Road Hugger GT Eco

[thedman]

Approaching 40,000 miles and running the original tires, I think its time to start researching new ones. Sure, they're still going strong, but the first owner really didn't rotate them and I am approaching the wear bars. Everything I've read says that the Michelin Energy Saver A/S is the best choice, and I do like those tires. But they are kind of expensive, and their tread depth is lower than other tires so what you are seeing is savings from increased fuel economy, but with ultimately less tire for your money. You can't have it all right? But, what I was wondering is if anyone has run the Road Hugger GT Eco tire from Discount Tire. They were rated highly for the C-Max, and are considerably cheaper than the Michelins. However, what I am looking at is fuel efficiency and if these tires gave the same hit as switching to, for example the Pirelli Cinturato P7 All Season Plus tires. Any suggestions?

 

Link To Road Hugger GT Eco

Link To Side By Side Comparison of Pirelli, Michelin, Road Hugger

[ptjones]

Buy slightly used Michelin for 1/2 price on eBay

 

Paul

[plus 3 golfer]

With respect to whether the Road Huggers make financial sense if you lose some FE with the Road Huggers, let's say you save $230 on the cost of four Road Huggers over the Michelins (you can usually wait for the $70 or so rebate on the Michelins), both tires last 60 k miles , and you get 40 mpg on the Michelins.  So, you will use 1500 gallons of fuel at 40 mpg.  At $3 / gallon, that's $4500 in fuel cost with the Michelins.  Again, assuming both brands last the same miles, the break-even FE = 60,000 / ($4730 / $3) = 38.1 mpg.  So, as long the loss in FE with the Road Huggers is less than 4.9%, the Road Huggers make financial sense.  If gas is $2/ gallon, the break-even fuel economy will be 7.1% lower than the base 40 mpg.  If gas is $4/gallon, the break-even FE will only be 3.7% lower than 40 mpg.  

 

Now one can compare these break-even % with a tire vs FE test conducted by TireRack (see below).  The question is where does the Road Hugger Eco fall. I would hope the Road Hugger (being labeled an "ECO" tire) would be as good as the Goodyear Assurance Fuel Max - but who knows. ;)  :)   Also, the test is over 5 years old, used a Prius, and different rated tires than on the C-Max and thus may not be relevant.

 

On the performance of the tires other than FE, I always question the ability of consumers to rate tires since it is very subjective when not comparing side by side.  Also, there isn't a statistically significant sample size for the ratings on the C-Max.  Even the 23 overall ratings for the Road Hugger is rather light in sample size.

 

 

 

[fbov]

Approaching 40,000 miles and running the original tires, I think its time to start researching new ones. ...I was wondering is if anyone has run the Road Hugger GT Eco tire from Discount Tire. They were rated highly for the C-Max...

There's an old saying, "Don't ask the mouse what he thinks of the cheese."

 

I would be very skeptical of "glowing" tire reviews of a house brand tire. These are Kumho Ecowing KH30's, according to this Nissan Leaf owner, but they're hard to find as Kumhos. The Leaf owner felt he had about a 10% hit on "efficiency" and would be happy to get within 5% of the Ecopia's he replaced.  I don't recall the Ecopia's being as LRR as our OEMs, and a 5% difference is huge in Tire Rack tests. Gee, Plus already said that! 

 

Then there's the matter of style... I prefer the feel of a LRR car, and I love driving by gas stations.

 

HAve fun,

Frank