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I know at least one person has these;) but I wanted to see what everyone else thinks.
http://www.hubcapmike.com/rdc02-15.html

Not that anyone around here actually uses brakes, but could these cause brake overheating issues?

Hi Larry:

___That is Jay Groh’s Prius (The Force). We had a write up on these a few months ago. Not sure about the aerodynamic enhancements but his Prius’ exterior sure looked good from my vantage point. The exterior was cool but the coup de tat was his interior appointments with the red and black seat covers ;)

___Think about the speeds at which you are traveling before considering aero mods. If your vehicle speeds are only 40 and the edge of the rim is a few inches from the max velocity edge of the circumference (it is of course), you are not gaining much if anything.

___Good Luck

___Wayne

I beleive Jay said that there would be sufficient airflow from the back of the wheel to take care of what little heat would be generated from Prius brakes.

Hi Larry:

___That is Jay Groh’s Prius (The Force). We had a write up on these a few months ago. Not sure about the aerodynamic enhancements but his Prius’ exterior sure looked good from my vantage point. The exterior was cool but the coup de tat was his interior appointments with the red and black seat covers ;)

___Think about the speeds at which you are traveling before considering aero mods. If your vehicle speeds are only 40 and the edge of the rim is a few inches from the max velocity edge of the circumference (it is of course), you are not gaining much if anything.

___Good Luck

___Wayne

That's kind of what I was thinking. I have only taken 3 highway trips with my car so far and probably 1 more in the next month. At only 5-6 trips/year it may take way too long to recover the cost.

Well I think they may help a little at highway speeds because you would be traveling in more of a straight line and at a constant speed. The extra weight would not matter much. Low speed P&G driving is were this may hurt because of the added weight. Having to spin up more weight on the wheels would cause you to use more gas and or longer pulse. You also might see a longer coast because of the kinetic?? energy stored in the extra rotating mass. I really don't know about any facts on this because I never conducted any official experiments.

As far as the brakes over heating they will never over heat with these caps on if you drive the Prius like you should. Light braking will always give you regen down to about 7mph and then the friction brakes will grab. At that low speed even in stop and go driving the brakes will most likely never get hot enough to damage them. If you go down a very large mountain on the other hand you would want to remove the caps and use B mode.

I did not care if they hurt the MPG by a few mpg+-. I just thought they looked good.

Well I think they may help a little at highway speeds because you would be traveling in more of a straight line and at a constant speed. The extra weight would not matter much. Low speed P&G driving is were this may hurt because of the added weight. Having to spin up more weight on the wheels would cause you to use more gas and or longer pulse. You also might see a longer coast because of the kinetic?? energy stored in the extra rotating mass. I really don't know about any facts on this because I never conducted any official experiments.

As far as the brakes over heating they will never over heat with these caps on if you drive the Prius like you should. Light braking will always give you regen down to about 7mph and then the friction brakes will grab. At that low speed even in stop and go driving the brakes will most likely never get hot enough to damage them. If you go down a very large mountain on the other hand you would want to remove the caps and use B mode.

I did not care if they hurt the MPG by a few mpg+-. I just thought they looked good.

I thought they looked pretty good too. Especially on your car. If you are ever inclined to do any testing I think it would be interesting to see if they help in lower speed P&G type driving as much as they do on the highway.