I have been doing some research on the OEM Toyo Proxes winter performance and the results do not look very good. Most likely will be purchasing a 2nd set of wheels with winter tires shortly. Anybody have any experience running OEM Prius tires on snow and ice? More specific, anybody have any experience running Toyo Proxes A20 (PXA20 - 5) tires in winter conditions?
I use Nokian WRg2 tires which are all weather tires from Finland with good snow/ice/wet traction JeffD
Check the Geniii and Genii fuel economy forums for detailed information on winter tires. Since the v model was just released there will not be a lot of people with experience in winter weather with this car and those tires. Most OEM tires on fuel efficient cars are not designed for extreme winter weather
I purchased my V last saturday and left the dealership about two hours after a Noreaster started. The roads were bad and cars were just spinning out of control. there were about 4 inches of snowfall on the ground by then. All I can say is I made it 6 miles, through a few moderate hills, without any problems. As I recall, I even managed to stop down a "VERY" steep hill with minor skids (skid about 2 feet at 10 MPH). Just utilize safe practices (not tailgating, speeding, and allowing ample stop time) and this tires should do just fine as far as enough ground clearence still exists.
There is a big difference between acceptable and safe. As your tires wear down a bit your traction in the snow and ice will go from acceptable to unsafe fairly quickly. Click the Tire Test link in my signature to see how All-Season tires fared when tested against studless snow tires.
That was our pick: seem very LRR, very smooth running. Just put them back on for the second year, and when I asked my wife how they were, she said she'd forgot I'd even put them on. Got them last fall, but we had next to no snow last winter (on the west coast of British Columbia, Canada). The predictions are for a colder winter this year, though.
Test fitted the new wheels and tires today, fit perfect and the 16" wheel and tire assembly weighs 6 lbs less than the 17" stock gear.