Quote:
Originally Posted by KootenayAllens
Is the small gain worth prematurely wearing out set of tires?
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But does running tires at sidewall max wear them faster? My experience over 4 sets of tires now is, no. And before I got into ecomodding, autocrossing three different cars I always ran tires at higher-than-placard pressures to minimize shoulder roll, maximize contact patch, and minimize wear because that's what everyone else was doing.
Also, if you check out the i3 thread in the Aerodynamics subforum there's an extended discussion about the effect of tire pressure on coasting distance, with some data collected by MetroMPG and the thread's author, snax. Might be worth a look.
As far as open vs. closed face wheels: A few years ago, I tested pizza pan wheel covers against stock Prius wheels and found 1.8% improvement in fuel economy at 55 mph. There are a few older threads on here with test results, usually on the order of 1-3%. However, generally--closed wheels in front increase front lift. Everything's a trade-off, and it's a question of what you want and what it's worth to you.