot more wear, so keeping the new tires on the rear and just not rotating the fronts until he/she can buy two more new tires really isn't the end of the world. With the coupons out there right now though, its going to be cheaper overall to buy 4.

 

There are several different ways to rotate tires. You guys are thinking way too hard about this.

 

The easy way on a FWD car is to *never* rotate them, except when buying tires. The front pair wear out first. Throw them away, move the old pair from the rear to the front and put a new pair on the rear.

 

We're not thinking hard at all. You can't have tires with more tread on the front then on the rear. Thats the only rule. You can rotate the tires side to side but unless you dismounted and remounted them there's not a lot of point, and it would be cost prohibitive to do that.

Like I said before...its the only thing that connects the car to the road so its worthy of a little bit of thought IMHO.

 

I was wondering what size of the Avid Touring-S tires you got and how they did on milage. I do hours and hours of research too, I've agreed with all the advice you've given, and I too am looking at the same tires.

I was wondering too if people compared the Avid TRZ and the Avid Touring-S and what they decided.

 

I got the stock size, have noticed very little change in the mileage, probably just due to the fact that the Yokos are new and the MXV4s they replaced were bald. I did really labor back and forth between the Touring-S and the TRZ, and I ultimately decided on the Touring-S because I didn't like how the sidewall looked on the TRZ.

I am VERY happy with the tires!

Thats your decision...but I think its a mistake.

 

I'd replace both tires in the same axle and put the new ones in the rear. All it takes is a bit pothole to cause the sidewall to flex enough and kaboom... talking from experience here.