Mostly Impressed With Michelin Energy Saver A/S

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Critic, I'm glad to hear you got your mpg back. Nothing is more frustrating to a hybrid driver than losing mpg. I sold the '09 Civic Hybrid and bought a '12 Prius with the Yokohama Avid S33 tires, so I'll be treading the same path. The Prius is regularly trouncing the Civic by 10 mpg.
 
Originally Posted By: Bruce T
Critic, I'm glad to hear you got your mpg back. Nothing is more frustrating to a hybrid driver than losing mpg. I sold the '09 Civic Hybrid and bought a '12 Prius with the Yokohama Avid S33 tires, so I'll be treading the same path. The Prius is regularly beating the Civic by 10 mpg.

Congrats, and glad you got rid of the HCHII!

A buddy of mine ditched the Avid S33d shortly after delivery due to the tramlining. I kept my for 14k, but they still had plenty of tread left when I traded them in.

If you get frustrated with those tires, look no further than the Energy Saver A/S.
 
Originally Posted By: Bruce T
Tramlining? Is that following the ruts in the road?


Yep, and my experience with that tire, it is especially bad at pressures over 40F/38R.

edit- The Energy Saver A/S also do it, but to a lesser extent. The Primacy MXV4 do not tramline at all, but you lose about 10% in fuel economy with them.
 
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I'll keep an eye out for it, although I'm not one of the high tire pressure hypermilers. Tramlining is definitely tiresome and annoying.
 
Originally Posted By: Rand
The big elephant in the background is the extremely bad goodyear LRR tire in that test... EWW.



Agreed with the Goodyear Fuel Max tires not being great. They came OEM on my Cruze, and I have mixed feelings about them. They're decent in the dry, and downright scary in the rain. We haven't had much rain while I've been driving the car, thankfully. The tires have about 10k miles on them now (used snows over the winter), and I'm still on the fence about ditching them this summer.

I wish the Energy Saver A/S were made in the size my Eco takes (215/55-17, V speed rating) because they sound like a good tire for my uses and driving style.
 
I don't see the economy in 'ditching' tires early on a car that people buy for its economy.


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Originally Posted By: surfstar
I don't see the economy in 'ditching' tires early on a car that people buy for its economy.


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Sometimes it's a false economy to keep using junk just because it's there instead of getting the proper tool for the job. I don't like not getting my money's worth out of something. Sometimes, using junk up just isn't worth the hassle. Especially with OEM car tires, though, they can be such junk these days that a different set of tires is almost a requirement to make the car livable. The OEM tires on the Fit wore out very quickly, and good riddance to them! We were going to ditch them because they made talking in the car impossible on the highway, and fortunately one developed a bubble with 4/32" tread left. That made ditching the whole set a no-brainer!
 
Originally Posted By: sciphi
Originally Posted By: surfstar
I don't see the economy in 'ditching' tires early on a car that people buy for its economy.


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Sometimes it's a false economy to keep using junk just because it's there instead of getting the proper tool for the job.


Especially when said junk is such a critical component to the safety of the car. Let's face it: new tires are nice to have and usually quieter and more comfortable than those they replaced...but they also generally will stop better, especially on wet pavement. It's hard to put a price on "biggering that buffer".

But I'm a "tire guy" anyway. None of my stuff gets below about 4/32".
 
Originally Posted By: surfstar
I don't see the economy in 'ditching' tires early on a car that people buy for its economy.


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My friend agrees with you.
She liked her all seasons until she totalled her car by spinning out and getting hit head on with her kids in the car.

She then replaced her saturn with a large suv for safety

I think just buying snow tires for the saturn and not having the accident would be more "economical"

snow tires + rims = 400$

large popular suv = 40k (and extra 2k in gas per year)

not having an accident with your kids in the car = would have been priceless? (everyone was ok)


If there is a good deal on michelins when my no-seasons wear out michelin Primacy is on the short list. I may go with something more aggressive like a yoko ATS.. not sure yet.

as I mentioned earlier my factory yokos are rated 320 BA and the 320 is inflated by a low life reference tire. So I'm sure the tires wont last me more than about 25k miles.
 
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Its also easier in CA to just run down your tires - if they get through the winter, no rain 'till Nov basically. Let them go bald (like me!) and then replace before winter rains.

I've never experienced OEM tires w/ a new car. I just have a hard time believing they could be much worse than something produced 10-20 years ago as far as safety and performance go. Cars have come a long way since then.

back on topic:
It would def be nice to be able to truly compare tires someday, including LRR across sizes and brands.
 
Originally Posted By: surfstar

I've never experienced OEM tires w/ a new car. I just have a hard time believing they could be much worse than something produced 10-20 years ago as far as safety and performance go. Cars have come a long way since then.



The OEM tires on the Fit were dangerous in the snow. Like, "couldn't go faster than 30 mph without fishtailing into a ditch" dangerous. The one time we drove them in snow, my wife came back in white as a sheet after telling me she couldn't go faster than 30 mph without the car fishtailing out of control in a few inches of wet slush. She's been driving in snow for a very long time, so it's not the driver. On snow tires, the Fit is a little tank in the snow. We had just taken the snow tires off and got the inevitable one last storm that she had to commute through that day. Complaints about the OEM tires are a dime a dozen on the Fit boards, especially about snow performance.
 
The car now handles a lot better after I dialed in exactly -0.75 deg of camber on both front corners.

It rained today, and these tires are passable in the rain. Better than the originals by a little, but definitely not as sticky as the Primacy MXV4.
 
Fixed my rear alignment problem (see other thread), now the car handles 10000x better. With that said, these tires are still a slight decline from the OE tires in terms of handling, though traction seems pretty similar.

Fuel economy is very good, computer indicated average is slightly over 50 mpg after 5100+ miles. 50-52 mpg calculated tanks are now becoming quite common, which was unheard of with both the original tires and the Primacy MXV4.

Some of the harsh ride has gone away after a rebalance today. All of the tires were about 2 ounces off. I attribute this to the lube used doing install, as the tires must have slipped on the rim during the first several miles. I have experienced this with other tires as well so it is probably not exclusive to these tires - which makes it more important for anyone to consider having their tires rebalanced at the first rotation.
 
i have the ep422's on my insight. Just over 5500 miles so far. Hopefully will get decent life out of these tires
 
Rand say She liked her all seasons until she totalled her car by spinning out and getting hit head on with her kids in the car.

well she should be driving 25 to 40 mph in the snow.It doesn't matter if she have snow tires...
 
I recently swapped out a set of AVID Ascend LRR tires for a set of Energy Saver A/S tires on my 2012 Prius. I am seeing about 3mpg+ better with the Energy Savers. The Ascends had 11,000 miles on them yet I am still observing a positive gain with the brand new Energy Savers. As the weather has warmed up and the new tires broke in I am obtaining record high mpg so I am hesitant to say the mpg gain is more than 3-4mpg but it could be possible. My last tank was 65.3mpg over 523 miles. I'm currently sitting at 168 miles and 67.7mpg. This is almost all freeway driving at 60mph and gliding down overpasses and off ramps.

The ascend tire was very similar to the OE AVID S33D tire in terms of fuel efficiency so it seems the Energy Saver A/S is just that much more fuel efficient like it was in the TireRack.com test "When Round and Black Becomes Lean and Green". In that test it lead a typical non-LRR comfort tire by 3.8mpg? One can only assume the gap lead would be further increased vs. a performance tire.
 
Originally Posted By: The Critic

Some of the harsh ride has gone away after a rebalance today. All of the tires were about 2 ounces off. I attribute this to the lube used doing install, as the tires must have slipped on the rim during the first several miles. I have experienced this with other tires as well so it is probably not exclusive to these tires - which makes it more important for anyone to consider having their tires rebalanced at the first rotation.

Ive seen this before too with my car. Had to have them rebalanced within 500miles of install because I felt a vibration. The machine called for the exact same weight (within .25oz or so) about 50-90 degrees off the original position.
 
14,000 miles on the Energy Saver A/S

47.9 is my average MPG for this period of time. This included a number of tanks where I decided to have a very heavy foot and return numbers in the low 40s.

With these tires, I am seeing far more tanks in the 50+ range than any of the other tires I previously used. Complete results are in the link in my signature.
 
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