The wikipedia article on the topic seems to be pretty well done:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-rol...sistance_tires
Pay particular attention to footnotes 4 and 6.
Those pdf files contain tables with actual rolling resistance measurement numbers

 

Thanks! I'll read through these. Gotta order tires this week!

 

So which tires did you end up getting?

 

Timely question for me. I'm interested in getting the best mileage I can while retaining quiet, ride and handling and of course, getting a good tire life. I've driven on Toyos on several vehicles I've owned with superior results. 77K on my last set on my Jetta TDI, but overall, I'm used to getting more mileage out of a set of tires than the warranty rating.

I was happy to have the Toyo Open Country A20s on my 08 Highlander Hybrid when I purchased it new in Dec. 07 but 26K later they're nearly worn out. Tread wear is even across all 4 tires with no indication of balance or alignment problems. They've been rotated every 5k and inflation has been monitored constantly.

Needless to say, I'm puzzled and disappointed. The gas mileage has remained a consistent 28-29 mpg in summer months, 26-27 in winter months and my driving is equally divided between freeway, city streets and country roads.

Has this been typical? Any recommendations for replacing the OEM tires in the OEM size? The Toyo HT has been recommended but for the price quoted, I'm concerned about getting a reasonable tire life. Thoughts?

 

In general, the recommended tire pressure is the mid-point of the acceptable tire pressure.

If 35psi is "recommended" you can usually run safely between 25-45psi.

The lower the psi, the softer, more comfortabe the ride, but you'll get lower MPG and fewer miles before they wear out.

I want max. MPG so I inflate my tires to 10 psi over "recommended" and as a result, they last about 10,000-15,000 miles PAST the advertised tread life.

HTH,
-John

 

Right now the Toyo HT's or the PMetric ones they make are getting good reviews. I'm hoping that there are more offerings in the 19" size before I need to replace mine.

Here's the link on the Toyo P Metric ones http://www.treadepot.com/group/ophtp.html

They look pretty good...

 

I found this old thread when I was searching once again for a Low Rolling Resistance Tire. As you can see from the origins of this thread, it was I who started it in December of 2007 when we "discovered" how crappy the Goodyear Integrity OEM tire was (it only last 22K miles). As outlined in this thread, we replaced them at that time with the 60K mileage warranted Goodyear Forteras. Well, guess what? Yep, the Fortera's only lasted "slightly" longer (28K miles) than the Integritys (Different children, same mother and apparently the mother wasn't very good). Three of the Fortera's wore evenly but the forth was basically shot. They offered $80/tire as a credit towards another set of Goodyears.

Since road noise was my wife's #1 issue, we first started seeking a LRR tire with low road noise and almost every review put the Goodyear Fuel Max at the top in regards to providing a quiet ride. Another issue for me was that we wanted to stay with an "all season" tire as we also use it in the mountains in the winter for snow skiing adn the Fuel Max IS an M+S rated tire. The Fuel Max also does better on the 3rd-party comparisons of LRR tires and came out a bit better than the original Integrity as well as a few other "all season" LRR tires. The Fuel Max is also a 60K warranted tire but to be honest with you, at this point I don't think I will EVER own another set of GoodYear Tires if these do not hold up as advertised.

As a point of reference, we bought the "lifetime" warranty and balance from Goodyear on their insistence during the Fortera installation. We took the HiHy to them religiously every 5K miles (or basically every time we changed oil). As described elsewhere on this site, we ALWAYS have had the car serviced ONLY by Toyota (other than the tires of course) and part of that servicing was an alignment the same day the Fortera's were put on the car. Interestingly enough, we also got another "free" alignment when Toyota performed the Power Steering TSB in May on our 2006 HiHy Limited. I even had taken it to Toyota BEFORE I brought it to Good year this time just to "verify" it was still in alignment.

Being the **** guy I am, I got Toyota to provide me before and after print outs of ALL the alignments (even the one from five days ago) so we KNOW the alignment has been DEAD ON since the Fortera's were installed. We also have service reports from GoodYear themselves showing regular rotation.

Of course, the Goodyear dealership stated "The ONLY way this wear can occur is if the car has been out of alignment...and out of alignment for a good period of time...". I was like...WTF? Can't you READ your own reports? Can't you SEE the printouts from Toyota? The GY guy a actually said "Well, I can make a report LOOK right simply by placing weight on one of the doors to make a computer printout..."

At which point I nearly told him where he could shove it. But instead, I told him that if the alignment was off on THEIR system, I'd pay full price for the tires. Of course, it wasn't but I also have no way of understanding why (exactly) this 4x4 Hybrid is burning through 60K tires in less than 50% of that duration.

We don't drive it hard at all. It's has lived most of it's life as a local grocery getter and soccer mom kind of car until about 6 months ago when my wife went back to work (part time) and now drives 3 trips a day into town (25 miles each way). I use it to go snow skiing and we take it to the beach in the summer. Nothing unusual.

We will see how the GoodYear Fuel Max tires do on this. They were put on 11/24/2009

 

Two questions. What's your inflation pressure?
Where on the tire is the wear occuring?

 

If they were meticulously rotated, balanced & aligned, I think you can also infer that they were also inflated correctly as well, as they were.

Inflation pressure was sometimes a just a bit higher than normal (to obtain the best fuel economy) but the abnormal wear was more indicative of low inflation (outside & inside edge wear) but only on ONE TIRE. I am wondering if there might not be some type of issue with the synchronization of the two separate drive systems (e.g. front turns 1 revolution while the rear turns 1.0051 revolution during that same period). This IS a 4WD version of the HiHy so that is about the only option left IMHO. Either that or potentially some type of bearing issue (since only one tire was worn oddly).

 

I have an 06 with 4 wheel drive. I put the Fortreras on at about 33,000 miles. I think I have about 26,000 on them at this point.

They don't even look worn.

I'll check those numbers from the 'car book' in the glove box, take some photos and get back to you.

I religiously run 40 to 44 lbs in the tires to counteract all the edge wear that I got on the first set... I was wondering if underinflation was what was eating yours, like maybe the outlier tire had a consistant slow leak or something.

I have no unusual wear on any one tire either...?

Mark