I must find some way to get better fuel economy. With $135 fill-ups I'm having a hard time making my daily numbers. But this van is ideal for my business and I will not be looking for an alternative; not now anyway.

Thinking about mounting up a set of Summer-only wheels and tires. I found a nice set of 15" Mopar steel wheels with center caps for $100. I'm going to buy them tomorrow.

My thought is to get Summer only Low Rolling Resistance tires as a means of improving fuel economy. Size would be the same 235/75-15 as my All Season M+S tires, just with a less agressive Summer tread pattern

Looking for educated opinions on whether or not this will be worth my effort.

 

Get some 16 inch rims instead.

That way you can put load range E tires on it.

Pirelli and goodyear each make one load range D tire in th 235 75 15 size.

Most LT tires in 15 inch diameter are load range C or are xtra load (XL) passenger tires which ride softer and have squishier sidewalls than Light truck tires.

Michelin calls their low rolling resistance tires 'green x'.

If you do not need new tires, then buying new rims and tires in hopes of saving gas, well it will take many many tankfuls before you see a return on investment.

New tires with the extra tread always will have more rolling resistance than a worn out set, so you might not even be able to notice an improvement.

 

It's a bummer that BFGoodrich doesn't offer the Commercial T/A's in the 15-inch size. These are perfect load range "E" and offer good M+S and mpg.

 

Thanks for the good advice; I'll look into 16" rims.

As for ROI on a new set of tires I'm not quite sure I see your point. I mean, nobody makes tires that last forever so eventually I'll need a replacement set.

The idea is to use the 16" set for Summer only then go back to the 15" set with M+S rating during snow & ice season. Used this way I'll eventually wear out the tread on both sets of tires.

 

I'd forgotten you wanted just rims and tires for summertime and save the M+S's for the winter. Forget my ROI talk.

 

michelin has pretty good mileage tires.

 

I don't think the ROI for new tires will justify the potential gas milage difference. I think you should make sure you have a good tune up and all fluids replaced first. I'm running Michelin M/S2 tires and couldn't be happier with them. Decent snow performance. Great dry performance. Quite. Lots of factory siping.

 

Well before we get into this to far lets just see how much MPG we are looking at gaining is there anything we can do that will actually improve enough to make a change or is it just that it is a large engine V6 3.9L that just uses gas. Other things I would look at is the amount of weight you are carrying and what your average and max speed is in the vehicle.

 

I just checked mileage today on my 97 2500 5.2 V8. 10.5 MPG in town.

 

I'm not sure you are understanding the ROI discussion.....