Unsatisfactory tires

Wear Ratings

I have found that my satisfaction does not depend on the Manufacturer near as much as the wear rating. All tires I have had with wear ratings above 700 have done very good. Everything with a wear rating of under 600 has been a disappointment.

 

New tires dropped MPG

I had to get new tires at 22,000 miles. The Integrities were worn to the wires at the edges. Naturally the wheels needed to be aligned and was done. But my mpg dropped around 10 on highway and local. I know winter driving requires more gas engine to heat the coolant but this drop can only be blamed on the BF Goodrich Control Plus tires. They have excellent traction and cornering and just a bit noisy - but not annoying. However I would not recommend them for a Prius with this mileage drop.

 

How many miles doyou have on the new tires? Have you given them time to break in to assess the milage drop? What is your normal winter milage drop (with stock tires) in comparision?

 

I'm wondering how much of the Prius economy is down to the tyres and what gain could be had from installing LRR tyres like Michelin Energy XM 1 on a conventionally powered car like a Corolla or Camry. On a car with higher consumption there has to be even more benefit in fitting LRR tyres.

 

DoctorE,

Attached is an up to date MPG chart (zipped Excel file) for my 2004 Prius (104k miles 3rd set of tires). The Michelin MXV4+ "Energy Saving" tires improved MPG in the winter and matched the Original Integrity tires in the summer for approximately a 0.5 MPG overall improvement. My new Nokian WR tires (at about 5k miles) appear to be achieving even better MPG, but its too early to quote a figure (I'll report back next November).

Jeff (DoctorD - not an MD a PhD in EE)