Tires

I'm quite a ways from Florida, but I have driven in the heat and in the rain. I did have the tires spin once while accelerating from a dead stop.

Personally, I'd keep the tires. I've purchased snow tires for winter use, but will go back to the OEM's once the winter is over.

So, while you could get better performing tires, you also should do just fine with the OEM's - replace them once they wear out if you find you are unhappy with them. I'd also ask - How have you found the tires over those 8k miles? You should really be able to answer the question yourself, since 8k miles is a significant trial period

 

Dangerous???? Any news stories out there about crashes due to the tires, a la the Firestone fiasco?

Dangerous????? Methinks you are either reading bad info or not reading ALL the info. The OEM's are fine tires, some people just want better (there are always better things out there)

 

I think the OEM tires are not nearly so bad as some posts might lead you to believe. Of course it may depend on how old you are, when I learned to drive I was lucky if 1 or 2 tires out of the 4 had tread on them, and there were no radial tires except Michelins which most people couldn't afford.

I find the Prius equiped with VSC (I've never driven one without VSC) is a very hard car to get in trouble with. The springs are to soft and there is to much understeer to do well in an autocross, although I wish someone would give it a try. But for more or less normal street driving it's just fine, even with OEM Goodyears. It's very dependable and it won't surprise you, if you totally blow it and go off the road I think it will, at least, do it the same way each time.

I plan on putting 30 or 40K on the OEM tires, when I replace them I will put on a set of all season performance tires such as RE092s or RE950s. I should add that if we get very much snow this winter I'll drive my 4WD pickup.

 

<_< I plan to drive the OEM's as long as I can safely. At 13,000+ miles they show minimal wear and I have had no traction issues. I do run them at 40/38 psi for the slightly better fuel mileage.

Other thoughts: I keep a 12v compressor and high quality analog tire gauge aboard to check and maintain tire pressures regularly (about every 2-3 weeks when I hand wash), and I rotate every 5,000 miles per the Owner's Manual.

 

The only thing that's going to hurt your fuel efficiency in FL is the heat. As I'm finding, now that I'm not using heat or AC, my fuel efficiency has been getting above 50. Last fillup was MFD 54 and calculated 51. Currently my MFD is still 54. So going by what I saw before and now, I'm seeing a 2-4mpg difference between AC and no AC.

 

Ken,
Keep your tire pressures up to reduce hydroplanning, replace your foglight bulbs with the same wattage-but higher color temperature(bluer) and use RainX on your windsheild.

 

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...and don't drive through deep water!

 

what the hell were they thinking? :blink:

 

I'd guess they weren't

I actually had that experience when snowmobiling. One weekend, the water was 2 inches deep and we went right through. The next weekend, apparently beavers had built a dam, the water was a bit deeper and I kept thinking.. "it's gotta start leveling out, right?". It didn't. I stopped when it started getting closer to the engine - no harm done, other than my feet got soaked.

I'd guess in their case, they didn't drive though the week prior with just a few inches of water.

 

Autocross?....here ya go...
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While those pictures are pretty sweet looking... Wth is the point of all that? ;p Do people actually pimp out the ICE to squeeze out an extra 10 or 15 horses?

 

I heard a piece on NPR about people who race snowmobiles on water. I mean deep water,
across rivers! Not just in a straight line either! On lakes over a circular track. They keep a
diver on call to fetch out anyone's snowmobile that gets sunk. Apparently it works if you keep
going fast enough! Who a thunk it!