All:

The current "stock" Fit 14" and 15" rubber in the US (I understand this may be different in Canada) is the LRR Dunlop SP31.

With the last known (by me at least) report on tire RR being four years old (Greenseal):

http://www.greenseal.org/resources/r...resistance.pdf

....I was wondering if anyone else is considering what replacement rubber to put on the car.

I have been poking around the (bleach) Prius forums to see what they are using and a bit on GasSavers. But finding any real data is tough.

What I have seen as far as "opionion" and manufacturer "fact":

Bridgestone RE92s get some fans (stock on Insight and Civic Hybrid? do correct me if wrong) but the reviews on the net make them look somewhat less than promising on wear, use, wet driving, etc. Seem to be cheap, as most OEM replacement tires are.

The small car designed Nokian i3s seem to be popular among the Prius folks and their rival/enemy, the TDi fans. Every farmer's Co-Op here in Tennessee sells Nokians. Nokian's HQ is just down the road. The only point of contention there is the US Vs. rest of the world, ours are made in PRofC while the rest are made in Finland. Never owned Nokian tires before, but have owned a few "Nokia" before the compay spun off the rubber division when they got more into electronics. One set saved me in a rainstorm from at least a nasty wreck, if not my life 15 years ago. The Prius and TDi guys claim good FE.

Michelin Harmony....owned a lot of French made Michelins back in the day (XH, MX, XAs, XZX, XZXr, etc), but not the US ones. Several friends have had their US truck tires and they about outlast the truck. 80k warranty seems to be par with Nokian and price.

Vredestein Quatrac 2 are sold as a LRR tire. Still made in Holland, can be difficult to find as the commentary by Jamie Kitman (and my reply letter) in Auotmobile a few years back, mail order from Ohio, NJ or Colorado. My set wore quickly, made a lot of noise, but I did get decent FE out of them. Again, owned a few sets from this company, mostly "Vredestein Steel", their radial for classic cars other than the Quatrac set above. Somewhat pricy?

The current Dunlop SP31. Seems OK in rain, FE is known, snow is no go (but none of the above would be great in it) dirt cheap, but seem to wear fast (hence the nearly x2 price for the 80K Nokian an Michelin?)

I am interested to see if anyone else has given this any thought, I am OK for now, but at 22K, tire time will be coming soon.

 

Erh, ah, anyone?

The Dunlops are getting a bit thin in the center at 24K when I rotated them today...probably gone by the the end of Fall. Granted, I got my car a year ago April, so I may be among the first needing to replace stock tires, not counting the kids putting the biggie wheels on the car.

Leaning toward Nokian i3, but only from what I have read, looking for experience.

 

i have about 5k on my Fit.. and rubbers are looking "okay" ...

i never had Dunlop tires before....so can't say their durability etc...

if i need to change them in future time..i want BF goodrich (sister company of Micheline).. i have them on my Honda mini van... man they last long....

 

I have had OEM Dunlops once before on a Camry. These are doing much better.

I have friends that buy BF tires for their cars that buy Michelins for their trucks.

Do they make a LRR tire?

 

I was excited to find your thread about replacement tires. Please let me know what you pick and how well they affect FE and treadwear. I am only at 2300 miles so do not have useful first-hand information for you.

However, I noticed Consumer Reports includes RR in their all-season ratings. No idea if the following tires come in 175/65/S14 we need for the Fit. But eliminating all in their list except those earning "highest" RR (full red circle) with at least average tread-life (empty circle) resulted in .. Michelon Harmony and Hankook Mile Plus GTH707. The Toyo 800 ultra earned higher than average tread-life but lower than average ABS braking (so probably not worth the trade off with above).

On greenorg.com, they seemed to like Sumitomo HTR200 and Nokian NRH.

This is all just data, not real life info.

 

Honestly, other than the snow tire forum, I know of no decent tire forms, which is surprising.... If anyone knows of a good one, please let me know.

The CR report, a co worker is to bring me this article, I may have to remind him again......

Anyhow, the Michelin Harmony appears to be the best bet on paper. I actually had my hand on a US market Nokian i3 today, did not get a chance to talk turkey with the dealer (it is the local farmer's co-op, I was after something else and a buddy needed tomato plants). Similar in looks to the Dunlop tire as far as design, but better groves. Treadwear is 740 and it and the Michelin have an 80K rating.

However, the TDi/Prius owners say there is another Nokian tyre with a better LRR (NRh?). The catch? Life of the tire is down around 27,000 miles!

Time will tell in a few months....

 

I am also surprised by the lack of information concerning tire that can deliver decent FE. Years back, I replaced the original tires on my Mazda Protege with some random tires from Sears. I said that mileage was a concern, and was told "these tires get great mileage". This turned out to be a case of miscommunication, my fuel economy dropped a full 10% from that day on, but those tires lasted forever. In fact, that car got totalled in a parking lot 30K miles later, and the tires still looked great. I hated those tires, but I calculated that at $2/gal (remember when...), it would take 40K miles before new copies of the original tires would pay for themselves, and I had hoped that the crappy tires would be worn by then.

I bought my Fit for utility and economy. I've got other cars to act as money pits, and the tire forum here doesn't seem to cater to practicality. I would have guessed that the high FE car fans (Prius, TDI, Insight, etc.)would have more to say about this, but I guess this topic is off everyone's radar. Kind of weird, some people will discuss altering intake, exhaust, and chips to get small improvements in FE, accepting the risks that may be associated with those mods, but tires don't ever come up...

With only 2500 miles on the Fit so far, this isn't a pressing issue yet, but I'm looking forward to some real info about high FE tires.

Eric

 

I just went to TireRack and read their explanation about rolling resistance.

"If the vehicle equipped with standard Original Equipment low rolling resistance passenger tires normally provided 25 mpg in the city and 30 mpg on the highway, installing tires with 20% greater rolling resistance would only drop fuel mileage by a calculated 3% (to 24.25 mpg) in the city, and a calculated 5% (to 28.5 mpg) on the highway. While this is a measurable difference, it probably isn't much more of an influence on real world fuel economy..."

So I guess that there's no point in our conversation, because taking a 5% hit on FE isn't actually important. This may explain the lack of concrete info concerning LRR tires...

Eric

 

Yes, but I fear there is one point (general) on the TDi/Prius/Geo Metro/Hypermile folks is they are "thrifty" in their spending. As you point out, they do discuss chips, intakes, bodymods, etc but then they will go buy cut-rate tires at Costco, WalMart, Canadian Tire, etc. to save a buck.

ALSO, when you go to buy tires (having sold tires years ago) the dealer will present you the option of either cheap cost, or buying an 80K tire (that wears like iron) most "John Q. Public" customers are going to be hooked on either factor then and there.

The TireRack's "info" I had seen before, but forgot about it. Not sure the reason for the downplay, other than the above and what tires they list for sale? Dunno.

You can read up on tires sold in Europe for more info on this, but the problem is, they are tires we don't see Stateside. For example one of the better (on paper atleast, I would love to see a test in What Car? or similar) is this Michelin, and the best returns are in the Fit's size:

Michelin Energy

Rolling resistance was in the abovementioned CR report, so maybe once some education comes about......????

 

Meanwhile, check this out from the TÜV-SÜD (third party testing organization, like the UL here in the States) on the new tire quality mark in Germany:

TÜV SÜD GROUP - Rounding things off: TÃœV SÃœD Automotive's Tire Test Mark

And the basis for the change:

"Consumers seek objective assistance for the purchasing decisions they make. But unless a tire is actually featured in a special-interest magazine, they find it almost impossible to track down independent information about its characteristics"

Note all the factors that go into the cetification mark. And the neat bit is these factors are the same as in the CR review.

So maybe there is hope Stateside?

 

Looking at the Consumer Reports ratings of All-season tires (from 11/05), it doesn't look good.

First let's ignore tread-life, noise, comfort, and just consider LRR and safety. Considering only tires with the highest roll resistance ("excellent") and getting "very good" overall for dry braking, cornering, emergency handling, wet ABS braking, cornering.... We have
in order Michelin X Radial DT (cosco); Michelin Agility Touring (Sears); Michelin Harmony; Hankook Mileage Plus GT707, Kumho Touring 7905 A/S.

Of these, which ones have at least a "good" tread life?
Michaelin X Radials DT, Hankook Mileage Plus GT H707 and Michelin Harmony (last one getting close to average handling/safety).

This is from late 2005 no idea how much it still applies and even whether these tires come in Fit's size.

Looking at CR's 11/06 review of "Performance all-season".... we find
Tires having Excellent RR and Excellent Tread life and very good overall safety/handling....
Michelin Energy MXV4 Plus; Continental Cont/Premier Contact.
If we're willing to settle for "very good" RR and Tread-life, in exchange for Excellent braking and Very Good handling, then the Dunlop SP Sport 5000 too.

Again, no idea if these come in Honda Fit sizes or whether these tires are still to be found.

 

I just asked if the European market Michelin Energy would be imported to the US, the reply was "no", and they thought I was looking at the MXV4?!?! The Primacy is to be a good tire, but nothing under 13"..... Michelin used to sell in the US such good tires.....

Hello Mr. Rea,

Thank you for your email. We appreciate the opportunity to serve you.

We are sorry that we cannot help you with your request for the Michelin
Energy MXV4 tires. We have just introduced the newest "energy" tire: the
Primacy MXV4. It features lower rolling resistance for better gas mileage.
However, the smallest sizes are in 15 inch sizes; the same is true for all
of the previous generations that are still in production: the Energy MXV4 S8
and the Energy MXV4 Plus. Should the automobile manufacturers begin
importing some of the smaller vehicles to the U.S., we may introduce some
smaller sized tires as replacements.

If your questions have not been answered to your satisfaction, please call
me at 1-800-847-3435 (toll-free) between 8:30AM and 6:00PM Eastern Time
Monday through Friday.

Sincerely,

Mike L.
Michelin North America
Consumer Relations

 

Here is another promising tire that probably will not make it here:

Hankooks, made in Hungary...

http://www.oeamtc.at/netautor/html_s...uebersicht.htm

http://www.hankooktire.com/eur_eng/p...iew.asp?pid=43

Here is a press release of the tests in English:

http://www.hankooktire.com/eur_eng/p...test_news6.asp

 

When my stock tires are gone I'm gonna get Michelin Harmony's. I read a very long report on TRR and the net result is that the tires themselves have a pretty small effect on your mileage. You can control a lot of your tires RR by watching your inflation pressure, don't install oversize tires, etc.

We have Harmony's on our Odyssey and love them. They last a long time are quality tires.

 

Thanks for your post.

I am thinking the same, but the FINE PRINT of the warranty makes me a bit leary....page two.....rotation by a Michelin agent only for validity of any claims?

http://www.michelinman.com/assets/pd...inwarranty.pdf

Nothing against Michelin, I have bought (and even at one time sold) their radials for years.

My only exposure to the Harmony: a friend just had a set of four put on his Gen IV Camry that I service regularly. The last time I had it here for service, he had a complaint about vibration out of the farside front wheel. I did not see anything in the tire, nor any visiual defects, only that this tire was made in Canada and the other three were from Italy? All four came from the same dealer at the same time....strange. I told hime to take it back and get another tire from Italy.

 

Update.....

At 101K on the car/66K on the tires, the Harmony tires are near the wear bars.

Next try in LRR tires (I did buy a set of Nokian i3 for another car in the fleet, alles gut with them for now) are a new offering from Kumho, the Eco KR22 Solus.

Time will tell on this tire?

Kumho Tire USA, Inc.

 

Just a heads up, I saw the hype on these and the reviews sounded decent. By my math they only had about a 7% difference in speed so I figured it wouldn't be too bad...

A year later the tires are almost gone (My SP31s lasted 2x-3x more miles), the gas mileage didn't go up much and to top it all off, thanks to the narrower tire a curb chewed up my rim. For my money, I'm going back to the SP31. It's almost as good at fuel economy, better handling and cheaper so better for me in the long run(unless one of you guys discovers a really great LRR tire). My foray into LRR tires was less than positive...
Subbed.

 

OK, 5K miles on the K22s.

Much more quiet and a little better handling out of these than the Harmony. And at almost half the price, things are good and no difference in mileage from Michelin or the craptacular SP31s.

The Tire Rack test complained of problems in the wet in their LRR tire comparison. I have not seen any such problems, after break-in. I also got my local dealer to match the Tire Rack price, sans postage, so I actually came out ahead!

 

I went from a 195/55/15 suomitos "20lbs" to a 185/60/15 continental eco LLR. "16 lbs" The car seems to coast longer and I am starting to map my mileage to see if it makes a difference. All I know is they are quiet and the steering is a littlebit quicker

 

Might be another to think about. I bought some German Contis for a Volvo 140 many years ago, and then a US made set for a Cadillac in the 1990s. Both were good sets of tires.

OK, I have had two instances where the Kumhos were a bit "slippy" in the wet. But may have been oil on road Vs. tire problem as they were both low speed situations, never a problem at speed?