Good, fuel efficient tire?
 

I'm new here to the ecomodder stuff and need some advice. It's time to get new tires for my 2007 Kia Spectra. I'm looking toward the Michelin HydroEdge or the Michelin Destiny (Dicount tire). Does anyone have thoughts, good or bad, about these tires? Recommend something else?

Thanks in advance

KCF3712

If you want good tires that will increase your mpg's then go with low rolling resistance tires. Michelin makes some good ones. I think they're called Energy-Savers or something. Other brands make them too.

The Michelin Energy Saver and Goodyear Efficientgrip were tested to be the best tyres as far as low rolling resistance goes.
But they performed worse in overall handling.

The better handling (claimed to be !) eco-tyre - the Continental ecocontact 3 - performed better, but didn't really show better fuel economy.

If you go the LRR way, you must be prepared to give up on handling (especially in the wet) and braking performance.
This is not that much of an issue if you also adapt your driving style.

...guess it sorta depends upon which is more important:

A) dying with a full tank of gas

...or,

B) not-dying with an empty tank of gas?

LOL :D

They can be driven safely though.
I have had them on the V50 for nearly 27.000 miles and haven't crashed into anything ... yet. :)

Anyway, the Energy Saver handles better than the rubbish Michelin Energy E3 it replaced.

Just don't expect sparkling performance and sportstyre handling from the lowest RR tyres.

Thats a pretty dramatic statement. As a driver of any vehicle you learn what your vehicle can and can't do and adjust your driving accordingly. You leave more stopping distance when driving a semi than you do a compact car.

Might have been tongue in cheek. Old Tele Man is known to do that occasionally :)

Millions of cars have been sold over the last decade with LRR tires. (Think of all those hybrids, and "3L" / eco variant diesel cars in Europe.) While there's no doubt the grip offered by different tires varies, if there were a statistically significant increase in the crash / death rate of that category of cars, we'd know about it.

Think I'm going to give the Michelin HydroEdge a try.

I went with Bridgestone Ecopia EP100 tires. Love em so far.

Here is some decent MPG and handling testing done by tirerack.com.

When Round and Black Becomes Lean and Green

...or, as my wife refers to it (my humor): "...it's barnyard humor...it stinks!"