New Tires

Hey, my 2006 prius has 310,000 miles now. I've been through 7 sets of tires. I've tried almost everything from the expensive Michelin Defenders that brag 90k tread, to some of the lower mileage ones. My car is perfectly aligned and has no strange wear issues.

Here's what I found:
1) Michelin Defenders: boast an expensive 90k tire, but only last 60k (had them twice). $110 per tire
2) Arizonians (from Discount Tires), advertise a 60k tire, but I got 80k on my last set and only replaced two of them because I still have plenty of tread on the other two (likely going to get 100k on the other two). These cost $70-$80 per tire.

The defenders ride quieter and you get about 1 MPG more (it seems).

The Arizonians have great grip here in Utah's snow and rain, and get MORE MILES than they project. So I'm sticking with these.

One other thing... you are supposed to keep your front tires at 35 psi and the back at 33 psi. I"ve found that if you add about 1-2 more pounds to the front tires, they actually wear more evenly (at 35 psi there's a tendency to wear the outside edges faster (sign that there is too little pressure). so move the front ones up to 36 or 37 psi and keep the back ones at 33.

 

The tires on my car are Yokohama Avid Ascend. Bridgestone Ecopia EP422 & EP422 Plus tires are also supposed to be decent. And there's always Michelin Premier, although those tend to be rather expensive. In order to preserve maximum fuel economy, you should get tires that have low rolling resistance.