Tire Replacement Time: Cheap Sumitomo/Nexens to Integrity or FuelMax or EnergySaver

I know there are a ton of tire t(h)reads on here, but I wanted to make a post with some specifics about my situation, it's difficult to lose things among all the wonderful posts in here.

2007 Prius that we picked up last September. It's way past time to replace the tires on it (one of them has sprung a slow leak, and the others are showing pretty nasty cracking and wear), so we're going to do that first thing this morning. We're in Michigan, so rain/snow performance is something we need to be mindful of, but we're pretty sure we can get some upgrades from the tires that were on it when we got it.

In the front, we currently have "Sumitomo HTR A/s P01" 185/65R15 M+S 88H, 51 Max PSI, 1235 Max Load
In the rear, we have "Nexen CP641" 185/65R15 M+S 88H, 44 Max PSI, 1235 Max Load

Discount Tire has the Integrity (that's what these came with originally right?) the FuelMax, and the Energy Saver tires. The Integrities are $80/ea, FuelMax $90/ea and Energy Savers $120/ea. I'm probably leaning towards just spending the extra cash and doing the Energy Savers, as I've read the Integrity absolutely blows on wet roads, and we were really quite happy with the performance of the car during this past horrific winter, but it doesn't look like the existing tires were built with rolling resistance in mind.

We currently get around about 45-47mpg, with some fill ups slightly below and some slightly above that. Trips are extremely widely varied from hundreds of miles on the highway at a time, to 2-mile city trips, to backroads (some even dirt or brick!)...

We're hoping to get a noticeable increase in mpg, without too much of a noticeable decrease in other areas. Considering the condition of the tires, that might not be as difficult of a goal as it may sound -- they're pretty cracked up and tread worn, after a year of us banging on them, and who knows how long they were on there from the previous owner.

If anyone wants to chip in with any advice on these, feel free, I'll check this thread before we make the final decision, but I think our minds are made up on one of these three sets, we just want to see them in person. I mostly am posting this thread so that I can report back on the difference that we get

OH, at the same time, we're going to do the standard oil change maintenance thing, we're about 1500 over due on that right now. (we were going to do all this a month ago, about 700 miles or so, but decided since the car was going to be idle for the last 2 weeks, we'd just do it all in one after getting back from a trip)

Thanks
- Eric

 

hmm. And the tire guy throws a wrench into my plans The sales guy says that his Continental ControlContact Tour A/S are probably the best bang for the buck in the around-$100 LRR price range .. http://www.discounttire.com/dtcs/findTireDetail.do?c=5&rcz=48187&ar=65&rf=true&rd=15&rc=MIDINT&cs=185&dVeh=dVeh&ra=filterTireProducts.do&fl=&tc=CONPT3&yr=2007&pc=19660&vid=011196 .. I know that LusciousGarage recommends a Continental model that seems similar to those, but I'm not sure how they differ. Anyway, we're going to head up there in about 15 minutes to get a look at all 4 models.

 

I'm really leaning towards the Michelin Energy Saver. That Discount Tire specific Conti model seems nice, but the only reviews of it I see anywhere just say "if you can't find it on the manufacturer's web site, don't buy it".. which is not really indicative of anything, other than people not wanting to try the unknown but I can certainly understand that. Few want to be a guinea pig when we're talking about the rubber meeting the road.

They did say they'd have us in and out in about an hour, so as soon as the boss lady wakes up, we're going to get this done, and I'll report back on what comes of it

 

Well, sadly, contrary to their website, they didn't actually have the Michelin's in stock. But that's what i had them get for me. So, I'll report back tomorrow or Wednesday with some initial impression on the difference. Looks like if we get a 3mpg difference, we'll have the tires paid for in a year or two, and I'm definitely ok with that. The money we've saved just in 11 months of driving this car versus our old Focus has made it well worth the purchase, I'd say. With the purchase of these tires, we're about 8k into the car, and we've saved about 1k so far in gas and an uncountable sum in not having to worry about the car failing us at the worst possible time... buying this Prius has been one of the best things I've ever done

 

Well, the Contis didn't seem to be available in any local shops, except for that Discount Tire specific brand, and although the sales guy said "these tires have only been out for a couple of weeks", I could see people asking about them online for 8 months, with zero information given.

SO, we went with the Michelin Energy Saver A/S. I talked with a few different shops, and they all agreed that the quality difference between a new Michelin of -any- A/S type versus the at least 2 year old Sumitomo/Nexen combination would be pretty sizeably in favor of the Michelins. (Although not documented on the Michelins, they do also have the M+S designation for mud/snow, so that's a plus)

We had to have the shop order them in, so we didn't get them fitted until Wed afternoon, so I don't have a whole lot to report about them, but my initial feeling is quite good. Sadly, I can't compare them to any other new tires, as we've been driving the Prius on the theory that "we'll drive the used tires it came with until they're dead".

My feeling from the passenger side alone (I don't drive currently) is that the car feels almost like it's much "stickier" when accelerating, especially over bumpy/pothole riddled roads (yay, Michigan). Probably a result of the tires being brand new, and the alignment being corrected. It's slightly quieter from inside, not as much as I expected, though. Seems it's made quite a difference in turning, as we almost hit a curb turning too sharply into a driveway, which she's not normally prone to doing.

But, now for the real exciting part: She immediately took it to her roller derby practice, 20-ish miles away, and when she got back, we had 64 miles on the ticker, with an eye-popping (on the Prius display) 54mpg. The to-practice-and-back round trip on the highway it usually rates around 45mpg. I saw that and almost had to change my pants. I figure there has to be some anomaly with this particular trip, that's -too much- of an increase ... isn't it? or were those tires really that terrible to the mileage? perhaps we should've changed them up right when we got it, instead of waiting.. Time will tell, and I'll report back. I'm sure we can find something to get into this weekend that will put some good mileage on them

 

Perhaps we will give that a shot on the next one. If we like these during winter, though, we'll probably just stick with these, or whatever is their equivalent at that time.

After this weekend's fun, we were sitting at a more believable 49.8mpg on the MFD. She's out with the car right now, so I'll update with full stats when she gets back, but we went to a concert that was about 40 miles away, and involved a whole lot of sitting still or coasting while the main battery was drained while stuck in horrific traffic. SO, we burned a decent chunk of fuel keeping that battery at minimal charge. (seeing Motley Crue and Alice Cooper was well worth it though)

 

50.1 on 320 now, and it's been raining all day. Says the rain handling is great. I think we're pretty happy with these If that holds at a 3-5mpg improvement gives us 30-50 per tank, saves us $2-3 per week or so, which is $100-$150 or so a year, cost of tires completely paid for in 4 years, but since we needed new tires anyway, i'll just count that against the difference between these and a cheapset .. so the $40 per tire difference between these and cheap ones is covered in one to one and a half years.
Woo!