The "what tire do you recommend" question...

Posting this link to the EU's EPREL database for tires, covering fuel efficiency, wet grip, and external noise.

https://eprel.ec.europa.eu/screen/product/tyres

That web site has a crappy interface, perhaps they hired the firm that redid Toyota's parts web site? Tried to find a "bulk download" option (really, this wouldn't be that large a CSV file) but didn't find a way to do it. The closest I got was to put the manufacturer's name in the second field, select A,B,C for efficiency, and in advanced enter the tire size of "185/65 R15" with "Free text" checked.

So far I am batting 0% on finding:

Bridgestone Ecopia EP422
General Altimax R45
Hankook Kinergy PT

Either these are aren't sold in the EU, or they are sold under different names, or the interface has defeated me. A lot of the ones I checked the details on were pretty old entries, which makes me wonder if this site has been superseded by another.

Note, even if a tire with exactly the same name as one in the US were found that doesn't meant that it actually is the same tire.

 

There is no point in researching tires in other markets as tire specifications are tailored to the market in which they are sold. Even if you find a tire, with the same name, it is almost guaranteed that it will be different in some way from that model sold in the US.

That is why it is hard or even futile for people in countries outside the US to recommend tires for use in the US.

 

The absolute cheapest thing at walmart.com sells. Do the math and then show me why low rolling resistant tires save money. Show me your math

 

The LLR badges are applied with little oversight; my primacy’s are a good example.

 

It is good to remember that there is no official qualification for calling a tire "LRR."

There are no standardized tests. True comparison (even within a national or regional market) is not possible using data sourced from the internet.

Each tire manufacturer has their own methods of testing the rolling resistance of a tire. They may report a figure, but it would be inappropriate to compare that data against any other manufacturer's data.

It would be better if there were a standardized test and each manufacturer self-certified their data
It would be better still if a sanctioning body applied standardized tests to every manufacturer's tires and shared their data

But we don't have any of that, so don't waste too much time on it.

Note: there are standardized tests and reporting methods for other traits of tires, just not for rolling resistance.

 

Yeah, reading the owners reviews is a better approach.

 

Not true, there are at least three officially defined standards for measuring rolling resistance from major standards organizations (SAE and ISO). See the discussion here:


STL Rolling Resistance Capabilities


What isn't standardized is the point below which a tire should be labeled as LLR. That would matter literally not at all if we had access to the actual rolling resistance numbers for any one of those three tests, since then comparisons between tires would just involve subtraction (assuming the same standard was used), or at worst, an approximate conversion then subtraction (for different standards).

 

My hours long search for a numeric rolling resistance value for the Bridgestone EP422 has come up empty. I did find an old news story that Bridgestone had claimed that the newer EP422 Plus has 35% lower rolling resistance than the original EP422.

Tire Review: Bridgestone EP 422 Plus Low-Rolling Resistance Tire | Car News | Auto123

However, rather than providing numeric values to support this claim, journalists were instead given tricycles to pedal, each with one of the two types of tires. The person writing the article thought the plus was easier to pedal. This is of course a ridiculous test since the behavior of the tire on a car, with around ~1000 lbs of load per tire, is going to be quite different than on a trike with ~200/3 pounds of load per tire. With that tiny load there would be almost no deformation of the tire when it rolls and whatever rolling resistance was felt would be mostly from surface interactions between the tire and the pavement. I doubt the trikes were loaded with 1000 lbs of load per tire to emulate better the conditions on a car, since it would have been very hard to pedal such a vehicle.

 

It is one thing for a test to exist, and another entirely to get multiple manufacturers to actually do the test and allow the results to be published.

 

Independent tester would be a lot more confidence inspiring.