Bridgestone/Firestone B381 still the best for 14" tires???

[jamminjimmy]

Hey all, I am about to buy tires, but am confused by many, many LRR tire reviews and reports. I checked Wiki, the Green Seal report, the "Top 5 most fuel efficient tires (Lowest Rolling resistance: LRR)" thread, and many other threads/reviews.... I just ended up confused. I like the idea of the B381- BUT that was an old report and do not know if it is still valid with new tires and technologies.... I also haven't heard them mentioned in recent threads anymore. Any thoughts? Like someone said, I will probably have whichever tires for a while, and want the best LRR/tradeoff(lifetime, traction etc..) for now.... Thanks!

[Sulfuric]

I just bought 4 Bridgestone Ecopia Ep100 tires. They cost about $85 each, and I also paid for the "Road Hazard" upgrade, for $10 a tire. Covers damage to tires including potholes, slashed tires, etc. that aren't included in the regular warranty(only for treadwear and manufacturer's defects). Total, it cost about 470 I think, including labor, taxes, etc.
Warranty covers 50,000 miles for treadwear.




. . .I'm not sure if they are worth it, they are expensive tires (at least for me), but I can tell a HUGE difference in coast length(big increase), and tirerack tested them as having the best wet braking traction out of a bunch of LRR tires.

Hope that helps.

[NeilBlanchard]

Hi,

The Nokian H is available in several 14" sizes:

Nokian H
175/65 R 14 82 H
185/65 R 14 90 H
185/60 R 14 82 H
185/55 R 14 80 H

And the Nokian i3 (which is also available in five 13" sizes!)

Nokian i3
165/70 R 14 81
175/70 R 14 84
185/70 R 14 88
195/70 R 14 91
165/65 R 14 79
175/65 R 14 82
185/65 R 14 86
185/60 R 14 82

[jamminjimmy]

Thanks for the input guys, appreciate it.

[jamminjimmy]

Update: I just bought a set of four B381's from Costco yesterday. With a sale, they came to around $100 per tire out the door. Already feel the difference in coasting, although I didn't do any coastdown testing on the previous yokohama stock tires that were on it(don't have much time these days). I'll run a couple tanks, then update this thread on MPG increase for others researching B381 ....

[jamminjimmy]

Just filled up and wanted to post results for anyone searching for B381 tires... I have many things I want to do to this car, so these are definitely Not scientific numbers(I basically make a couple changes, hoping for a high score- then will backtrack to eliminate variables if I feel like it). Anyhoo, in the 9 tank fills before these tires, 37.24 mpg was the best and in the 4 tank fills since installing the tires 37.83 mpg was the worst, with 40.77 mpg being the best.
Since I don't know the rolling resistance of the worn out stock Yokohamas that were replaced, and since i had to buy size 185/65/r14 instead of stock 185/60/r14.... I dunno how much these tires helped/hurt my mpg- Although these do glide a lot easier....