Gen3 Prius - Which Tyres ?

[OldSkoO1]

I'm on some Michelin primacy tyres and unfortunately have a slow puncture in the rear tyre.

I like to change in pairs and luckily they need doing.

Surprised to see these tyres do very bad on the Eco rating

What are really good Eco tyres for the prius.

I'm on 17s and camskill give one tyre that is B rated on fuel. The Hankook ventus prime 2

But independent reviews show it as average it

Anyone had mpg success on new tyres. Prius is sensitive to conditions and change and don't want to go backwards with different tyres

Thanks

[PeteB]

I'm pleased so far with Dunlop Sport BluResponse (Eco B Wet A 68 dB ) 195/65R15 91 H for £66 a corner at my Norwich Toyota dealer, but my 2012 T3 is on 15" wheels, not 17" like your T-Spirit (expect yours will be a bit dearer).

Still getting 72+ mpg (indicated - so knock 3½ off) on a long fast run to Bedfordshire and back (from Norfolk coast) and up to 90 on local 20-30 mph journeys if more than 3-4 miles. Plus they're quieter than the original Bridgestones.

[Cyker]

Take the tyre rating with a big pinch of salt, esp. for tyres that were first made before the rating system came out.

So far I've found them mostly useless and borderline inaccurate, esp. between different manufacturers!

[Ten Ninety]

I struggled to find useful information on this when I was looking to change earlier in the year. Most of the tyre reviews focus on handling and braking and the Eco ratings can't be trusted.

My comparison doesn't really help specifically because I changed wheel size at the same time. However, I would not be inclined to recommend Goodyear EfficientGrip Performance. I went from the 17" Primacy HPs to 15" Goodyears and I'm not overly impressed. Until I upped the PSI by another 5, after scrubbing in they were delivering pretty much the same mpg as I was getting on the Michelins despite the reduction in wheel size and a supposed difference in Eco rating from E to B. Now I am getting better figures but I'm running stupidly high pressures to do it (which is also 'necessary' to fix the effects on handling which the ridiculously soft sidewalls on the Goodyears introduced). The only good thing is that they are quieter, but again I suspect that might have more to do with the smaller contact patch of the 15s.

I think the Primacy HPs as fitted to the Prius (and my wife's Auris) are brilliant tyres. They last forever and can deliver great mpg despite their supposedly poor Eco rating.

[Ancient Nerd]

I'm on some Michelin primacy tyres and unfortunately have a slow puncture in the rear tyre.

I like to change in pairs and luckily they need doing.

Surprised to see these tyres do very bad on the Eco rating

What are really good Eco tyres for the prius.

I'm on 17s and camskill give one tyre that is B rated on fuel. The hankook ventus prime 2

But independent reviews show it as average it

Anyone had mpg success on new tyres. Prius is sensitive to conditions and change and don't want to go backwards with different tyres

Thanks

I had a set of Ventus Prime 2's on mine to replace the original Primacy HPs.

Despite the significantly better fuel rating, I consistently got around 2-3 mpg less than the Michelins.

In addition, they appear to be more puncture-prone. Probably not statistically relevant, but 0 punctures in 220,000 tyre-miles for the Michelins, 3 in around 110,000 tyre-miles.

The minor tread cuts are much less deep on the Hankooks. These had completely gone with around 3.5 mm tread left on the Hankooks, resulting in very poor wet grip. The Michelins still had them present, with acceptable grip at 2mm.

In summary, the Hankooks were a bit cheaper to buy, but used a bit more fuel, lasted not much more than half the mileage of the Michelins, and had more punctures.

I have now got Michelin Primacys for the summer, and Goodyear Ultra-grip 7s for the winter. Much improved.

[amdorset]

Had Hankook Ventus Prime 2 fitted 6 weeks ago, mpg went from 57 to 62 overnight. I also find they give less noise, they replaced Michelins

[Grumpy Cabbie]

I'm still awaiting delivery of my Bridgestone EP001S's which are seemingly impossible to get hold of. They're a double A rated tyre and having used Bridgestones in the past and been happy with them, though I'd give these new ones a try.

Ordered them once and had the order cancelled as they couldn't source any. Tried somewhere else, and had the same thing happen! Come off the phone early afternoon today and hopefully, fingers crossed I should get them in to my local tyre fitters on Wednesday.

Time will tell and I'll see how I find them. Hmmm, not impressed so far, unless they're really good that they can't make them fast enough.

[PeteB]

The Bridgestone EP001S's were top of my list last November until I got prices around £91 each and £66 for the Dunlop

Sport BluResponse.

Although I don't know how reliable any of these ratings are, I was tempted by the extra 1 db reduction on noise for the Dunlops, and some very positive reviews on this and other forums.

It wasn't until I had two more Dunlops fitted last month (now £66 each) that the noise improvement became apparent, and economy has been at least as good as before, maybe slightly better. Handling is just fine.

[Cyker]

This probably isn't that much help, but the best tyres I've had so far have been XL-rated Continental Premium Contact 2E's - They are a harder compound than the newer CPC5's (Which I wore out in 7000 miles!! ) and the XL-rated ones are technically for vans, which means they have stiffer sidewalls.

At the time they were £40 a corner (Probably over £50 now . Not sure what it'd be for Prius sizes, but for a 15" rim Yaris they were £70 vs my 14"'s £40 at the time!), but lasted me over 20k miles, had good wet grip and handling until they hit 3mm, where they started getting progressively worse in understeer and wet cornering, giving me plenty of warning to change them!

I was running 40/35psi on those and they are the tyres I did my epic 800-mile tank on :D

[Cocomango]

I have the 17" Hankook Ventus Prime 2 as well. I didn't notice much mpg improvement over the original Dunlops.

[Ancient Nerd]

I have the 17" Hankook Ventus Prime 2 as well. I didn't notice much mpg improvement over the original Dunlops.

Also, the sipes on the Hankooks are much shallower than on the Michelin Primacy HPs. The result is that by the time the tread is down to around 3.5 to 4 mm, there was little wet grip left, so the tyres had to be replaced much earlier.