Michelin Energy MXV4+ Green Tires

My goal was to keep or improve the LRR but have a bit better than oem performance especially in rain. Don't care about snow, since I switch to real snow tires in winter.

So I got a set of Michelin MXV4+ tires to compare to the oems. They even label them "green"! Got wheels too from Tire Rack.

So far no rain yet, but expect some later in the week. So my first impressions are preliminary:

First noticed the tires are way quieter than my oem ones. Worth it just for that!
Secondly I noticed softer ride and better grip esp on rear wheels
when going over bumps.

So far I am very pleased with the improvements. And after driving on them for like 30 miles I see no mileage degradation, or it may be slightly better. I'll have to see after a tank or two to be sure.

But I am wondering if I made a mistake: Michelin has these in the stock size, but they have even better ones (according to their web info) in the 195-65/R15 size, MXV4S8's. These would change the speedometer a bit, but they claim even better performance and lower rolling resistance.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tideland Prius\";p=\"104384)</div>

Yes. I hope someday we'll get real numbers for LRR ratings, so we can tell what we're buying and what we're missing out on.

I found the grean seal rankings, but the MXV4S8's are too new I guess.
http://www.greenseal.org/recommendations/C...gresistance.pdf

 

Today we got rain!

Tires are still great. Good as ones on other cars I've had, and way better than the oem Goodyears. I feel like they are grabbing the road with glue compared to the old tires. And unlike what I read about some of the other better tires, I see no drop in mileage.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(925PriusGuy\";p=\"105035)</div>

Here it is.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(NuShrike\";p=\"105337)</div>

From this |calculator|, you would be running 2.25% too slow (when new, could be up to 4% when nearing bald) running 195-65/R15s, and would it affect the ABS, drive-ratio, etc besides speedo from the stock 185-65s?

But, Michelin doesn't seem to put out a proper plus-zero size for R15 as 195-60/R15 or 205-60/R15 (both .96% off) for the MXV4S8s. :|[/b][/quote]

I don't think 2% would be bad, and as tire wears it would get closer to oem diameter, so error should get less not more. I may try these next time, if they don't add the Prius size. For sure I will not go back to the Integrety tires.

 

OK I expect the tires should improve if anything after 500 miles or so.
I won't know much till I ditch my fuel and go back to the Shell I was using, since my mileage dropped noticably at my last fill up. I have a test loop I drive and can't come close to the mileage on it I got before the fill up. And I had driven it with the new tires no problem.

So won't know much more for a few weeks.

Regarding HydroEdge I avoided them because they aren't LRR, and I need all the mileage help I can get. But for the ultimate rain performance I'm sure they're great. The side channels look very functional, and my tires don't have them So guess it's a choice of priorities.

But with MXV4plus I feel reasonably safe driving with the traffic in rain, and with OEM tires I felt unsafe unless I went about 10 mph slower.

 

OK I'm back using Shell exactly as before but this time on the Michelin MXV4 plus tires instead of the oem ones. And they work great for LRR!

With the previous test loop runs using oem tires I got about 55 mpg. And I had one test run at 55 with the new tires too. Then I got some bad gasoline!

With many runs on the new Michelins I was getting like 48 to 50 mpg. Then I added some Techron and octane booster to the bad gas I had filled with and got mileage up to 52

MY test loop is a mix of maybe 5 miles at 25 to 40 mph. And the rest is split maybe 60/40 at 65 mph and 55 mph.

So today I filled up again with Shell gas and drove the loop and mileage was right back at 55. This at 44 miles from fill up.

Another thing I noticed was at steady 65 every 5 min bar was over 50 even the up hill sections. I had like most at 48 with the bad gasoline.

So tires are doing everything I want: Better in every way than oem ones, except maybe price, and still at least a match for LRR.

I tested both tire sets at 42/40 pressure, which I used on oems, because ride was bad at any pressure anyway that got good mileage.

The Michelins seem to work better at 38/36 without noticable mileage penalty, and much improved ride. So now that I have compared them twice I will go down to that pressure.