ideal tire pressure

[00firebird]

whats the ideal tire pressure on our cars? a non-track run, regular city driving car?

[mike h]

it depends on what kind of tire you have. it should also be stated on the side of the tire. "inflate to XX PSI"

[grayman]

have stock goodyear 235/55r16's...
fronts at 34-35...
rear 30-31
city-highway-daily

this distributes weight more to the rear of car rather than having front and rear tire pressure equal.
It does say max pressure on tire and also the door sticker if you have stock tires.

[98Camaro3.8]

Somewhere around 32-35 is good.

[kahouna23]

if it looks flat.....put air in it......always check your tire pressure when the tires are cold. If you're checking them after driving, you'll get an incorrect reading. Simple physics, heat causes expansion; thus increasing pressure. You put 33lbs in cold, it'll read around 38-42lbs hot. Not that 5-6lbs is going to matter much on a street tire, but if you're anal about this sort of thing, it's good info to know. The max pressure stamped on the side of the tire is recommended pressure for even tread wear, not saying that anything above that will cause a blow-out. I always run between 40-45lbs in my tires, but I'm running Z rated tires. On a standard street tire, I'd say 35lbs all the way around.

[Dan Vincent]

There's a sticker on the inside of the car. It says 30 PSI on each tire (at least on my 97). However, if you're going to load up the car (say, road trip), or just do a ton of highway driving in a short amount of time, it's not a bad idea to inflate the tires to 35 PSI.

The pressure on the tire is the maximum amount of pressure it can handle, NOT what you should put in it.

[V8 Killer]

I have 33 PSI

[kahouna23]

Originally posted by Dan Vincent:
The pressure on the tire is the maximum amount of pressure it can handle, NOT what you should put in it.

whatever bro......
You could load that puppy up to 50lbs and drive all day long, and you'll never get a blow out if you stay on a smooth hard surface with no potholes. Like I said in an earlier post, the pressure stamped on the side of the tire is "recommended" pressure for maximum treadwear.

[Loochy88]

you need to put the stock tire pressure in the car. dont put the max tire pressure in the tire. its called "max psi" for a reason. you can fill it up to the max pressure if you want to, but i would assume youd be more prone to blowout in a pothole or such. i dunno if it would affect your tire wear to fill it to 43psi or so, but i would suggest the 33-35psi thats recommended in the door.

[BiH]

I would go with the 32 psi

[V6Bob]

The maximum pressure on the sidewall is just the maximum the tire can take. If you used it, you would almost certainly push the center of the tread out. That will cause poor handling (not all the rubber is on the road) and wear out the center of the tire. It also increases the risk of a blowout over a sharp bump.

Note that the sidewall also gives a maximum load at that pressure. If you add those up I'll bet you get something like 6000-7000 lbs, which gives you some idea how ridiculous those pressures woukd be on a 3500 lb car.

Here's some info I think is good:

http://www.detnews.com/2002/autoscon...f01-402882.htm

and:

http://www.sportcompactcarweb.com/tech/0208scc_tires/

which says:

"The one thing that is certain is that the maximum inflation pressure on the sidewall is not the right one to use."

[ February 08, 2005, 12:40 PM: Message edited by: V6Bob ]

[i_love_my_maro]

i use 42lbs in my tires but that is what i have found to be best for handling and tread wear with my tires.

[CamaroKRAZED]

Originally posted by i_love_my_maro:
i use 42lbs in my tires but that is what i have found to be best for handling and tread wear with my tires.

42psi seems kinda high to me... i don't know, i keep mine in the 32-34psi range.

[V8 Killer]

yeah,42 seems a bit high but whatever floats your boat [img]smile.gif[/img]

[i_love_my_maro]

well it was a big ol test when i worked at the tire shop. and i had road hazard on the tires so if anything happened big o was gonna pay.