After picking up a nail and putting on the spare at about 15,000, I've continued to rotate the spare, putting the most worn tire in its place. I've heard that you shouldn't switch car sides with radials, but seems to have made no difference, and I now have 40,000 on the Integs., with several more 1000's at least left. Most of the miles highway, with a bunch of it in the mountains. I guess I got lucky with my set!

Pete

 

You rotate raidals by swapping sides like any other tire... Tires that have a ROTATION direction marked on them, required due to the tread pattern, stay on the same side. But most standard radials rotate normally.

 

Thanks for the info. It made sense to me to rotate the spare along with the others. The most worn tire becomes the spare, not a set pattern. With the first set of tires, this gives you 25% more miles. The best of the bunch becomes the permanent spare when tires are replaced.

Pete

 

2007 limited with goodyear tires. Fronts made it to 17k with outer tread wear. Replaced with michelins now at 11k, no where near the same amount of wear as the goodyears.

 

I had same problem with 2007 TCH. My TCH had Bridgestone Turanza EL-400-02 (the two OEMs tires used by Toyota are Bridgestone and Michelin). Given like most hybrid drivers, we had changed to a non aggressive driving style, how could the tires be worn out after 15K miles? Tire pressures ok, alignment ok, rotation every 5Kmiles etc. so not a factor.

The reason is the combination of the OEM tires being low rolling resistance (for best mpg) and the high torque of the electric drive at low speeds/moving away. Toyota and their OEMs know this, although Toyota won't acknowledge it. Also found out from Bridgestone that the Turanza EL-400-02 OEM is actually made to Toyota spec and is not the same as the non-OEM Turanza EL-400!

After a little bit on back and forth, Toyota blaming Bridgestone etc. they each picked up 50% of the replacement tires. Bridgestone would not offer their 50K warranty on the EL-400-02s and recommended Potenza G019-Grid. These have done 15K miles with normal wear, but mileage is 5-10% worse.

Toyota and their dealers are fully aware of the premature wear of tires on hybrids and Toyota USA is putting their head in the sand.

 

Our 07 Prius had the same goodyear tires as our Highlander. Those tires made it 45k before I replaced them. Normal wear. I had a couple nails plugged, plus Michelin put their tires on sale, coupled with our Costco reabate check meant it was time to replace the goodyears.