Quote:
Originally Posted by minispeed
Maybe it's that the light wheel reduces the amount of energy that can be had from regen braking. I know a couple people on priuschat have done a lot of testing with 17s and shown the heavy weight made a fuel economy hit.
OP where did you get them and in what size? I'm also looking for a light pair of wheels and like these.
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During my testing I was using a set of lightweight 17" wheels (15lbs). One set of 15" tires weighed the same as the 17" tires so the entire combo weighed the same as the 17" combo so there was no net change in weight yet the mpg difference persisted much like it had with previous testing I had done in my GenII over the last 5 years. This along with other data like the OE 17" wheels (24 lbs) having and even lower impact on mpg leads me to believe that weight is not the prime force in determining mpg with wheels unless you do a lot of stop and go driving.
I think the bigger factor is tire friction and hysteresis.