Tires and Highway grooves; what is the low down?
 

I just bought a used Prius (Yay!) that requires narrow tires and high tire pressures. (36-42 psi)
The mix of skinny tires on the car right now, follow highway grooves more than any other car I have driven. I need to replace two worn tires right away so.......
I wondered if there is a tread style that doesn't do this "groovy" thing more than others;.... an internet search didn't turn up anything except for motorcycles.

You should hit a Prius forum. I'll bet that you're not the first owner with this issue.

The more I learn the vagaries of these planet-saving electric cars, the less I like them. :o

Thanks; I just did that.
Apparently, The problem is: my tires are worn, and mismatched along with some gusty side winds.... This is a problem with any car.

Prius ....
 

My wife bought one from the dealer last year 2004 34,000 miles
We bought the extended warranty ($1100)
-i looked at the dash and thought:
All those electronics -surely if anything goes wrong and this thing goes in the shop it'll be $750 /1000 easy

It was a no win for me - if i said no dont get that
And something goes wrong. - i d be a idiot -
(More of a idiot in her mind :)

So we have had it a year -no issues but what a boring
Harsh ride. Yes it gets 41 mpg or so,but ...yuk!
Maybe its the tires but jeez its like sitting on a wooden
Kitchen chair and bouncing across the tile floor
41 mpg though
Yuk

Shes not overly impressed either -so its going to one of the girls
For a graduation present

(Come on Passat!!)

Honestly, jgranzier It sounds like you didn't like the idea from the beginning, so you are prejudiced to not like your wife's Prius. Your gas mileage sounds low; our got 49.6 over the last 1,950 winter miles.
When I found my Prius, I wasn't looking, but I thought it was really cool; & after owning around 250 cars; it's hard to get excited about any car anymore.
I bought it really, really cheap, it needed brake work.
I really like mine; it rides nice; I don't know why your rides like a buckboard.:confused:
It's smooth power, no shifting and watching the computer dashboard readout of current MPG & last average 5 mins and the graphing and power transition from battery to engine to recharging; is novel; I dig the multi function touch panel. This is like a 'Star Trek" car; everything is reprogrammable and you can get a readout on any function. ... The brakes are mostly not brakes; they are re-generators; there is no transmission; just a motor/generator and gas motor. I found the transition, is similar going from a gas car to a diesel, except with a lot of techno marvel and a thick owners manual. Many Owners are getting 300,000 miles plus & counting out of the original batteries and original everything, some cars over 500,000-600,000 miles. They seem to be very reliable cars; the gas motor only turn on and off when needed; and only when the oil pressure is up. It is at first startling when the motor quits; you think the car died; resisting immediate temptation to start it again.... Sitting at an intersection in silence...... Driving around in silent "stealth mode" startles animals and people alike.
Prices for the originally expensive parts have dropped significantly; rebuilding battery packs is a yawner; replacing other parts is well documented now as the techno wiz owners are a very do-it-yourself sort of crowd. Some owners are quite anal about record keeping and experimenting and sharing results; sort of like the alternative diesel fuel crowd.... except clean and scientific.
I like it!.....so far. ....Like I told the wife; this is an experiment. & Most of all, my wife loves this car. Nice and quirky.

We had the Honda insight for a while but the wife found it too low and hard to get in and out of. I liked the quirky aspects of the design. Its a little more like a conventional car than the Prius.

FYI:
http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/7...thatpassat.png

If you want more grip you can always get wider tires :D

Have you noticed the same problems on other Cars you have owned?

This is about Batteries.
I read an Article about a Solar Charged Battery set-up that a Magazine did a long term test on.
The Deep Cycle Batteries were advertised to have al 10 year life. During the thes they got only 5 years.
What they found out is that if the Battery Voltge got too muchy below 12 Volts it decreased the Battery Life.
The added more Batteries and kept the Voltage from dropping barely below 12 Volts and they got about 9 years out of those Batteries.

I guess what this means is if you want the full life of the Batteries you need to keep them as close to being fully charged as possible. If you run them way down they will charge back up but you have used up more of the Battery Life they you would have normally.

Yes; some more than others.
As I remembered it had to do with the tires worn out more than anything else.

how do you keep from running the batteries down?

That is true for lead acid batteries. For lead acid batteries I consider 12 volts to be completly dead, 12.4 to be 50% charge and 12.8 to be full charge. Draining even deep cycle lead acid batteries below about 12.2 significantly reduces their life cycle, most people recomend not draining them below 12.4.

The lithium batteries in the prius don't mind full discharge nearly as much. What hurts them is getting them too hot. Like most batteries the last 20% of the charge takes a longer than the first 80% and along with that difficulty in charging the batteries get warmer. Best way to extend the battery life of your lithium batteries is to only charge to 80%. Discharging the batteries quickly will also heat them up. The worst thing you can do to the lithium batteries in a electric car is drive the car hard right after a quick charge. You should allow the batteries to cool down or as I mentioned avoid heating them up by only charging to 80%.