I myself have recently, after 20,000 miles, swapped out my OEM rims and tires. I replaced them with 17" lightweight (18 lb.) Enkei rims, and just for kicks, I used some regular (non-LRR) tires, size 215/40. One of my significant motivations was price, as I was able to get the rims for $69 each and the tires for $55 each.

I only have anecdotal data to report at this time, for a number of reasons, but I can report that:

- last year in the winter I got around 42-44 MPG on my 6-mile commute; I seem to maybe be getting a bit lower (around 41-43), but it is probably too early to tell.

- driving my "soccer" commute, about a 20 mile trip through suburbia and semi-rurality, yields 48 MPG, which is similar to what I got before.

- driving on the freeway at 60-65 miles per hour, yielded around 50-51 MPG, which is comparable to what I got before. I've only been able to test this a couple times.

Those are just my initial observations; I probably won't have definitive data until we at least get around to springtime and summer.

 

Lets not forget that the "cool" factor of nicer rims might turn more people on to our hybrids and help in the long run! I love my HCH, but I just can't get excited about the rims. I like the EX rims much better.

 

I completely agree. I believe that the positive benefit of helping people consider going hybrid ("nice car -- and a hybrid too!") significantly outweighs my own possible loss of an MPG or two, which frankly hurts my ego but not much else.

As a "hybrid evangelist" I enjoy having the friends of my teenage and college-age kids see the car and say "nice ride", and then I say, "yeah, and it's a hybrid too, and gets 40 to 50 MPG." And they say "sweet" and maybe consider a hybrid in the future.

 

Chuck,
I'm just curious. Are you basing your mpg figures on the dash display or have you done the miles/gallons math. I would think the display would be "set" for the OEM wheels and tires. I'm not trying to be a naysayer. If these figures are based on actual miles driven and gas used -then I think it's great! I've been thinking about next winter with my HCH. My experience with 10 Subarus is that the OEM All Season M & S tires do NOT hold up well on snow and ice after their first winter. Sooo I'm thinking about new wheels and snow tires. I'm still not sure of a good Snow tire with low RR. Tires seem to be rated either on snow & ice performance OR on LRR - but not both. I've looked at Tire Rack and Consumers Report on line. Do your new wheels & tires fit OK? Can you upload a photo so we can see what they look like on the car? Please do a post later - on your combo when the weather gets nicer.
Good luck with your purchase,

 

Donald,

My dashboard MPG values have always been between 0.5 and 1.5 MPG higher than the real calculated values, prior to the tire change. After the change, they have remained in that range.

Of course, it's a bit too early to tell for sure. In theory, my dashboard MPG should be a bit higher than the real value than it used to be, because the new tires/rims are a tiny bit smaller in diameter than the OEMs. The closest tire size to the OEMs was 205/45, but that wasn't offered in the brand that I was interested in (because of the discounted price), so I ended up getting a slightly wider tire, with a slightly lower profile. I would have preferred the other size, but the tire cost was significantly more than what I paid, so I decided to go ahead with it.

But I guess the point is that the new set is close enough to the OEMs that it does not seem to make that much difference. I think the numbers I've stated are about as reliable as before. As you say, I won't know until a bit more time has passed.

And I will post a picture or two soon. I'm waiting for the fog and rain and cold to go away for a bit (with apologies to people in the rest of the country for whom it is really cold).

 

How much do the 15" wheel, 15" tire, 17" wheel, and 17" tire weigh?

 

Donald, please do us a favor - don't use that funky blue font. It's difficult to read. It actually hurts my eyes.

 

Do a Google search on GreenSeal and LRR - you should find a 2003 report rating a number of tires according to rolling resistance. There are a number of snow tires on the top 10 list. Snow tires have been discussed here a lot - some searches would probably yield some good advice. My opinion is that your mostly hosed in that kind of weather anyway. Snow, rain, cold, slush - these things will hurt your FE way more than the kind of tire you have on.

 

I just found this excellent report on LRR tires that actually quantifies the benefits in terms of fuel economy.

westcarb.org/reports/2003-01-31_600-03-001CRVOL2.PDF

To summarize, for every 10% of rolling resistance reduction, you could expect a 1% increase in urban FE and 2% in highway FE. See section 3.2. Another study showed that with a 30% RR reduction a 2% - 6% reduction in fuel useage was measured. Also, see figure 3 which shows the effect of tire pressure on FE. It appears that there is on average a 0.5% increase in FE between 35PSI and 45PSI. This is consistant with my findings when I did some testing prior to the Prius marathon.

Cool report! Good read.

 

What if LRR tires were put on the stock 16" EX wheels? Would this be of benefit or do the wheels still weigh too much. I read somehwere that the stock HCHII wheels weigh something like 14 lbs (wheels only) and the stock EX wheels weigh something like 30lbs with tires.

I am still concerned if I chose to do the stock EX wheels if they would mess up the speedometer and also the MPG indicator. Does anyone know who I could contact to ask these questions, possibly a Honda customer service line?

I would still like to know if anyone has put the stock EX wheels on their HCHII yet.

Thanks guys