brus brother Posted June 24, 2008 Share Posted June 24, 2008 In this gas mileage hypersensitive time, I am wondering about the impact of various style tires. After ordering Goodyear Triple Treds, I read one review that stated that the "loss of 2-3 mpg was OK considering the improved traction". YIKES! This seems extreme. Has anyone had this experience with these tires or other tires? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suzam Posted June 24, 2008 Share Posted June 24, 2008 Interesting read from tirerack.com here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FSRBIKER Posted June 24, 2008 Share Posted June 24, 2008 One review out of hundreds? Filter the results on Tire Rack for just Subaru's, everyone seems to love them. Now I have had them for about 25,000 miles and they are a great tire. Rain, snow or dry they are fantastic, my first Toyo's were better on dry roads but bad in the rain plus I now needs struts/springs so these will handle better when i replace those. As far as mileage goes I have consistently got 21-24 mpg in my 97 Legacy Outback no matter what tires I had. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rooster2 Posted June 24, 2008 Share Posted June 24, 2008 I wouldn't think that tire design or brand name would make much difference regarding gas milage. The biggest factor is air pressure. I try to keep my tires at 35 psi on all four corners for best milage and longer tread wear. Car rides a little rougher, but fine with me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
audio_file Posted June 24, 2008 Share Posted June 24, 2008 Interesting read from tirerack.com here. bingo! not just an interesting read, its the research proven fact about high performance tires and their larger resistance to rolling, causing a drop of up to 20% in fuel economy. chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yohy Posted June 24, 2008 Share Posted June 24, 2008 When I switched from the OEM Yokohama Geolandar G900 to Bridgestone Potenza G009 on my ’04 Forester I lost about 15%, going from a solid 25 round town to approximately 22. This drop was the same on the highway. Interesting though, I took the cross bars off the roof rack this winter and was able to pick up almost the exact amount in mpg that I had lost. So, anyone interested in gaining a few mpg’s, take off the cross bars on your roof rack. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wxman Posted June 24, 2008 Share Posted June 24, 2008 I've been running TripleTreds on my 05 Impreza RS since last October (about 10K miles). I have not noticed any change in gas mileage over the stock Potenzas. However, the traction on wet/snowy roads is much better. FWIW...I average 28-29 MPG in mixed driving (20% city and 80% highway). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OB99W Posted June 24, 2008 Share Posted June 24, 2008 [...]Interesting though, I took the cross bars off the roof rack this winter and was able to pick up almost the exact amount in mpg that I had lost. So, anyone interested in gaining a few mpg’s, take off the cross bars on your roof rack.Are you saying that you got an increase of 3 MPG "around town" by removing the roof rack crossbars, or was that improvement just on the highway? What's your average "around town" and highway speed? (I'd love to gain 3 MPG, but I have the feelling that I don't go fast enough for the air resistance to make that much of a difference.) ... ... Okay, I just did some research. These guys say "up to" 5% penalty (about 1.0-1.5 MPG, and that's probably at highway speed): http://www.cartalk.com/content/features/fueleconomy/ Here's some anecdotal "data": http://www.fixexpert.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=6435&sid=35766fd4f7acb3bb3042a698756e0dfa Still, if you're not using the rack, any improvement might make removing the crossbars worthwhile. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yohy Posted June 24, 2008 Share Posted June 24, 2008 Regarding the roof rack, some background. I have had the Potenza's on the car for over a year and about 14K. I noticed an immediate drop in mpg from apx. 25 mix/29 hwy to 22 mix/26 hwy. Now around February I decided to remove the cross bars from the roof rack as I found they trapped a lot of snow. Thinking about this, I reasoned without the weight of the snow, I might gain some advantage with regards to fuel economy. I was surprised to see an immediate improvement. Now I just filled up on Sunday and it calculated out to 24.66 mpg in mixed driving, mainly local stuff. This has been fairly constant since removing the cross bars. Now again, we did come out of the cold winter weather which will have an impact but again, my gain was immediate. Oh, and I calculate my mileage with every fill up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spiffy Posted June 24, 2008 Share Posted June 24, 2008 the more traction a tire has the more resistance there is and the lower the mpg... a snow tire is going to get a lot worse mileage than a racing slick... of course traction is a relative term... basically the more complex the tread design then the lower the mpg... I don't keep a log of my mpg so I've never really compared the numbers to see how much of a difference it makes... --Spiffy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnceggleston Posted June 24, 2008 Share Posted June 24, 2008 ok slight hi jack. why can't you put narrower tires, 195s on an out back. you can still make them as tall as the 205s it comes with, but it wil have narrower foot print, like the legacy L. this would seem to me to give higher MPG. are differences between the legacy and the outback so great to prohibit this? is the weight and height diff enough to make this dangerous? just wondering. sorry for the distraction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OB99W Posted June 25, 2008 Share Posted June 25, 2008 [...]Now around February I decided to remove the cross bars from the roof rack as I found they trapped a lot of snow. Thinking about this, I reasoned without the weight of the snow, I might gain some advantage with regards to fuel economy. I was surprised to see an immediate improvement. Now I just filled up on Sunday and it calculated out to 24.66 mpg in mixed driving, mainly local stuff. This has been fairly constant since removing the cross bars. Now again, we did come out of the cold winter weather which will have an impact but again, my gain was immediate. Oh, and I calculate my mileage with every fill up. I suspect that the snow's effect was not due primarily to its weight, but rather to air damming. Any prolonged increase in MPG is probably because you're not driving under winter conditions with winter-formulated gas, as you mentioned. Info I've been able to find points to possibly one MPG improvement by removing rack crossbars, but only at high sustained speeds. However, I think it's appropriate to say "your mileage may vary". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buick350X Posted June 26, 2008 Share Posted June 26, 2008 I just yanked that goofy upside down wing they stick on the 01 Forest to blow air over the back window to help keep it clean. Real simple to under stand, stick you hand out the window palm up and you realize how much air the sucker is grabbin at speed slowing you down. Also because if you look around they don't put them things on cars anymore. Only hard part about it is covering up the screw holes for it. THe spacers that help it up were just foam taped to it, so I covered their exposed ends in some black vinyl as they are not solid, then made two small cuts inthem for the screws to slip through. Cleaned it up nice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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