Tire question from a Prius newb :P

The touring model Prius has a stiffer suspension, so in buying that model you asked for a firmer ride. Also, I find with any Prius, road noise is more noticeable than with a heavy, sound dampened car. The Prius doesn't have a lot of sound dampening material, but the Prius doesn't make a lot of noise on its own, so if you drive over a smooth road with good tires, it's very quiet, but over a textured road it can be quiet loud.

Tom

 

The Prius is the QUIETEST car I've ever owned. My cars have mostly been sporty, compact cars, and a few Mustangs. I don't get the noise complaints that appear here so much. Its also my first automatic, and first 4 door. Its amazing that your Prius is louder than a 4 X $ pick-up!

 

I think a big part of it, is that the road noise is more noticeable because the rest of the car is so quiet. On my WRX, you'd never know the car even had tires

rob

 

I would say that my FJ is hands down far better ride comfort than my Prius. To me, the Prius always did seem to ride on the stiff side, but so do a lot of cars now. I've had Corolla, Yaris, Camry, and Avalon service loaners, and only the Avalon had IMHO a nice plush ride

A stiff suspension is fine on smooth roads. Hit rough pavement or washboardy gravel roads, the Prius really vibrates and is harsh. Around a corner, the car will then skate around

In Winnipeg it's easy to find a major road in very bad shape. Drive West on Dugald, between Plesis and Lagimodiere, about every 20 ft or so are sharp ridges across the road. Almost like washboardy texture, except on pavement

The FJ has no problem soaking up those imperfections, the Prius dances in terror over them. I generally avoid such roads in the Prius now that I have the FJ.

For the same reason I now take the FJ to the hobby farm, never the Prius. They recently started logging on Crown land around 5km from my place, and the truck traffic on that gravel sideroad is creating washboardy, potholed, deeply rutted problems

The FJ has no problem over such roads, the Prius will actually scrape sometimes. So I prefer to let the FJ do what it was engineered to do.

As far as tire choices, the OEM tires for the Prius really suck on snow and *especially* on slush and ice. You can pry my studded winter tires off my cold dead fingers

 

my 08 touring with same tires rides wonderfully quiet and smooth. a little harsher than the standard prius, but i expected that due to the touring suspension, perhaps you are expecting something the touring prius isnt.

 

There are not a lot of tires available in the Touring's OEM 195/55/16 size. You will have more variety of tires, including the ComforTred, available in the wider 205/55/16 size. I know that several Touring owners have gone to the 205/55/16 size.

There have been several recent threads here about the Touring's tires. You may want to take a look at this one:

http://priuschat.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37637&highlight=tire+upgrade

Good luck.

 

your tacoma would have a 75-series tire that has almost double the amount of impact-absorbing air than the 55-series tire of the touring.
if you think that's rough I sometimes put 215/40-18 tires in the summer for looks, now 40-series is a really rough ride.

my last oil change at my dealership was the 1st time i saw the touring. the larger spoiler & wheels are gorgeous. i personally removed my ugly trim rings on my 15" prius wheels, but i couldn't help but notice that the 16" touring wheel is actually graphite in color and there is a silver wheel cover covering the whole wheel.

depending on what color prius you bought you might consider removing the silver plastic wheel covers & showing off that graphite wheels underneath, this would give you an awesome 'aftermarket' look this summer.

did you get barcelona red? before 2007 the only attractive prius color was seaside blue (lucky me!!!), I didn't like the dark salsa red, the beige, gray, silver & white are boring, and the gorgeous black would show off too many scratches & chips after a couple of years. But I saw a a barcelona red touring model & my jaw dropped, it was so beautiful.

i only wish the touring model could have the nav w/o the leather. who wants freezing leather in the winter & scalding leather in the summer (especially with no moonroof to vent the heat), I used to think nav systems were stupid till I drove through missouri fog so thick i could only see 10 feet in front of my car. I zoomed in & used my nav to see the road curves to drive like a submarine, it also worked well in a michigan snow storm.

to conclude, be grateful you got a touring model, especially if its barcelona red, so just deal with the harsher ride and know that you have a stylish, practial, extremely eco-friendly car. & if you want the smoother non-touring model, lets trade!!!!

 

My guess is that you will take a minor hit in mpg because of the wider thread and higher rolling resistance (I assume the Turanza El400-02 has a lower rolling resistance than the ComforTreds).

BTW, if you want to see how your Turanza El400-02 tires stack up against other standard touring all season tires, you might want to look at this Tire Rack customer survey:

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/surveyresults/surveydisplay.jsp?type=ST

I think the survey is interesting. Though the Turanza El400-02 is ranked pretty low (#21 out of 24), its scores for noise and comfort are considered "good" (but most of the tires surveyed rank higher in these categories too).