Finding LRR tires - need some help apparently

[justjohn]

The car I just got came with two sets of rims:

185/65 R14 Steelies
These are on the car, have PrimeWell PS830 tires on them

205/45 R16 Rotas
These have Kumho Ecsta tires on them but 2 are blown out

I originally figured I would put LRR tires on the Rotas since bigger is supposed to be better for fuel economy, and just use the steelies for winter.

However, (disclaimer I don't know anything about tires or where to find them) I can't find any LRR tires at that size, and it seems the smaller size is significantly cheaper. Is there some way to find what LRR tires are available at those 2 sizes?

Also, your thoughts on getting the bigger tires vs switching out the smaller ones and just craigslisting the rims?

[Joenavy85]

Tire Rack - Your performance experts for tires and wheels you can search by size and narrow your results to include only LRR tires

[CapriRacer]

Originally Posted by justjohn

The car I just got came with two sets of rims:

185/65 R14 Steelies
These are on the car, have PrimeWell PS830 tires on them

205/45 R16 Rotas
These have Kumho Ecsta tires on them but 2 are blown out

I originally figured I would put LRR tires on the Rotas since bigger is supposed to be better for fuel economy, and just use the steelies for winter.

However, (disclaimer I don't know anything about tires or where to find them) I can't find any LRR tires at that size, and it seems the smaller size is significantly cheaper. Is there some way to find what LRR tires are available at those 2 sizes?

Also, your thoughts on getting the bigger tires vs switching out the smaller ones and just craigslisting the rims?

You have to be really careful when we talk about "bigger" when it comes to tire sizing. Yes, 205 is bigger than 185. Yes, 16 is bigger than 14. But, No!, 45 is NOT bigger than 65.

The net effect is that a 205/45R16 is SMALLER than a 185/65R14.

And where I would go with this is to find 185/70R14's and see what is available. But before you do that, make sure there is enough clearance - and the worst case is when the spring are fully collapsed and the steering wheel is fully turned.

[justjohn]

Thanks Joe, I did find tire rack. They do not have any LRR tagged in the R16 size.

Thanks for the explanation capri. I did not know I could even change the middle number and still have it fit on the rim. I would like to try to check, but what do I need to do? Load the car with weights, turn the wheel and see if I've got a few inches to spare?

[fjasper]

As tempting as it is to jump to LRR tires right away, if the tires you have are usable, you're probably better off costwise to run the existing tires until they need to be replaced, then replace with a carefully chosen tire.

On Tire Rack, when you bring up a list of tires, click on the "Specs" tab to see all the sizes that tire comes in. You can then see the diameter and revolutions per mile for different sizes and see which other sizes would probably fit. The General Altimax comes in a bunch of sizes, so it's a good one to look at.

They come in 205/50-16, 205/55-16, and 205/60-16 sizes for a choice of diameters. (Go to this link for a quick tire size comparison tool.)These aren't LRR tires, but once you find sizes that would fit your wheels and give you the overall diameter you want, you can search for tires in those sizes. For instance, I found 36 LRR choices for 205/55-16.

Kumho eco Solus LRR comes in a bunch of sizes, including 185/70-14 for less money and less weight.

[justjohn]

Wouldn't the most cost effective solution be to get LRR tires and craigslist the existing ones? Some quick math tells me I would be likely to save between $50 and $225 per year, with ~$70 being most likely.

Originally Posted by fjasper

Kumho eco Solus LRR comes in a bunch of sizes, including 185/70-14 for less money and less weight.

Yes, those definitely jumped out. Cheap, tagged as LRR, good user reviews. They are front runners at the moment. I would like Crr numbers but couldn't find anything.

I dug up some comparison info though. Anyone able to give me a guess based on this?

We gain about 2 mpg after installing these tires in our 2008 Honda Civic Hybrid. The tires are so quiet in all road condition comparing to the previous stock & BF Goodrich tires.

The old set was a replacement for OEM Bridgestone RE92 LRR tires that ----ED and wore out in 25k miles. They rode great, lasted 60k miles, and only reduced my MPG by 10%. I expected to recover some of that MPG loss using these new LRR tires. However, my results were exactly the opposite. They reduced mileage by an additional 5%, or about 15% over my OEM tires.

My 2010 Prius with these Kuhmos had no change in MPG from the OEMs.

[fjasper]

I would have guessed that used tires would have been cheaper overall, but then I did some arithmetic, and it seems like maybe not.

[ShadeTreeMech]

I know I'm resurrecting an old thread, but it seemed to be in line with a discovery this morning. Anyone used Kumho Ecowings? Sounds like decent LRR tires. Found a page of reviews on them here.
TireRack.com Tire Reviews

Wondered if anyone had messed with them on here.