Lowest rolling resistance tyres?

[GainfulShrimp]

Having swapped my winter wheels+tyres for my OE alloys wearing Pirelli P7, I'm shocked at how high the rolling resistance is... you can really feel the car doesn't coast/roll as well as it did with the winters on.

So far, it seems to have made around 7-9 mpg difference - more than I was expecting - which means over £400 per year for my mileage.

I had thought the Ecomotive came as standard with LRR tyres and, confusingly, the Pirelli Cinturato P7 is well regarded for low rolling resistance. Unfortunately, though, I don't have the Cinturato flavour... and the bog-standard P7 got comments in a European tyre test of "the high rolling resistance is anything but beneficial".

So I'm considering getting some proper eco tyres put on the car. On my shortlist at the moment are Michelin Energy Saver and Goodyear EfficientGrip. Does anyone know of any tyres offering even lower rolling resistance than those two?

 

[Slimy]

For high mileage/low rolling resistance tyres, my vote would be for the Michelin. Their almost complete lack of resistance is actually one of the main reasons why I would never buy Michelin! Although to be fair they do have grippier variants now, but from the various tyre reviews I've seen Michelin do seem to be the leaders for high mileage.

 

[GainfulShrimp]

Thanks. My first winter tyres were Michelin Primacy Alpin PA3 and they were good for LRR (but still grippy in wet/cold weather)...

 

[Slimy]

Just in case you're considering it, I wouldn't suggest you run winter tyres in the summer, I believe the tread wear is significant. Whatever you gain in MPG will be quickly replaced by having to swap tyres.

But I'm assuming you wouldn't be asking the question if you were planning to stay on winters?

 

[GainfulShrimp]

You're right - my winters have been garaged until next winter. I'm looking for a summer tyre that can match the low rolling resistance of my winters and hopefully do even better...

 

[GainfulShrimp]

Right... my local fitter (who I've used before and trust) will do me 4 x Michelin Energy Saver in 205/55 R16 91V for £338, including full laser alignment. This is better than I've found online so far.

Assuming that the new tyres will match the efficiency of my winter tyres (seems a reasonable expectation) and that diesel remains at or above £1.359/litre (again, seems likely), I'm looking to save around £450 per year in fuel costs vs keeping the Pirelli P7s, so it seems this is indeed a sensible thing to do.

Even if I'm being harsh on the Pirellis and they are in fact only 4 mpg worse than my winters, the Michelins will pay for themselves within 18 months and if the reputation and review scores for wear rates are to be believed, I won't need to replace them as often either...

 

[GainfulShrimp]

I did the deed yesterday - got 4 x Michelin Energy Saver put on the car.

I've already noticed an improvement when rolling to a stop. Hopefully this will translate into genuinely higher tank range / mileage figures...

 

[Dabbalz]

I'm more for grip and good stopping distances than MPG so i wouldn't ever fit a tyre that gave better mpg and less rolling resistance over Grip and braking performance. I'm no help here then, sorry.

 

[GainfulShrimp]

I get where you're coming from... but there's not a straightforward link between low rolling resistance and traction on the road. Essentially, the use of special compounds allows the *internal* friction within the tyre to be reduced - so less energy is lost (as heat) as the tyre deforms whilst rolling down the road - without adversely affecting traction against the road 'too much'.

The holy grail of tyre design isn't entirely possible - nobody has figured out how to reduce the internal friction without affecting the traction to some degree. However, modern compounds and processes allow a much better compromise than first generation eco tyres, which basically used hard compounds and reduced both rolling resistance and traction by quite a bit.

Like anything, it's a compromise - but it's not true to say that lowering rolling resistance always results in much less traction. There are balanced tyres such as the Pirelli Cinturato P7 which combine a decent amount of efficiency with good levels of grip and handling. Personally I'm more into low mpg so I'm happy to get something that compromises traction further under certain conditions but gets correspondingly bigger improvements in rolling resistance.