Wheel swap? 175/65-r15 Steel to 185/65-r14 Insight Wheels

[sfair74]

Howdy all,

Just an update. I totaled my 2017 Yaris L hitting a deer. It was around 5:30AM and the deer was on a full run from out of nowhere.

I have dash cam footage of hitting the deer. I didn't have time to react so it was a straight on hit close to center slightly passenger side at 55MPH.

The drivers airbag, drivers knee, and both side curtain airbags deployed. The drivers knee airbag turned the extra keys hanging from my key chain into shrapnel. I should have saved or at least gotten a picture of the key chain ring since it was twisted up and opened pretty bad.

Over all after switching to Mobile 1 0w20 EP over the winter ~10K miles I averaged 38.6 MPG. Since the spring oil change I averaged 39.2 MPG on the lie-o-meter before I totaled the car.

I'm currently in the market for a new sub compact. I'm pretty sure I'm going to get a 2018 Toyota Yaris IA (badge engineered Mazda 2 sedan). I almost got a Scion / Toyota IA last fall but the reliability data wasn't really robust yet.

On my soon to be new car (2018 Yaris IA) I still want to swap over to G1 Honda Insight wheels. Unfortunately since the 14" wheels and my desire to stick with Nokian tires on the IA the the tires will be 5.14% smaller than the stock tire / wheel package. I'm not sure if the gearing reduction and the dropped ground clearance of 15.625mm will even out as far a fuel economy.

185/65R14 Insight vs 185/60R16 Stock (an odd size with very limited selection). 195/60R16 is the most common size most IA owners use that is close to stock diameter.

The good news is that I'm pretty sure the IA has indirect ABS TPMS vs direct so that's one less cost / issue to deal with.

On the other hand the automatic has a taller 6th gear and a taller final drive than the manual so it's still probably going to be just fine.

[RedDevil]

Sorry to read about your loss, hope you are OK.
Thanks for the keychain info, I'll shorten mine.

FWIW, I see better economy on my 175/65R15 steel rimmed winter tires with non-aero hub caps than my OEM 185/55R16 alloy rimmed summer tires.
I feel you should not go wider especially if you also raise the pressure.

Go for the best quality tires you can get. I lost a car due to crappy tires which wasn't too bad as the car was crappy too ('86 4-gear single cam deasel Rabbit, acceleration timed per calendar).
The only reason to get wider than OEM would be if that allows for better tires.

[MeteorGray]

That is interesting information about how extra keys from a keychain can be bad in a wreck. My Mazda3 came with keyless ignition, so all the keys are in my pocket. Serendipity.

When I changed tires on my Mazda3, I put on 20565R16s in place of the OEM-supplied 20560R16s. The difference is about a 3% taller tire. I just put them on, but the brand new tires did not show any MPG decreases, so they may give me a little boost as they wear-in.

My car alarms for flats by utilizing the ABS system. It has worked quite well, and one added benefit is the fact that it let me know when one of my old tires began to experience belt separation. Even though the tire pressure remained the same, the tire grew in circumference due to the belts giving way, so the system let me know because the tires were no longer all rotating at the same speed. This was a real asset to me. Plus, when I changed my tires out, I didn't have to worry about switching or buying new pressure sensors. Again, serendipity.

[mpg_numbers_guy]

Will the new car be a manual or an auto? Manual = better mpg, regardless of gearing (for the most part).

Would 14" rims even fit on the Yaris? With 16s my guess is that anything smaller than 15s might not clear the calipers.

Lightweight 15" rims with Bridgestone Ecopia 185/65R15s (Prius eco tire) would keep the same gearing. Prius 15" rims are lightweight at 14lbs IIRC but they're 5x100 vs the Yaris 4x100 bolt pattern.

165/80R15s would give you taller gearing and a narrower tire for FE, but I can't seem to find any that are LRR rated, so FE would likely take a hit unless run at 100 PSI or something insane like that.