Tires (Summer/Winter/All-Season)

I’m excited to buy a low rolling resistance tire when these Goodyears wear out the car came with. Happy new year to all.

 

I'm not so sure you'll get much of a improvement with new tires... I don't think anyone here has found a more efficient tire than the OE ones!

 

It activated like...a lot. Finding actual traction was hard.

 

Yep, finding the Vredesteins were difficult. Tire Rack ranked them high in wet braking and wet cornering, guess the Hankooks wet performance spoiled me enough to seek our a worthy enough contender. A P7 update would be great, we had the previous generation P7s installed on the Chevy Volt, offered significant improvements over the LRR tires from the factory, with a slight hit in efficiency. They also performed admirably in Minneapolis winters, but never jumped off the line.

We got hit with some snow here in the Pacific NW. Attempted to climb our hill with the Kia e-Niro equipped with Michelin's LRR OE tires, the vehicle made it 5 feet before falling back, absolutely the worst performing tire I have experienced on snow. Taking the Mini out tomorrow, will update on the results with an incline. They performed well in snow and slush on a level surface previously.



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Quite impressed with the traction control and Hitrac tire combo. Used the default setting (DSC) traction control and noticed immediate, positive, traction inputs going up the hill. Also managed to climb a shaded hill behind us, where it was obvious very few vehicles made it up judged by the tire tracks. The Kia e-Niro is in the picture, stuck at the bottom of the hill. There's absolutely no chance driving it up without significant melt.

Efficiency on this trip averaged 3.5 miles/kWh after 86 miles. The remaining roads were primarily wet with thin slush in areas. Temperature ranged between 24-30F, two people in the car, groceries loaded on the way back, cabin temp set to 70F, and mid mode selected. Had a nasty headwind going north on the freeway, recoverd some of those losses on the way back.

The temperatures dropped to 24F as the sun was setting, the tires showed weakness on ice, no surprise there. But still managed to climb that hill, albeit it wasn't quick going up.

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No issues as far as I can tell. You're right about the gap between the tire and the springs though, it's really close.

 

Anyone know how long tires can sit unmounted, and how many times they can be un-mounted/mounted? I bought a new set of wheels for my winter tires, but they ended up coming with some nice Michelins. Now I have three sets of tires and two sets of wheels (good problem to have, but a problem nonetheless!).

 

I don't know the answer, but TireRack has an article with great tips for storing tires.

In my experience, I have rotated between 3 sets of wheels & tires (1 for summer, 1 for winter, and 1 for spring + fall) and typically got 3-4 years of use from each before the tread wore down enough to warrant replacement. Each unused set was stacked in my garage. I didn't have any problems with them getting too old/dried out.

 

I am in the Pac NW and we have had snow on the ground since Christmas day We are all on vacation this week, so have not had to go out much. When we did, we generally took the RAV4 Hybrid AWD which works great in the moderate snow with its OEM tires (don't know what they are off the top of my head).

On Thursday while I was out with the RAV, my daughter hurt her foot and my wife had to take her out to urgent care. She drove the Mini with its new Continental Purecontact LS A/S tires and said it worked great with no slipping or issues. The only real snow on the ground was in our alley and in the side streets near her destination. I was shoveling the driveway when she got back and I was able to observe as she did a 1000 point backing turn into the driveway. The tires were gripping great! She said the experience made her confident that the Mini would handle our occasional winter condition as needed.

I plan to take it for a drive today and find some parking lots or other areas with decent snow still to get a feel for it myself. So far, so good with these this winter season.

Rob

 

Unless you're driving in an enclosed space, I don't see how it would be much of an issue.

 

Took the Mini out for a test today and was pleased with the performance of the Continental Procontact LS tires. About as well as a front-wheel-drive car can do with A/S tires, I think. My alley (pictured below) had a few inches of compact snow and ice and I chose to go the "hard way" up hill and encountered no slipping and no trouble stopping at alley-speed (under 10 mph).



I did some driving in the local school parking lot and again had no trouble at slow speed, even trying to spin the tires and whip the car around a bit. It was about 1.5" of snow atop an inch or so of compacted snow and ice.





Further away in other areas where the compact snow and ice lingered, the car/tire combo still performed as well as I could expect without dedicated snow tires. I'm confident that it would handle fresh snow and slush very well and only struggled with the actual layered ice. Happy with my choice.

Rob

 

Any highway driving in those 40 mi?! Any comparison to the stock tires? 5 mi/kWh seems extremely high

 

Just had my first real driving experience with my VikingContact 7s in 30F (ambient) wet weather. Was not able to floor it from a light without traction control cutting in, which was a bit disappointing, but totally understandable. Being my first set of winters and EV, I was not sure what to expect. Needless to say the Tesla next to me, uh, won. Blaming it on the tires

Turn in and corner grip on 30F damp roads was not noticeably worse, at least for moderate driving (not what I would consider spirited, but by no means docile). Maybe a bit more numb on the steering feel though.

Otherwise, the VikingContacts are reasonably quiet (we are not car reviewers, but it was not a noticeable increase in noise), without any noticeable increase in consumption. Once I get some highway mileage on them, I will report back on the efficiency.



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I have these tires as well. Same wheel slippage under hard accel (as noted earlier in this thread).

I found efficiency and tire noise to be GREAT. I don't have any milage on the original tires/wheels (yet). However, the ride is quiet on the highway. I was able to achieve 4.1 m/kwh, with the heat on, on the highway, cold-ish weather. Even the notoriously conservative GOM has been showing around the EPA estimated range (105-120ish) when full.

 

Thanks for the details. I nearly went with the Continentals but they were back ordered. By the way, has anyone devised a good arrangement to carry four wheels/tires in the boot (hatch). I’m ready to switch over to cold weather wheels but will need to transport to summer shoes back home from the tire shop.