I'm sure some (if not all) of what I have to ask can be found here through thorough search, but I'm going to ask the questions directly anyway...

just purchased a 2007 Mariner Hybrid with 98k. Vehicle seems to have been well taken care of and regularly maintained by and large. The previous owner, unfortunately imo, put a set of Goodyear Wrangler SRA's on it. They are noisy and the tread had feathered so I'm not sure how regularly he rotated them. I've rotated the tires and performed all regular maintenance to give my self a good baseline to begin (I am super OCD when it comes to maintenance intervals and as a result regularly get in excess of 250k on my vehicles’ lives).

Firstly, I’d like to know what some folks experience here is with low rolling resistance tires? I know there are some that are rated for all season, and I’m regularly in wet road conditions where I live so I don’t want a huge sacrifice in wet performance.

Secondly, I had someone who is experienced with maintenance on newer cars but not necessarily Hybrids tell me it might be a good idea disconnect my starter battery to drain the PCM’s adaptive memory so that it resets to factory presets in case someone prior to me had poor driving habits. Opinions? What is the danger of setting off the PATS in doing this? (I once had to take my 2005 Explorer to the dealership because the PATS activated during a battery swap… )

Thanks, and thanks for a great forum!

 

I've been well satisfied with the Michelin Latitude Tours that came with mine. Enough so, that I replaced my 65,000 mile Tours with new ones. Incidentally, I don't normally get that much wear out of tires, so I have been well pleased with the noise level as well as the wear. I haven't noticed any problem in rain, although they're not a great tire for snow.

 

Thanks for the input! What has been your rotation interval, if you don't mind my asking?

 

That's the thing, I think I rotated them at 30,000 miles, which of course is way too long, but the tread wear was really even. And at 65,000 miles I replaced them. Even then I think I could have easily got another 10,000 miles, but my daughter was taking it across country and I wanted to go ahead and put new shoes on it.

 

I also prefer the Latitude Tours, but I take a different path regarding rotation and tire pressure. I don't rotate any of my tires ever, so I can determine any signs of alignment or front end problems ASAP. About 6 years ago I learned high tire pressure made my FEH's handle better, reduced tire wear by 40%, and increased MPG about 10%. I never re-balance my tires unless for damage or riding problems. Max sidewall pressure on the Tours is 44psi, but I've ran 50-55psi on both the '05 and '09 FEH's with nothing but the best results on eight tires. My '09 has the original rear Tours with 30,000 miles and still look almost new. I've never had any front end or shock problems on either FEH or my '11 Explorer with 40,000 miles. The rear tires on the Explorer still look great, but I'll get two new front tires in the next 5,000 miles. Buying two tires at a time make it a lot better on the wallet and I can continue to watch for alignment and front end problems.

Many Hypermilers run higher tire pressure than I do and you will never convince them to ever go back to even Max sidewall or lower after what they've learned.

The Tours have an even lower roll resistances (LRR) than the OEM tires on the '05 - '08 FEH's. These tires are lighter weight which make them LRR.
The person that bought my '05 FEH changed the tires to a cheap set of tires and then called me complaining how her MPG dropped. I told her about the Tours when she bought the FEH, but it's to late after making the change.

GaryG

 

great information, much appreciated! I have the SRA's at max pressure right now, so I may experiment with putting an extra 5-6 psi in them to see how they respond...

 

I have also had great experience with the Latitude Tours for the last 37,000 miles (since replacing the OEMs at 48,000). I do rotate them every 7,500 miles and I also run them at 55 psi year round. I had issues with the OEM tires in slippery/snowy driving, but have not had any with the Latitude Tours over their 38 months.

Based on the minimized wear, I expect to keep them for at least another 33,000 miles, but I recently handed-down the FEH to my 17 year old daughter, so we'll see how they hold up under her driving

 

good to know, thanks!

btw, if your daughter drives anything like my wife, good luck!

 

Another vote for the Latitude Tours...I've been very pleased with them since replacing the stock Continentals.

 

I check the scangauge when she gets home. She was getting ~41 mpg until the cold snap, now she's getting 37-38. Not bad for a teenager. So I can only assume that she's not running it too hard