Tires

During and since the winter of 2007 I have gone back to dedicated snows on the cars that go out in the winter. 2007 was BRUTAL, it was also the year I was delivering newpapers from 1:30AM to 3-4:30 AM, and of course, when it snowed, the storms would start at...um, 1:30AM! I had some decent all-seasons (that cost a whopping $29 NEW) but on the days it would snow and then RAIN! UGH!! Since I basically have to work anytime FEDEx does, I went with snows. I left the last set I bought on the Mazda and got three years out of them.

Reply to
Hachiroku
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Am reviewing tires to buy for my car before winter sets in. 2010 Prius bought in Oct. '09, went through last winter with original tires - Yokohama Avid S33 - & although last winter was not all that snowy, driving with them was -not- good. Actually, have never liked the tires that came on my new Toyotas (often Integrities, which were also lousy in snow). After switching to all-seasons (vs. studded snows which I used before before radials came on the scene), always wound up buying new tires that were better suited for snowy winters. And dry roads/cornering, for that matter. Liked the Goodyear Regatta & Regatta II the best.

Have whittled it down to 2 all-seasons and 2 dedicated snows. All-seasons in the running: Yokohama Avid Envigor and the Goodyear Assurance TripleTreds. Snows: Michelin X-Ice Xi2 and Dunlop SP WinterSport 3D. All have TireRack ratings in various categories ranging from 7.5 - 9.2. I've done a mini spreadsheet to compare them, & it's basically a wash. Will need to check local prices.

Anyone know if there's a way to retro look up the ratings for the discontinued (several years ago) all-season Goodyear Regattas that I bought for my '90 & '98 Corollas, by any chance? Would give me an even better idea re: choosing the new tires, since I was happy with the Regattas in all road conditions, summer & winter. Held dry roads well, & were good in snow.

I also looked up the ratings for the tires that came on the Prius: the Yokohama Avid S33. Holy crap - no wonder I dislike them so much! Their ratings range from 2.9 - 6.1, with only 3.1 - 3.3 for snowy conditions! Arghh - *why* they're supplied on cars destined for snowy winter areas is beyond me.

Cathy

Reply to
Cathy F.

Up here in the Canadian Sub-Arctic, in Edmonton, the majority of drivers, at least in urban areas, do NOT use snow tires. We simply carry a shovel in the trunk for that maybe once in 5 years it is necessary to use it, instead of waiting for a tow. Simply modify driving habits to allow for greater braking and accelerating distance and NO NEED to spend hundreds of bucks on snow tires plus to labor to change them twice a year. All seasons rule except for those who do a lot of driving on rural side roads OR have a lot of unsanded hills to deal with. Hype from tire manufacturers aside.

Reply to
Sharx35

Let me guess: English is not your native language.

Thats because you're so used to tuning out reality.

Reply to
Michelle Steiner

Ask him/dbu (dbu' or dbu. or dbu"....) about the existence of temperate rain forests. ;-P (That argument goes back years - acc. to dbu (and his various usernames) the only rain forests that exist are jungles/tropical rain forests.

Cathy

Reply to
Cathy F.

Ummm... you two don't seem to have noticed that - with the exception of the tires that initially come on the cars - I mentioned that I've been switching to/using all-season radials that have good ratings, incl. for snow - of which we tend to get a lot ("lake effect" country here), for the last 20+ years. If, OTOH, you want to pay no attention to that sort of detail & don't care about how your tires drive in snowy conditions, feel free to go slip-sliding around on snowy roads. I don't recommend it, but hey - to each their own, n'est-ce pas?

Thanks for your ever-so-helpful replies.

Cathy

Reply to
Cathy F.

Actually, there are temperate rain forests:

Temperate rainforests are rainforests in temperate regions. They can be found in North America (in the Pacific Northwest, the British Columbia Coast, and in the inland rainforest of the Rocky Mountain Trench east of Prince George), in Europe (parts of the British Isles such as the coastal areas of Ireland, Scotland, southern Norway, parts of the western Balkans along the Adriatic coast, as well as in the North West of Spain and coastal areas of the eastern Black Sea, including Georgia and coastal Turkey), in East Asia (in southern China, Taiwan, much of Japan and Korea, and on Sakhalin Island and the adjacent Russian Far East coast), in South America (southern Chile) and also Australia and New Zealand.

Here's a map of where they are:

Reply to
Michelle Steiner

Yeah, I know, but good luck convincing dbu of their existence. ;-) No matter what evidence given to him a few years ago, he adamantly contended that tropical rainforests are the only kind that exist.

Reply to
Cathy F.

That's another scenario I'm considering - if I don't get the all-seasons with excellent-superior ratings, & go with dedicated snows instead (their snow ratings, esp. for deep snow, are of course even better than the best all-seasons), I may simply leave them on all year. Their ratings for dry pavement driving are *way* better than the all-season ones that came with the car, so...

Cathy

Reply to
Cathy F.

Yes, Dooby or dbu if you like was, and is, a piece of work. Good to hear from you again. Retirement going well? As for dealing with "our" winter climate, otherwise known as Syracue, Rochester, and Buffalo (Albany for you if IIRC), Blizzacks gave me excellent performance (on a Camry) for two or three seasons per set, average thereafter as far as I could tell. Did have a set of Pirelli snows on a '90 Passat (fronts were studded) that did wonders for the Passat in snow

TAK

Reply to
tak

I misread what you wrote, and got it backwards. My bad.

Reply to
Michelle Steiner

A lot of places do, esp if you're a regular customer.

Reply to
Hachiroku

I decided to buy new tires for my '05 Prius, replacing the Integrities with Bridgestone Ecopias because I found out that they are used on the '10 model year, and my impression was that the '10 Prius gets very good MPG. Unfortunately, that impression was wrong. If the '10 gets over 50 MPG, it is in spite of the Ecopia tires; not because of them. My MPG dropped from 50 MPG in the summer to 46 and from 48 in the winter to 44, the seasonal difference being a function of the gasoline quality here in California. And the summer gasoline season seems to be getting shorter and shorter.

One more thing - - I found a gas pump that often agrees with the MPG display on my Prius. That pump is golden! All other pumps I've had the misfortune to employ tend to produce an MPG 3 or 4 percent lower than my dash display. Why must it be rare to get your money's worth out of a gas pump these days?

Reply to
Chuck Olson

You're forgiven. ;-)

Reply to
Cathy F.

Am reviewing tires to buy for my car before winter sets in. 2010 Prius bought in Oct. '09, went through last winter with original tires - Yokohama Avid S33 - & although last winter was not all that snowy, driving with them was -not- good. Actually, have never liked the tires that came on my new Toyotas (often Integrities, which were also lousy in snow). After switching to all-seasons (vs. studded snows which I used before before radials came on the scene), always wound up buying new tires that were better suited for snowy winters. And dry roads/cornering, for that matter. Liked the Goodyear Regatta & Regatta II the best.

Have whittled it down to 2 all-seasons and 2 dedicated snows. All-seasons in the running: Yokohama Avid Envigor and the Goodyear Assurance TripleTreds. Snows: Michelin X-Ice Xi2 and Dunlop SP WinterSport 3D. All have TireRack ratings in various categories ranging from 7.5 - 9.2. I've done a mini spreadsheet to compare them, & it's basically a wash. Will need to check local prices.

Anyone know if there's a way to retro look up the ratings for the discontinued (several years ago) all-season Goodyear Regattas that I bought for my '90 & '98 Corollas, by any chance? Would give me an even better idea re: choosing the new tires, since I was happy with the Regattas in all road conditions, summer & winter. Held dry roads well, & were good in snow.

I also looked up the ratings for the tires that came on the Prius: the Yokohama Avid S33. Holy crap - no wonder I dislike them so much! Their ratings range from 2.9 - 6.1, with only 3.1 - 3.3 for snowy conditions! Arghh - *why* they're supplied on cars destined for snowy winter areas is beyond me.

Cathy

Cathy,

During the winter I was unable to climb my driveway with the OEM tires so I bought a set of Bridgestone Blizzak snow/ice tires and a set of rims. They completely solved the problem. Since then, the dealer who sold them to me (Tires Plus) has switch tires for me each spring and fall at no charge. Next best thing to chains.

Al

Reply to
Al Falfa

He does have one redeeming feature... likes animals, feeds the birds.

Good to hear

Good to see you again, too. Yep, retirement's going fine, thanks. At the end of the summer it's sort of like summer vacation just keeps a-going, except eventually the weather no longer cooperates. ;-) There are still some things I rather miss about work, but overall, there are more things I

*don't* miss. The SED with its tests (parts of which are always invalid/poorly written, which is mega-annoying!!) & - which keep morphing, the discipline aspect of teaching, etc., etc. I waited beyond full retirement age until the scale had definitely tipped to ~65/35 before deciding to retire, so I knew I was doing the right thing w/out second-guessing myself. Have been taking non-credit courses through a program affiliated with a local SUNY college, which is fun & interesting. Very little subbing (lousy pay, for one thing - comes out to ~$7.50/hr. net, which is absurd!), but did regional scoring of the NYS Gr. 3 - 6 Math tests @ BOCES last spring, which pays triple what subbing pays. :-)

Sort of... am west of Albany, where lake effect snows - usually off Ontario - still reach quite often.

Blizzacks gave me excellent

Thanks. The Blizzaks were in the running - they came out 3rd on my list of dedicated snows when I did a spreadsheet sort of comparison for all of the individual ratrings. I'll take another look at them in case they wind up being far less expensive than the other two snow tires. The only potential problem (or maybe advantage, price-wise, re: possibly on sale!) I see there is that apparently the Blizzaks that have been around ("60", IIRC?) are now being discontinued & they're coming out with the next generation of them (70?) which have no ratings, so far. I noticed a Pirelli tire listed while doing searches. I loved studded snows back when I had them in the 70's (& early-mid 80's? - can't remember any longer!), but now you *have* to get them changed out by 'x' date, or else risk a ticket. So I'd rather stick with great all-seasons or studless snows.

Thanks again.

Cathy

Reply to
Cathy F.

My Corollas used to come with Bridgestone Integrity tires, & I hated them as much as I can't stand these Avid S33s! Always wound up buying a new set of tires to replace the Integrities - they simply felt unsafe. They didn't hold the road well in dry weather & were awful in snow. I always thought the Integrity tires were grossly misnamed.

I've considered that my MPG may well go down by switching out the Avid S33s, but at this point I don't care - I'd rather have good traction & lose a few MPGs, than to spend another winter sliding around on the roads. I'm *still* going to be getting great mileage compared with most other vehicles, anyway. ;-)

Thanks for answering -

Cathy

Reply to
Cathy F.

Any gasoline operated vehicle can get better FE/MPG by using non-ethanol blended gas, however, but service stations that sell

100% gasoline is becoming increasingly rare. Usually these non ethanol gas stations donot exist in metro areas. To find a gas station in your region/state that sells *real* gasoline goto....

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I found that the mileage on my 2010 Prius III using the OEM Yokohama Avid S33 improved when I increased the tire pressure from 35 psi to 44 psi for the front tires and from 33 psi to 42 psi for the rear tires. My overall MPG increased from a top 58 mpg to a top of 66 mpg. The higher psi lowers the rolling resistance. I have to monitor the tire pressure constantly because the Yokohamas Avid S33 seems to loose one or two pounds of air pressure every week ( the Avid S33 maximum designed/ rated tire pressure is 44 psi ). The lower tire rolling resistance makes it easier for the MG/ICE to drive the Prius but more importantly the LRR improvements extends the Prius's ability to *coast* downhill ( where it seems to have the most significant effect on the FE). On the down side, the weekly resetting of the tires at these higher pressure appears to have caused my tire foot pump to fail prematurely(9_9)

Thanks for your inpout. If I wind up buying dedicated snow tires & using the Avid S33s during the summers, I'll keep this in mind. Although, I have to say, I don't like the way they handle on dry roads, either - so am very tempted to jettison them altogether, even if they're only a little over a year old!

Cathy

Walter Lee

2010 Toyota Prius III, Blue Ribbon/Dark Grey Yokohama Avid S33 (front 44 psi, rear 42 psi) Scangauge II (AVG, RPM, MPG, FWT), Garmin 265WT, OEM floor mats Washington DC Metro Area

Hypermiler in Training. :-P

+6000 miles, computed overal fuel efficiency ` mpg. Worst tank FE = 54 mpg computed Best tank FE = 66 mpg computed Last tank FE = 58 mpg computed
Reply to
Cathy F.

Whoa, lots of info - I'll drag this post over to my Inbox, & browse these sites later. Thank you!

Cathy

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Reply to
Cathy F.

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