these are on sale (4 for the price of 3) here at the moment and I need 4 new tires pretty soon. Lately I've been using Bridgestone Ecopia EP100's and they've been very good. However they're full price no discount so I'm considering trying the Firestone's. If anyone here has tried them, I'm interested in any feedback that I can get about how they fair in terms of fuel economy. I just don't trust manufacturer claims of low rolling resistance or fuel savings without independent testing or some kind of real user reviews.
Aren't these a pretty new offering? Might be difficult to find a lot of user feedback yet. If you choose them, you get to be a Pioneer.
It seems to have performance better than Goodyear Assurance All Season, but about as much rolling resistance. The Tire Rack test report should give a good idea of its performance.
Thanks for the info guys. That tire rack test shows that it's definitely not terrible or anything in terms of rolling resistance, but probably not top tier either. The "Goodyear Assurance All-Season" that it tied with is not the Fuelmax variety, so probably itself only a middle of the bunch performer (in terms of LRR). If you compare those results with these ones here: Tire Test Results : When Round and Black Becomes Lean and Green , and assume that the GY Assurance A/S of the previous test probably aligns somewhat similarly with the GY Assurance of this test, then you can see that the Fuelmax variety is probably about 2% better. And the top performers like the Energy Saver A/S and the Ecopia EP100 around another 4% better on top of that! Given this I think I'll pay the extra $100 and get the EP100's. I've used these for my previous two sets of tires, so I know exactly what to expect. I know I can bank on getting top tier fuel performance and middling (but acceptable) tread life of about 70000 km (45000 miles).
Yeah, looking at the info at Tire Rack, it's not really a low rolling resistance tire. For those that don't drive in the snow (or have separate snow tires), the Energy Saver A/S is my first choice, as I bought the Prius for it's fuel economy, not its handling. To me it seems a little moot to get really nice dry handling tires without doing some upgrades like front and rear swaybars, when the suspension is so mushy. As I need to drive in the snow, I'm considering getting a good all season tire. Something that's rated 7+ for snow and ice on Tire Rack. I'm also considering getting another set of wheels for the car to have separate winter tires. However I have at least another 10,000 miles before I need to decide.
