"Spats are fitted at the front of each wheel arch to further suppress
airflow changes around the tires, which themselves feature a low
rolling resistance compound."

This winter I received an practical lesson on the total uselessness of
the low rolling resistance tires.  My wife traded her old Subaru for a
2014 model, advertised as now being capable of achieving 30+ mpg.
The first thing that tweaked my curiosity about the new Subaru was the
fact that before we drove off in our new car, the salesman walked out
and started letting air out of the tires.  He said "Keep tire pressure
at 29 psi" (?????).

The good news was that the car did indeed make 30+ mpg.  The bad new was
that the car interacted with the highway pavement joints like a farm
hay-wagon crossing railroad-tracks..  and things got worse....  We could
barely get out of our N Wisconsin snow-covered driveway.  The LCD
display on the dash would continually display orange wavy tire tracks as
we tried to climb the long hill leaving our yard.  A couple of times we
slid right off the road into the snowbanks along the side.  It was
almost as if the tires didn't know which way forward was.

After a couple of days of total frustration I called the Subaru dealer,
who graciously offered to replace the Yokohama plastic tires with
genuine Firestone winter tires.  The Subaru is now nearly unstoppable,
goes like a tank through most anything.  I have not seen the gas-mileage
display hit 30 mpg since the tire swap, but I could not care less.
It is now April 14th, we still have 2' of snow in our yard, and a few
more inches are predicted for tomorrow night. :(

RBerglund

The prius rides the same way. You feel every pebble in the road.

Paul Lamar


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