In an earlier discussion it was requested that I post pictures of the new rims and tires I put on my 13-month-old 2005 HCH, so I posted five pictures here:

https://www.greenhybrid.com/share/br...&imageuser=832

(ignore the older pictures, only the first five are new)

My rims are 17" Enkei, relatively lightweight (18 lbs.), which at the time of my purchase were only $69 each. For the tires, I decided to experiment and go with a non-LRR-rated (i.e. unknown) South Korean brand, which are allegedly high quality, and which were exceptionally affordable ($55 each). Can you tell I'm married to an accountant?

I decided to forego the LRR tires of the same size, primarly for price, secondarily as an experiment. Consider me your own personal guinea pig.

Here are my MPG observations.

In city driving, I'm not sure I am noticing much difference at all. Last winter I was getting roughly 42-44, and this winter I'm getting 40-44, closer to 44 now that the tires are over 1k miles old.

In highway driving, at 55-65 MPH, I seem to be getting the same mileage also, perhaps a bit less, but I'm just being cautious when I say that. In my few trips, at around 60-65 MPH, I seem to average 48-50 MPG, which is about what I was getting before. I don't want to state this definitively until I have made some more trips.

In highway driving, at 70+ MPH, I seem to be getting worse mileage than before. Closer to 40 MPG, sometimes even below. Before, I recall getting 40-42 MPG at that speed.

From this small amount of empirical data, I conclude that so far, my city driving has not suffered much (maybe 1-2 MPG), and my slowish-speed highway MPG has not suffered much either. However, at higher highway speeds, I seem to be loosing up to 3-4 MPG.

As I say, take this all with a helping of salt, because I have only had the tires for a short time. But in case it's of interest to anybody, I post it here.

 

those wheels look nice!

 

Hi Chuck;

Nice wheels and tires. Your FE does not seem all that Bad.

Thanks for sharing the Pics with us here.

Terry

 

Your car looks nice with the new wheels and tires. I considered changing the wheels and tire on my '04 and the feedback I got from several tire and wheel specialists was that the difference in MPG would be negligible and that if I felt strongly about changing them for new look that I should just go ahead and do so.

Now that I have an '06...I quite like the look of the "pie pans".

 

Nice Rims~

is there a website people can look at other inexpencive styes?

I found this one where you can choose by make, year & model:

http://www.tirerack.com/upgrade_gara...04&autoModClar=

Choose your car make and you can see what the rims looklike on your car!

 

TireRack is the best site for looking at your car with the rims, as far as I could tell. But I want that 360 degree tool so I can rotate it around. ;-)

I was going to purchase my rims and tires from them, but ended up spotting a deal for the ones I ended up with at Discount Tire, aka America's Tire, at their web site. It's a pretty good merchandise web site, at http://www.discounttire.com. There is a franchise near where I live, so I figured out exactly what I wanted, and went to the store for the purchase.

Their prices, in general, are not as good as TireRack, but they seem to have some products at the low end that are not available at TireRack. That's how I found the deal.

I will admit that I really had fun shopping for about three or four weeks, trying to figure out what, if anything, I really wanted. These web sites make it quite an enjoyable exercise, as opposed to driving around everywhere and dealing with salespeople.

 

I changed mine to the EX tires/rims. Don't see any significant change in MPG. Do notice better ride quality and handling. I think the car looks much sportier with the new digs.
Rick

 

Coyote,

Your car looks great! I like the combo of tires with the tinted glass - looks very cool.

I used a different brand - Kosei 15" and they were very light (~10 lbs) for my replacement. I think you and I may have a very interesting comparison to make over time. I went lightweight with LRR tires - would be very curious compare our two experiences.

When I was going through my upgrade, an number of forum members pointed out that my spoked wheels will likely cause more drag than my OEM wheels. I was skeptical, but after about 3K miles on the new setup, I'm wondering if it has merit. Your observation of slightly lower FE and higher speeds seems to agree with that assertion. I'm getting lower than typical FE for winter - down maybe 1-2 MPG from the prevous 3 winters. My commute is mostly 40-50 MPH, with maybe 30% of it at 60 MPH. I'm having a hard time concluding anything because of the cold. I'm anxious for summer to arrive, because in some warm, dry conditions I'll be able to get an accurate picture. I expect to post again with some data in August - would be interesting to compare with your results as well.

In all I'm happy with the look so if it costs 1-2 MPG so be it. I was hoping that the lightweight wheels would improve things (I dropped ~3 lbs per wheel). Would be interesting if the weight and the wind resistance was a push...

 

Hi Tim,

You were sort of my hero by going out and replacing your rims and tires based on a desire for upgraded aesthetics. When you say "In all I'm happy with the look so if it costs 1-2 MPG so be it," I'm in 100% agreement. Getting mid-40s MPG, with a car you really like, and with looks that catch the eye -- what's not to like?

My personal feeling is that sometimes there can be a tendency to worship individual MPG, when I believe that our goal should be collective MPG and relative MPG. But that's a subject for another thread, which I will initiate as soon as I muster up the courage. Watch this space. ;-)

And the fact that you chose the wiser path -- very lightweight rims and LRR tires -- was one reason why I decided to go ahead an try out the rims and tires I did. I figured that we already would be getting some data for probably the optimal setup (yours), so I went ahead and chose what I did: moderately "lightweight" rims (for 17"), and non-LRR tires. We can see what the difference is -- my hunch is that if you see a 1-2 MPG difference, then I will see 2-4 overall.

And I agree about the winter: I think that by the end of the summer we will each have some more reliable data with which to compare to our old results.

 

Great! I'll watch for the other thread. I agree with your collective MPG comment. I've gone on and on in other threads about the variables that go into any given tank of gas that could influence the outcome +/- 3-5 MPG. We all have good tanks and bad ones. After 3 years and ~80 tanks of gas I'm a little less enthusiastic about obsessing over any one of them.

I'm glad you chose the 17". That's not a bad weight for that size rim. Most racing rims I was looking at were 15-16 lbs for a 17", so your 18 is a nice number. In retrospect, I should have gone with a 17" setup and a 205/50 tire. I got caught up in the whole weight thing. I'm not unhappy with the 15's, but now that I know they don't make all that much difference, I could have gone larger. I'll remember that for my 2010 HCH... ;-)