I have been reading quitely for the last month waiting for Toyota (priusman or ...) to respond to the reported short tire life on the Prius. I have 67000 miles on my SUV's tires and they still have tread. From what I can tell, people are reporting replacing them after 20k, under normal use. THIS AINT ACCEPTABLE, folks!<br><br>My post regarding this from 2 months ago never got responded to. I am supposed to get the car next month but unless Toyota steps up and takes responsibility for this, I may just look at something else.<br> <br>Sorry if I'm ranting but hey .. I've waited two months.

SUV and passenger tires are somewhat different beasts. SUV tires cost a lot more and tend to have gobs of tread. Passenger car tires don't have nearly as much tread because they favor reduced noise and angular mass.<br><br>That being said, a reasonably good passenger tire should get around 40K miles. To get much higher you either pay a lot more, or sacrifice a lot of grip. Typical OEM tires get around 30K miles (to save cost for the manufacturer). So the 20K mile Prius OEM tires are disappointing, but in reality, you're just losing half the cost of reasonable replacement tires. At $50 per tire, this means the Prius is really costing you $100 more than you were expecting it to cost. Annoying, but not likely to be a deal breaker in any but the most marginal of buy decisions.<br><br>Robert Snyder<br>NJ-PIKACHU

the only thing built into a tire that determines (guides) its treadlife, is the treadwear rating. Specialized tires- whether your talking about the XL's on the prius, or the v-rated yokohamas on the Celica- have specific features and/ or specific intended uses. These Prius tires have low resistance to coasting in order to compensate for (in part) the tendency of the Prius to come to a stop quicker than conventional cars. (the drag of regeneration) Any other type of tire would adversely affect the vehicles' ability to regenerate power, which adds to the ICE's charging duties, which hurts your mileage. It's your money- do as you will, but I repeat-the purchase of this car is not all about economics. Like it or not- most people (that dont drive explorers) with tire complaints brought it on themselves by not maintaining them. Crank up the pressure to 38 front- 36 rear- that's from a Master Diagnostic Technician (prius qualified). That will add some treadlife. <br><br>Prius- just buy it!! (sorry bill, lol)

The Michelin X-One tires I put on have been excellent. I think there is too much worry in the groups that only the original tires are good enough. Frankly, I can't afford tires with a traedwear rating of 160. The only differences I have from stock are these tires and synthetic oil and I get 43-45 US mpg. Mind you I'm no speed demon but my trips are usually quite short. All in all I think my mileage has only been slightly impacted by moving away from the original tires. What have I gained? Aside from long life I have vastly improved handling in all areas.<br><br>Also I don't think it is true anymore that long life tires have lower traction. (and this was abundantly clear when I switched out my almost new Bridgestones) While this may have had some truth in the past, new synthetic rubber compounds have expanded the performance envelope in all areas. Now you can have your cake and eat it too!<br><br>Rick Hall

Hi Toyobri,<br>I'll agree with you that the Prius is not all about economics (in the strictly monetary sense at least), and if that were the only problem with low treadlife tires, I might just stick with them to avoid lowering mileage. But I'm also considering the environmental impact of low treadlife. Our biodiesel friend Troy pointed out that about 1/2 the total particulate matter emissions of a diesel car were from the tires and brakes. The faster the tread wears, the more particulates the tires give off. I'm still not sure these are the same carcinogenic particulates created in diesel engines, so I consider this to be a hint that all is not well with use of the tires, but it's not a slam dunk. The thing that really convinced me to avoid the low treadlife tires when replacing the OEMs is the difficult landfill problems created by mounds of spent tire carcasses. I don't want to encourage the generation of twice as many carcasses as we now create, so I'll look for something that will last 40K miles instead of the 20K that the Potenzas seem to get.<br><br>Robert Snyder<br>NJ-PIKACHU

I have almost 19,000 miles on my Prius and plenty of tread on my tires. Where did the 20K lifetime that people repeat here come from?

Re: I have almost 19,000 miles on my Prius and plenty of tread on my tires.<br><br>Hey, maybe there's hope after all. Anyway, I arrived at 20K after hearing several others needing to replace in that range. For myself, at 16K my front tires were on the verge of hitting the wear bars. I had my 2nd rotation at that point and that seems to have stopped them from wearing (now at 18K), but I figure the moment they rotate back to the front it'll soon be all over. That's nominally at 22.5K. I originally didn't think they'd make it to the next rotation even on the back, but there seems to be almost no wear going on back there, it's all in the front.<br><br>It almost sounds like an alignment effect, except that my Prius track very true and doesn't have any of the handling difficulties a few others have reported before getting their alignment corrected.<br><br>Robert Snyder<br>NJ-PIKACHU