Aftermarket RIMS and TIRES MPG Impact

Cheap tires and (in my opinion) cheap, ugly wheels. I'd take the original rims and tires from another Prius if that's the option.

Your opinion may vary.

 

Drag's are the cheapest wheels you can buy. And they're 15's, which is the stock size. If you are going to stay with a 15" wheel, I would look for the lightest one on the market available. Maybe some used Racing Hart CP-035's...

 

The wheels that came on your Prius don't look that bad. The Kumho Solus KR21 P185/65R15 86T tire is not a Low Rolling Resistance tire, so you won't be getting the best you can out of your Prius. Kumho makes a Solus KR25 that is noted as an LLR tire, but it's not that well rated. Also the OEM tire size for your Prius would be a 195/65 15, not the 185/65 15 that are on there. Wear those tires out and go with a better tire when you can. Check TireRack dot com and you can look up the LRR tires available for your Prius. A lighter wheel would help with the MPGs a bit.

You should be getting around 45 to 50 mpg with a Prius. Not sure where you live, so can't tell what kind of driving area you deal with. Prius does really well in city type driving and anything steady under 70 mph. MPG is also quite sensitive to Tire Pressure. My normal morning cold tire pressure is usually set at 39-40 psi front and 38 psi rear. Check the max inflation noted on the tire side wall and never exceed that number.

If I were to buy a tire right now, I'd be looking at a Continental ProContact or a Yokohama Avid Ascend (the OEM tire on my Prius and headed toward the 50,000 milestone on them!). They are both Low Rolling Resistance tires. I drove the ProContacts on a friend's Prius, and can confirm that they are a very quiet and smooth rolling tire. Probably the tire I will end up with.

 

I went with the conti DWS lrr flavor and really like it. Been running their DWS line in one car or another since they came out.
I'm guessing the wheels themselves aren't doing anything too awful to your mpg. The biggest impact comes from the additional unsprung weight an aftermarket wheel can potentially add. Being 15"ers though, that's probably not too much. I went with a 16" wheel for aesthetics in the summer and took a 1 or 2 mpg hit compared to the stock rims I run in the winter (although those are Blizzaks, which are definitely not LRR).

Congrats on the purchase! Hope you're enjoying it.


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I wear these tires first because replacing tires may cost you nearly $500 and you won't be saving this much money by the time your tires are worn

 

I prefer Michelin LRR tires. I put them on a SUV and got a solid 4 mpg improvement and lately put Michelin Defender's on my wife's Escort and it is running upper 30's to low 40's mpg consistently. Before it was running high 20's to mid 30's mpg's on those Kumho tires the original poster had on his car.

Mike

 

^^^ THIS.

Not sure why you'd waste some perfectly good tires. The aftermarket rims will have a negligible effect on fuel economy, as will the tires. Even if they cost you 5 MPG, which I doubt, it would cost you less than $250 over the next 30,000 miles. That's less than half what your new wheels and tires will cost.

 

Yes but it sounds like he can have a set of original tires & wheels INSTEAD which is preferable to these aftermarket pieces IMO.