I left the wheel covers off because I wanted to drive to work and back and make it quick to re-torque the lug nuts. I don’t necessarily like the black wheel phenomenon of the last 15 years it seems, but the wheels underneath these wheel covers aren’t bad. I’m thinking about some Center caps. For 2014, what size are the caps? also do you give up much gas mileage in the aerodynamicy lost in removing the wheel covers? As always, thank you scholars for the lively discussion.
Before 2012 the rims were silver (apparently Toyota Classic Silver Metallic (1F7)). My thought: they saw owners removing the covers, opted to discourage that by uglying-them-up more, going from utilitarian-silver to utilitarian-black. I would get the specific Toyota cap spec'd for the 17” rim, if your pockets are deep, or eBay knock-off. I went for the latter: they “claimed” to be genuine but it was not the case, fit was poor but I fixed with a Dremel. You might have better luck now, assuming the imperfections have been sorted out in the ensuing years since I bought some.. For the 17” rim the centre cap is Toyota part no 42603-52110. That will fit the 15" rims as well. I'm using center caps thus, albeit on the more photogenic 15" Prius Plug-In rims for snows:
No clue about their reliability, but this site seems a “decent” price for genuine caps. Not new but good condition: C69568 Toyota Prius, Yaris OEM Chrome Center Cap #42603-52110 Seems to be US only.
I would assume OP talks about branded complete wheel covers for steel rims? I had those on a Corolla 1992. I might misinterpret. My 2005 came with JM rims with red Toyota plastic cup styled hub covers. Naturally I managed to destroy two, by leaving them on the ground… I have never found that design again. Bought hard stickers to attach to generic covers, not completely satisfied…
I've seen quite a few Prius' whose owners have removed those lovely hub caps....doesn't look too awful bad. Probably because, if you hit a curb and scratch one up, Toyota wants an ungodly amount of money for a new one. (You can buy 8 aftermarket hub caps for one OEM, last I checked.)
Ok, I was wrong. The Terminology for all things attached to wheels is very confused, in my non native English mind. Those should be called hub caps.
Totally agree: they’re caps over the small central hub opening, hence “hub caps”. Unfortunately the term has popularly morphed to meaning full wheel covers.
Wait- the center caps I just ordered and was showing off in the photo. I’m asking if removing the wheel covers partially shown in the photo attached (odd AI generated photo, the first photo I could find on my phone, enjoy!)
It’s Koko, mainly since steel rims now are rare, but what would anyone call the entire wheel plastic covers now? In Swedish it’s now called wheel sides, unlikely poorly translated.
Yes, large silver plastic wheel covers. So the original question, was does removing these decrease gas mileage to an extent. I think they might, maybe 5% or less. A mile or two. I just took them off the last time I rotated my wheels because I wanted to come home from work and quickly check the lug nut torque. I don’t especially like black wheels, but I do like the ability to check the air pressure more easily, get my fingers in there and takeoff the valve cap. What I wasn’t anticipating is it looks like the automatic car wash I go to is slowly going to black paint. First world problems I guess.
