I've seen discussions on this forum and on others, regarding the effect on MPG of having different tires (or rims) on your HCH (or any other hybrid, for that matter). There are even a couple articles, at tirerack and greenseal and others.

What I haven't seen are many first-hand reports from people who have done this themselves. The closest I have found were a couple folks at insightcentral and in a tirerack customer review, which were to my mind anyway, inconclusive. I even remember an article long ago on this forum called something like "new tires killed the mileage king", or something like that.

And I know that Tim (aka Paul) is about to do this, and we wait in eager anticipation for his results.

In the meantime, however, I was wondering if we could pull somebody out of 'lurkdom' who would like to share their observations from personal experience. Or even any regulars. Real data, not just speculation.

Anybody?

 

Check C Reports.They give tires a rolling resistance grade-all red,half red, empty circle,half black,all black.I haven't read their testing procedure,so I don't know if you can attach any number to these grades.Luck,Charlie

 

Yeah I read that Consumer Reports... report. Among the least-rolling-resistance tires, the Michelin Harmony looked like the best non-shopping-club tire, with the Michelin X-Radial being the best tire of all, though with worse snow traction than the Harmony. Anyway I'm thinking of eventually replacing the tires for my long-awaited 2006 HCH and I think I'll buy the Harmonies.

 

Anybody know the issue of consumer reports these guys are referring to? I would like to have a look at it. Thanks.

 

It was the November 2006 issue, page 52.

 

Thanks. I had my brother look it up. He couldn't find any S rated tires though.

 

I've attached a PDF of the GreenSeal report on low rolling-resistance tires that you talked about. I plan on replacing two of my Bridgestone B381s with Sumitomo HTR200s within the next year.

You can check some reviews on TireRack.com on some of the tires listed:

Stock tires for the HCH generation 1:
Bridgestone B381: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....tireModel=B381
Dunlop SP20 FE: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....eModel=SP20+FE

Looks good to me:
Sumitomo HTR200: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....eModel=HTR+200

There are also many other tires you could check reviews on TireRack.com: those were just to get you started

 

Does anyone have an idea how the Dunlop SP Winter Sport M2's would work? Just wondering. I have at least 39,000 miles before I really need to reach this kind of decision but I am pretty curious.