Best tyres for Prius in Aus/NZ?

Hi Marty, I am at 19,000 miles running Hankook Kinergy Eco K425 size 205/55/16, and and at the present rate of ware should last till at leased 40,000 miles. Economy is between 60 and 65 mpg (UK gallons) dependant on temperature. Grip and handling excellent wet and dry.

If you are running 15 inch wheels the rolling resistance for these tyres goes up slightly from B to C, it is only when going to the 205/55/16 does the RR lower to B rating.

John (Britprius)

 

May I wrestle this back on topic?
One day I'll compile a list of LLR tyres in Australia and perhaps Oceania and Japan.

The Australian Design Rules ADR83/02
Vehicle Standard (Australian Design Rule 23/02 – Passenger Car Tyres) 2007
Section 3 deals with markings and the only mandatory markings are for such things as size, maximum load rating and maximum speed rating etc. and for run-flat, temporary and tubeless and so on.
In general if a tyre meets DOT (USA), JIS (Japan) or e(3) (Europe) then it can be sold in Australia. So some tyres will have USA-compliant sidewall markings for traction, wear and the other one and some follow the Japanese standard of not much information on the tyre sidewall, like European tyres. In effect, these markings are in addition to the ADR.

There's a lot of differences in the tyres sold here and the US. In an earlier post I showed that a lot of the tyres sold in Australia do not have an equivalent in the US. It isn't just a matter of renaming; many tyres, even from the big manufacturers are different. Australian roads tend to be coarse-chip (spread and thin layer of blu-tack, throw rocks on top, have a beer to celebrate a job well done) and, apart from where I am and alpine regions to my South, roads are hot most of the year.

As for Hankook in Australia, I can see "enfren" eco tyre but no "Kinergy". See what I mean?

 

Braddles according to Hankooks own web site the Enfren tyre is only available in Korea and Australia so on that basis it is not the same tyre as as the Kinergy. The tread pattern is also different, and there is no 195/55/16 size listed for the Enfren tyre (the OEM size for the gen2 Prius in Europe) but this size is available in the Kinergy.

Your suggestion of making a list of tyres for your region would be welcomed by myself and I'm sure by F8L and PC'ers from your region. I know first hand that the tyres from large manufacturers appear to be and are different from region to region, and any help has to be good for the Prius community around the world.

John (Britprius)

 

Yep.

I'm quite happy with the OEM tyres on my c but when they've had their day I'll want to have a think about the options... and Braddles of course you're entirely correct - our roads are different.

Even in the city quite major roads very soon get riddled with badly repaired potholes or bumpy lines or tar across the road. Off the major roads you expect that everywhere with local councils seemingly trying to challenge each other to see who can do the sloppiest road repairs. Or then energy or other utilitiy providers come and rip up the roads and don't come back for make good works for many months. My mother lives near a major commercial centre in Sydney and the roads there were just gravel for about six weeks!

 

The coarse chip roads in Canberra can be quite rough. As nearly as I can tell they are fixed by spreading out a thin layer of Blu-Tak and tossing some rocks on top.
There's also a heritage listing on every bump and dip. Nothing else could explain the fact that despite the road being "resurfaced", all of the bumps and dips are still there.
I about to buy a new road bike and the two models I'm comparing have "suspension" of sorts to absorb bumps and dips and I would not contemplate a bike that could not soften the ride.

 

I have Michelin XM2 on my other car. I can't wait to wear out the standard Bridgestones and put them on. They are really quiet and ride well, something the Prius needs some help with

 

My '05 runs on 195/60/15 Hankook Optimo and averages 21.5km/l if that helps.

 

I have just replaced my last set of tyres, Bridgestone Ecopia EP100 with another set of the same. They managed 70,000 km on the taxi which to me is pretty good going. No noticable impact on my fuel economy, still averaging 4.8 l / 100 km.

 

From NZ - I have 16" Nexen N'Ferra SU1 on my diesel Ford Focus - bloody good, though not available in 15" yet. Rated a 9 out of 10 on consumer nz for rolling resistance. Great cornering in the wet in my opinion - much better than Toyo Teo Plus Eco. Better FE than the Toyo. The Toyo lasts twice as long (unfortunately!). Goodyear Triplemax is another LRR that was also better than the Toyo's on the ford. And the goodyear is available as a 195 65 15. My wife has Kumho Ecowing kh27 on her mazda (195/65/15). I have not driven her car in the wet much, but certainly a good LRR tyre in the dry.
I've only just taken delivery of my first prius with ecopia PZ-X on the front (Bstone B250 on the rear). To be honest, I was expecting the prius to be to be a handful over Mt Messenger in the rain - handled beautifully. I'll count that as a tick for the PZ-X, and the prius! I had to stop and check if maybe the NZ spec prius had a sway bar on the back - no. Yet again the automotive press turns out to be full of sh!t.

Bridgestone reckon the PZ-X has lower resistance than the kumho and michelin. The auto journalists also preferred the PZ-X for hard cornering. They did not test in the wet though. Sorry can't add a link (newbie). Search for "Bridgestone deflates flat-earth arguments".

 

In Australia you can get Bridgestone Ecopia Ep150 tyres even though they aren't listed on the Bridgestone Australia website. I got 4 of these 10,000 km ago and pretty happy with them. Much better than the B250 they replaced. Easily 10% better economy.

I would have liked the Ecopia EP-001S as these are rated AA in Europe for economy and wet weather but the EP150 are only rated BB.

 

Replaced all 4 original Prius Yokohama tyres on my Prius after 3 years in use. With Michelin XM2 tyres. Noticed the fuel efficiency went down from the normal 4.0 - 4.2 lit/100km range to 4.4 - 4.8. My buddies informed me its due to higher traction of new tyres but its been a month and seem the performance level is set to stay. How sad, Michelin tyres have often been touted to have good performance and mileage.

 

I've been off Priuschat for a while and I may need to contradict my previous declarations.
I rode on 2 Bridgestone ecopia PZ-X and 2 ecovision VI-692 and was initially impressed by the Bridgestones. After a short time and few cold mornings I was no longer happy. No matter what tyre pressure I used or which axle the tyres were on, handling and grip were disappointing and slightly scary at times. I had to slow down
I swapped them after about 40,000km for Yokohama Bluearth AE01 (as seen on the Yurastyle Aero Prius). The improvement was immediate.
Quieter, perhaps more efficient, but most importantly they have very good grip for an LRR. I am yet to break traction despite wet roundabouts, hard cornering and full-throttle starts (for science). And they are rated to 51psi maximum.

 

I ended up switching to the Kumho KH27 (185/60/15) on my 2012 c from the OEMs at 50000km. I've been entirely happy with their handling in both dry and wet conditions. I hardly go crazy but these have been dependable for me.

They haven't delivered anything amazing in terms of fuel economy though.

 

I didn’t realise this thread (or forum) existed. I replaced the GoodYear Efficient Grip tyres I had on my 3rd gen with 15” wheels about 12,000 kms ago at 112,000 kms. I did just over 50,000 kms on them in the 3-4 years after buying the car with 60,000 kms. They were newish then so I guess they did around 60,000 kms.

Replaced them with Michelin Energy Saver +. They’re quieter than the Good Years and I noticed the fuel consumption got a bit better when I first got them. The speedo indicates 3 kph faster than actual speed- the Good years indicated 5 kph faster.