Low-resistance” tires significantly improve gas mileage?

Myth: New “low-resistance” tires significantly improve gas mileage. Unless you’re driving bald or severely under-inflated tires, the hype about low-rolling resistance tires adds up to minimal gas savings. As this story by USA Today reports, various brands of these newfangled tires create gas savings of only 1% to 3%, even if rolling resistance is cut by 25% or more. Whether that saves wear and tear on your car is another story, but the mileage improvements won’t even pay for a spare tire over the course of 10 tanks of gas.