After I had the Prius for a few months I decided to buy some HydroEdge tires. (This was back in May of last year.) I did this because of what I believed to be information from the manufacture, from comments on Tire Rack, from comments on PriusOnline.com and PriusChat.com. One of the items that was interesting to me was that the tire was supposed to be very quiet. In fact from the reports on Tire Rack it was much quieter than the Goodyear OEM tires that the Prius comes with. In addition, the ratings said they had long life and good handling in dry and wet. So I bought some expecting this to be true. I took them on a 170-mile trip. I had already taken the same trip with the OEM tires just before I got the HydroEdge. The trip consisted of different road surfaces, from smooth asphalt, gravel coated asphalt to concrete roads with various surface textures. I found that the HydroEdge tires were noisier than the OEM tires.
The Prius only has what I would call average road noise isolation. On smooth asphalt roads the car can be very quiet. On rough roads the tire noise can be quite pronounce. The difference was that the HydroEdge produced their own sound even on very smooth asphalt, whereas the OEM tires did not do that. It always felt like I was driving on a slightly rough road. I think it has to do with the tread design. This is why I got rid of them, not because I did not like the way they handled. They would probably live up to their claims of excellent wet weather tires and long wear. Southern California does not get that much rain, so I am not that concerned with the rain aspect of it. (Last month was an exception not the rule.)
The tests were done at normal recommended tire pressures (35/33 psi). When I put the OEM tires back on I was much happier, at least from the tire noise, point of view. It cost me some money since Michelin would not take them back and the tire dealer could not move the tire because of the odd size. It was “dead stock” to him. Michelin would have traded them for some Harmony tires, which according to the rep would have been a “better fit”, whatever that means. I was done experimenting so I got them to put the OEMs back on.
I now have almost 25000 miles on the OEMs, and they still don’t have much sign of any wear. They are rotated every 5000 miles. But, I also don’t race the car around corners or drive fast on winding roads. Most of my driving is on freeways. Driving on winding mountain roads, and going fast around corners can wear tires out quickly, I know I have done it in the past.
When the OEM tires wear out I will have to consider what to replace them with in earnest. In the mean time I am satisfied with them. You have to take the ratings in Tire Rack with a grain of salt. They are just the options of individuals that bought a particular set of tires. They might not have any experience with what is a “better” tire or “worse” tire. It’s all relative to what sort of experience they had previously. You have to read the comments to see whether their opinion has any relevance to your car. You cannot for example take a review for a tire for someone that states the tire worked great for the SUV and necessarily apply this to the Prius and expect to get the same results. It’s better to get the opinion for like size tires and cars.