Low Profile Tires

[DonSor]

A well known advice by mechanics was to ensure that tires are proplerly enflated. Under enflated tires affect gas mileage. I suppose that that's because of too much contact with the ground - necessary in drag racing however.
But how about the low profile tires now popularly used, not much by pickups but by regular cars. Don't the low profile tires such as 245/45/17 negatively affect gas mileage?

[Jacfourteen]

I think that they would help gas milage if all things are equal (overall height, witdth etc.) because they would have less distortion due to stiffer/shorter sidewall. the downside to this is that these wheel/tire combos tend to be heavier than standard tires because there is more metal (larger wheels), so they take more energy to accelerate/decelerate. So my guess is that if you're going down the highway they might help, but in stop and go they would probably hurt milage. Like I said though I'm just speculating, I don't have any proof of this . Anyways thats not even getting into the ride quality or the noise associated with low-pro tires.

[toddler62]

My guess is that it would take more horse power to keep a heavier wider tire turning on the road, and you forgot to mention a wider tire will hydroplane much quicker than a narrow tire

[Dark_StRanger]

Technically not...theres a shorter distance for the tire to turn...where as if you were to put a higher pro on it it would lessen the mpg


theres more energy used to turn a big tire compared to a small tire