Replaced Ecopia's with Michelin Defenders

[GerryAZ]

I was tired of the excessive road noise and marginal handling of the Ecopias so I took advantage of a Michelin promotion and generous trade-in allowance to replace them even though I had almost 50% of the tread left at 20,600 miles. I now have 23,100 miles and am very happy with the Michelins even though I took a significant range hit (as noted in my earlier post) and 0-60 time has noticeably increased.

Gerry

[Stanton]

I'm already seeing an improvement after a few hundred miles: I'm in the mid-4's now for m/kWh (should be high-4's). The weather has warmed a bit, but that can't be all of it. As for ride/handling: I'm very pleased with the Michelin's. I'll update if/when I see further improvement in range.

[jfsquires]

Title says it all: I finally got rid of those (crummy) stock tires and replaced them with a good LRR tire with a 90k mile warranty. I wasn't going to make it through my next inspection (or 20k miles), so I "pulled the trigger" while Michelin still had a rebate going. These are expensive tires, but I expect to get MUCH better value out of them than another set of Ecopia's.

Has anyone gone to smaller tires - 195/65R15 for example? I would expect smaller rims and tires would be lighter,
which might have some advantage. How would handling and braking be affected with a smaller tire? And of course, range.

[Bassman]

Put Michelin Defenders on this morning after putting 35000 on the Ecopias. Have been getting mid to low 4s in efficiency (4.2 to 4.5 mi/KWhr) on the wore Ecopias. I'll see how the Defenders perform in about 4000 to 5000 miles. The tire dealer indicated that they definitely need to be broken in before checking the efficiency.

[zeroco2]

Well my Ecopia's lasted 25K so I just switched to Michelin Defenders and noticed a 10% range hit. I'm not sure I want to life with that, I had been told that the Defenders had lower rolling resistance. 90K miles and lower rolling resistance seemed to be too good to be true - and it was!
I would be happy getting 40-50K out of a set of tires. I seem to have gone from one extreme to the other.
Has anyone tried any tires that have a better compromise of range/life?
Thanks
Chris

[dhanson865]

Defenders have proven to hurt MPGs on the Prius so we always recommend the Energy Saver A/S as a replacement for anyone that complains about reduced range with the defenders.

Ironically the range people complain about with the defenders on the Prius forum is getting less than 500 miles to a tank but the same concept applies to the Leaf, just a different unit of measurement.

I do wonder what 15" rims would work with the Leaf and what RPM is needed to keep the speedometer accurate. F8L has documented MPG losses when switching from 15" tires to 17 tires on the same commute.

[Stanton]

Well my Ecopia's lasted 25K so I just switched to Michelin Defenders and noticed a 10% range hit. I'm not sure I want to life with that, I had been told that the Defenders had lower rolling resistance. 90K miles and lower rolling resistance seemed to be too good to be true - and it was!
I would be happy getting 40-50K out of a set of tires. I seem to have gone from one extreme to the other.

Evidence shows that "10% range hit" should come down a bit. The problem is there doesn't seem to be a middle ground: you can either get something like the Ecopia's that just don't last or take a 5-10% range hit (and not buy tires every 2 years). I may be one of the highest mileage Defender guys out there, and I still don't have 5k miles on mine (and my m/kWh has started to improve).

[thankyouOB]

[quote="thankyouOB"
ditto drop in mileage with michelin mxv4s.
and I have had them since October.
break in, shmake in

How many miles do you have on them by now?.. perhaps those long life tires will need a longer break-in[/quote]

bought at 17k, now around 28k.
i think they are broken in.
i still am down about 10%, though some of that could be battery aging.

[DaveEV]

I do wonder what 15" rims would work with the Leaf and what RPM is needed to keep the speedometer accurate. F8L has documented MPG losses when switching from 15" tires to 17 tires on the same commute.

The biggest issue with 15" wheels is finding some that will clear the front brakes. As it is, many 16" wheels don't clear the front brakes.

If you do find some 15" wheels that clear the front brakes, the two tire sizes that are closest to the stock diameter are 195/65/15 (0.5% larger than stock) and 205/60/15 (0.8% smaller than stock). 195/65/15 is a very common size and being slightly narrower and taller should be more efficient as well, so I would opt for that if I were going that route. Note that handling will suffer in comparison to the stock tire size - the sidewall is quite a bit taller.

If looking for 15" wheels, your best bet would be dirt rally style wheels as they often are designed for maximum brake clearance.

Example: Team Dynamics Pro Rally Wheels 15x6 e40 5x114.3

Would love to try to test fit some of those...

[Stanton]

i still am down about 10%, though some of that could be battery aging.

You can't compare absolute range, you have to compare something like "m/kWh".
Doesn't matter if you use CarWings or calculate it yourself, just so long it's a consistent comparison.
Based on "m/kWh", I'm down closer to 6% after ~3000 miles.