Range decreases after getting new tires

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FloridaLeafGator

New member
Joined
Feb 14, 2018
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Just bought new tires from my 2015 LEAF (the original tires were almost bald). Range decreased significantly. I used to get 105 mi on a full charge (according to the guess-o-meter). Now it's around 90.
I asked about low rolling resistance tires, but they cost a fortune, so I went with the cheapest option.
Could different tires really make that much of a difference?
 
Range always decreases with new tires, no matter what type they are. Some tires lose more range than others like the non-LRR tires.

Back when I owned a Prius, it would routinely get 50 mpg. With new tires of the same type, it would go down to about 43-44 mpg until the little nubbies would wear off a bit...

Normal behavior....
 
I believe I paid about $95 each for my Bridgestone Ecopia EP422 Plus tires on a buy 3 get 1 free sale at Firestone. Also got 6 months no interest financing and I believe 5% off for using my firestone credit card.

Not sure what you would consider cheap, but I am happy with the price and purchase in general. I took a hit on range with the new tires as well, but it has recovered a little after about 5k miles or wear.
 
1st mistake: Looking at the GOM

2nd mistake: Being a cheapskate.

Yes LRR makes a huge difference. Yes the el-cheapo tire is not only crap it will significantly reduce your mileage. When you are only getting 20mpg and it goes down to 17mpg, who cares? People will hardly notice. When you are obsessively looking at efficiency, you notice. In your case, you have the same efficiency drop, and you notice. It is one of the trade-offs of buying crap. The cheap comes out expensive.
 
I don't think anyone has found a LRR tire that's more efficient than the Ecopia EP422 Plus.

I created an alert on Craigslist for "EP422+" and "EP422 plus" and, after a few weeks, lucked out and bought used ones with 75% tread for less than half the price of new. Nice thing with used tires is you don't have to wear them in before getting decent efficiency.
 
This is normal. for one thing the difference in distance traveled from worn out tires to new ones is like 2-3% but the odometer only tracks revolutions.

The other thing is getting same tires you had before. Ecopias are probably top of the line for efficiency
 
If you were driven by your pocketbook to get the cheapest tires you can, they say goodby to at least 20% of your range for the life of that tire. If there is a silver lining to this is that cheapo tires usually have an even shorter tread life than a proper LLR tire, so you will be in the market again soon. There are great LLR tires from both Bridgestone and Michelin that should set you back less than $140 a tire.

Never scrimp on tires.
 
There are good cheap tires that also give good energy economy. The Goodyear Eagle L/S tires I got from Ebay for $275 for 4, brand new, are an excellent example. US-made and I still get roughly 4.0 M/KWH in Summer.
 
Also paid a bit less than $100/tire mounted and balanced at Costco for the Ecopia+'s. Personally I wouldn't go any cheaper.
There are cheaper tires but have higher RR, some quite a bit higher. There are better handling tires, all have higher RR, some quite a bit more some similar the Ecopia's but I'm not aware of any tire with a lower RR than the Ecopias and the Ecopia +'s wear much better than the crap OEM Ecopias which some like me had wear out in <20k miles :x
 
alozzy said:
I don't think anyone has found a LRR tire that's more efficient than the Ecopia EP422 Plus.

I agree completely! When my original Ecopias wore out, I thought I would try a "better" tire, a Michelin LRR that many on here really like. But, even with 20,000 miles on them, I had trouble holding 4.0 miles per kWh. I went back to the Ecopia EP422 Plus (about $100 each), and my range instanted rose to 4.2 to 4.3 Miles/kWh, and it keeps getting better as they break in.
 
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