When you get a new set of tires, be sure that you have these rotated on a regular basis. This is critical for a front wheel drive auto. At my location, most of the tire shops offer regular tire roatation at no cost when you buy a set of 4 tires.

Not rotating tires on front wheel drive autos can reduce tire life (of the front tires) by 30% to 50%.

Jemdandy, sure enough I had to make a decision, but did not want the expensive Michelins that the honda dealer had on hand when they changed my oil yesterday. They told me yup, get tires today if not from us, from somewhere.

So I went to a place just around the corner from home that is a full service tire/auto repair shop, national chain. They offered Toyo to drive for 500 miles to see if I liked (I had not done research on them) and many Goodyear choices, which my research was steering me toward the ComfortTred, or Triple Tred as a couple of tires that would fit.

They offered Toyo Versado LX, I take a 195/65r15/91h, at $82 bucks apeice. After they got them on and I went back to get the car, (mind you, late day Saturday) they said please come in first thing Monday because the reason my other tires went bad so fast is that I'm woefully out of alignment, and they just didn't have time to complete that. They said my struts and all else were OK, when I asked what other impact being out of alignment so badly, could have. All is fine they said, just to get in ASAP for a full alignment.

Ultimately, driving only a few miles on the Versado, and being out of alignment too, I can say they are certainly quiet tires! I hope to do more research on them, however they were only introduced in March of '07, so there is not too much to read on any of the consumer opinion sites.

Now that I've bored you to death!, WHAT do you consider to be the frequency of rotate and balance? I've been doing that every time my civic hybrid tells me that I'm at 40% oil life, which is when I go get the oil changed. (Maintenance ReMinder). Is there a rule of thumb on how many miles one should do rotate and balance? And I at least can drive these 500 miles to see if I like them, and they do come with FREE lifetime rotations and balances, so that is good. Maybe I need to do R&B more often than just when I change the oil???

Update: I bought Toyo Versado for my Civic Hybrid. So that's been 5 months and one rotation ago.

I have noticed from the get-go that my mileage has decreased...I was getting 40-44 on the OE tires, which were quite worn.

Got the new Toyo's on, the ride and handling is great, but my mileage has dropped to about 38-42.

What would cause that? I was hypothesizing if the circumference of the tire was a bit different, then the rpm might change, and subsequently the mileage?

Thanks for any information!

Well you don't know which mileage was true, if either. How do you know the first data was correct? You don't. Only thing you can do is check the odometer vs a known distance. Then you can ratio the result and correct the mpg accordingly. You'd have to do this periodically to account for tire wear. Naturally this would only apply for a given set of driver tires currently installed assumng. Rotate the tires? Redo the check.

I'd swear on a stack of engineering handbooks that this is called callibrating the odometer. :-)

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Naturally this would only apply for a given set of driver tires currently installed.

I don't have any suggestions for replacement tires - however, I do know that the OE tires on the Civic Hybrid are designed for very low rolling resistance. A change to a tire with a higher level of resistance will degrade mileage. I am a Civic driver, a friend with a Prius has experienced a similar drop in mileage after changing from the OE Goodyears to a new set of Michelin tires.