Inflate those tires!

[Black_Thunder]

I work at a truck shop and everytime a truck comes in for a service we air the tires.

and they are usually about 5 pounds low, and some trucks come in weekly

 

[hillclimber]

Thanks for the prompt! I knew mine were getting low, I could see it over the past couple of weeks, and just checked them a short time ago. 27psi all the way around. Put 'em back to 33; wow, what a difference!

 

[Greggy_D]

For you guys that max out to the sidewall psi......

Don't you see your tires wearing BIG TIME in the middle of the tread? I inflated my OEM Continentals to 37 (7 over Ford recommended) and you could definitely see the middle part of the tread worn down significantly on all 4 tires.

 

[Auto-Union]

More pressure (over 32lbs) means less wet traction.

 

[b-man]

Quote:

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For you guys that max out to the sidewall psi......

Don't you see your tires wearing BIG TIME in the middle of the tread? I inflated my OEM Continentals to 37 (7 over Ford recommended) and you could definitely see the middle part of the tread worn down significantly on all 4 tires.

---

Nope, exactly the opposite in my case.

When I rotated my tires ('06 Civic sedan/OEM 205/55-16 Bridgestones) after a month-long 7,145 mile road trip I checked the tread depth on all 4 tires using a dial caliper. I run 44 psi in all 4 tires, after a 4 weeks on the road none had gone down below 42 psi (32 psi factory recommended).

Every tire had between .020" to .040" more tread depth in the center of the tire versus the outer tread, the tires have a little over 9K miles on them.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Quote:

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It is unfortunate that you don't have the Nitto's any more to verify this, but the maximum inflation pressure is not listed on the sidewall. What it said was something like: "Max Load XXXX at 35 psi."

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Yup. They give the pressure at which the tire can sustain the maximum load, not the max inflation pressure.

http://www.nittotire.com/popup_450_sizes.asp

 

[tdi-rick]

Quote:

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More pressure (over 32lbs) means less wet traction.

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nope, exactly the opposite.
Quite a few cars I engineered won wet races, and we always raised tyre pressures substantially over dry hot pressures, on both bias ply and radial tyres.

 

[tdi-rick]

Quote:

---

For you guys that max out to the sidewall psi......

Don't you see your tires wearing BIG TIME in the middle of the tread? I inflated my OEM Continentals to 37 (7 over Ford recommended) and you could definitely see the middle part of the tread worn down significantly on all 4 tires.

---

It depends on the vehicle, how it's driven and the tyres.
IIRC (it was a long time ago that I had a sedan) I used to run 42psi front, 37 rear in the Conti's in a Holden Commodore. This is roughly what I would have run in radials if the car did any track time. The tyres wore evenly, but I used to drive it like I stole it, too.

Conversely, if we don't drop the tyre pressures down from 38-40 psi to 33 psi in the rear of my SO's Nissan Patrol after she's been towing the horses, we will crown out the 265/75/16 tyres, irrespective of brand.

 

[ScottB]

I've already seen an increase in MPG with the added air.
I was thinking I was crazy, but it makes a big difference, all things being equal.

 

[Ramblin Fever]

Same here, I have better tread wear, cornering, etc. by running about 4-6psi over what the door calls for on 3 different trucks. All trucks weigh differently, but all are running the exact same all-terrain tires.

My dodge diesel calls for 60/80, (IIRC), I run 65/80 (max cold inflation of 10-ply tires) on 245/75 16's - so far have about 25k miles on yokohama geolander AT's, with great and even tread.

My Isuzu Rodeo calls for 29/32, I run 34/36 on 8-ply 265/75 16's with same Yok AT tire's with about 10-12k miles.

They were cupping initially, but that was due to having mounted them on skinny 16x6 wheels, now that they've been on 16x8 wheels for 5-6k miles, they've evened out greatly.

And our newly acquired Tacoma is now running the same exact size/tire as the Rodeo and calls for 32/32 (IIRC) am running 34/36 on it too.

 

[Black_Thunder]

chalk test

 

[wantin150]

FWIW, I consistantly run 3 to 5 PSI over the vehicle recommended pressure (at the lowest expected outside temp for the season) and have had 0 uneven wear issues.