Lower MPG due to replacing tires?
My wife and I have owned our Toyota Prius for over a year now. We have been averaging about 45-48MPG on a full tank of gas, with our local city driving. However, recently, we've only been getting about 38-42MPG. The only difference I can think of is, that we changed all four tires. We bought some new tires at Costco. The tires are all at the correct pressure. Can different tires really make a 5MPG difference? Thanks.
5 Answers
I don't think by changing the tires will make the 5MPG difference, although I might be asking if you have more items in your Prius, also I just had mine Prius service recently, and I notice the improvement of the fuel efficiency, plus, take your Prius for a long distance, high speed drive is good for it as well.
Yes, the tires make a THAT big of a difference. I did the same thing with my Prius. I did not want to replace the low-rolling resistance tires with the same so I opted for regular sedan tires. My MPGs dropped instantly. On the upside, the car handles much better as is no longer skittish on the freeway.
What kind of tires did you put on? I need to put on tires on my Prius very soon
While many of these individual differences may seem insignificant, it is easy to understand that when they are added together, the new tires may appear to reduce vehicle fuel economy. It also means that a Toyota Prius appearing to get 50.0 mpg just before replacing its worn-out tires with new tires of the same brand, type and size, might be reduced to registering just 47.25 mpg afterwards, even if all of the driving conditions were identical. more info: https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=177
I just put a new set of tires on my Prius this morning - got the Vredestein Quatrac 5 SL 195/65R-15 from Tire Rack. My old tires had around 48,000 miles on them (rated for 60K) and were a bit worn, and had been starting to slip in light-rain conditions. The new tires are VERY quiet, VERY confident even on wet pavement, and give an overall much more comfortable ride. My first drive of around 30 miles into work with these new tires yielded around 58 MPG (my overall average is around 64 MPG), but my EV ratio dropped to around 40% on this trip. I assume that the main difference is in the initial tire wear - every time in the past where I've changed a set of tires, the first hundred or so miles has seen an MPG hit, but then things tend to go back to normal after that.
