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Tire Pressure

I'm sure he meant 90 for both tires! 45 for each. Just kidding but 90 seems way up there.
 
There is another thread that has some additional information for 2500 owners: tire pressures

Take a temporary detour to that thread to see what was said, but please continue the discussion on this thread.

-- SS
 
rgramjet said:
My "genius" service writer told me my tires were underinflated at 45psi all around. ?He recommended 90 in the rear and 50 in the front. ?Now rides like an M! Abrams tank!! ?42 all around tomorrow!


Just curious, what tires do you have? What's their load rating?
 
gandolphxx said:
My experience with JiffyLube is that the guy looks at the door label and behaves accordingly - I have to watch them like a hawk or the would put 80lbs in my rear tires - doah :rolleyes:
When I took my Chevrolet Lumina sedan to have the oil changed at a small oil change shop they indicated that I should have my transmission fluid flushed and replaced. I telephoned my father regarding this and he felt it was due for this so in this instance, I agreed with the shop. I heard the person working on the car muttering something about 'that is a lot of fluid' but thought nothing of it until I drove the car to work afterward. I came out after work to find a large amount of transmission fluid leaking from underneath the car, down behind it to the middle of the parking lot, and then down the street. Needless to say, I was furious and after checking the fluid level, found it was far above the full mark. In fact, the entire dipstick was covered in tramission fluid. Dad met me at the place I had the fluid flushed and he tore them a new one. It seems they looked in their book and just found Lumina. The Lumina APV. The minivan. The minivan that takes almost twice as much transmission fluid as my car. Dad had them lower the fluid level and then chewed them out some more. I am just fortunate that the overfilling didn't damage any gaskets or seals.

So yeah, I can understand why you would want to watch closely what these people are doing to your vehicle. :)
 
I too have found that 30 PSI for general use is too low causes lower fuel economy and some sidewall "roll" when cornering. For "normal" city/highway use, I found 32 PSI to be the best compromise for load, wear and fuel mileage. When towing my boat, it's a different story. Recommend 36 PSI (minimum). Rule of thumb - 2 PSI increase per 1000 lb towing load. :B:
 
After all the "hoopla" with the ford Explorer a couple years ago, I THINK it is best to keep the pressure at what the tire maker recommends. With the Ford, they wanted the tire pressure different to give the vehicle a smoother ride.
This is my understanding of it anyway, anybody have more knowledge?
 
I agree! I keep the ones on my Z66 at 44lbs.
 
If by 'what the tire manufacturer recommends' you mean the pressure printed on the side of the tire (since I don't know what else you could mean), then you could not be more wrong. :eek:
If you look closely, the pressure printed on the side of the tire is labelled Max pressure. Required to be there by law, it is both the pressure at which the max load bearing capacity is certified, and an absolute maximum safe pressure (often used to 'seat the bead' when installing a tire on the rim).
It is not in ANY way a recommended working pressure. In fact, running at that pressure is likely (since tire pressures rise during running) to EXCEED the maximum safe pressure, putting your vehicle, yourself and any passengers at risk of injury or death. :eek:
The recommended pressure (on the sticker on your door, and again required by law) is worked out between the tire manufacturer and the vehicle manufacturer, taking into account many different variables.
At the very least, by running significantly higher pressure than the recommended, you would decrease available grip, and wear out the tire prematurely in the center portion of the tread
 
Hmmm, I might have to reconsider! I was using the max pressure listed on the side of the tires. I always assumed it ment if you were carring a load this was the MAX PRESSURE to inflate the tires to. I know that when towing my 5700LB camper I always inflate them to 44PSI. I think the tires on the camper say something like 60PSI and that is what I put in them but again it is the MAX PRESSURE for those tires. I am sure I will get a little better ride if I were to reduce the pressure to 30psi like it states on the door of the AV.

Other opinions?

Butch
 
seek and ye shall find, or in this case "search" and ye shall find a whole lotta debate on this

you will see from those threads that I run 40 - 42 cold psi in my Wrangler MT/R 175/70R17s
 
The 'recommended' pressure is a compromise for the 'best' solution for many factors. I'd say if you prefer 32, that won't noticeable impact tire life, 35 I would call a little too much, but not disastrous. One element in the compromise is that the manufacturers know that most people don't check their tires often enough, so the tire manufacturers like to be on the high side of the compromise to give a little leeway, and then the vehicle manufacturers know that the higher the pressure the better the gas mileage (which they get the credit for) at the expense of tire life (which the tire manufacturer gets the blame for) so they agree that on the high side of the compromise is better for them, too....
Softer tire pressures improve the ride, and you'd probably be perfectly safe with 28 on the Av.
Other considerations are that with relatively high aspect ratios (75% or 70% like stock Av tires) softer makes the steeirng a little less precise (more compliance is the tech term) and higher pressures make the handling tighter(up to a point, and 35 is probably the limit of benefit on that). SO you see it's not a simple question.
It gets really complicated if you put very much larger and much higher load-rated tires on a vehicle (like people commonly do on Jeeps), then your pretty much into pressure = (max pressure * GAVW) /(max tireLoad *4) as a starting point and experiment checking wear patterns (the famous chalk test) and tire temperatures after freeway runs...
SO with stock tires the recommended pressure is probably your best bet, and certainly a safe one....
 
There is a thread whre GXX has a spreadsheet to calc proper tire pressure based on some thingys.....

Search for it ...as it is pretty old
 
I've owned three trucks the avalanche being my third one. I've always fill the tires up to the max air pressure (because that is max at cold) and got 60,000 plus on all my sets of tires before they needed to be changed. Plus never had a blow out because of filling them up to what the tire says.
 
I must also admit, been driving for 20 years, and I have always kept my tires at the max air pressure labeled on the tire. I always check and fill when cold, never had a problem. Knock on wood....... :)
 
I hate this debate. I think 30 per the door label is low for the 275's. I think 44 max per the sidewalls is too high. Who knows? Everyone's got an opinion. The door label should be the correct answer, but 30?

I compromise and keep mine at about 36.

???
 
I've been wondering about my tire pressure on the stock Goodyear Wranglers on my Av. The tires show 44psi max. The inside of the driver's door shows 30psi (not max).

When I picked up the truck, I didn't even notice, but the tires were only at about 22-23psi, and I drove it home about 150 miles like that. I caught it the second day.

I didn't know where the tire pressure info was for these tires when I first looked, so I inflated them to 33psi, thinking it was probably a good, middle-of-the-road pressure. Now I think it might be too much.

Do you think the 150 mile ride could have been harmful to the tires or the truck? And is the 33psi I have in them now too much?
 
MNWarrior

? ? Disclaimer.... ?I am no TIRE EXPERT!!!!! Below is my $0.02...

? ? The first 150 miles at 22 psi probably didn't do any damage.... ?Unless you were doing 100 MPH...... which I do not believe you did...
? ? As for running at 33 psi, again, I don't see a problem.. actually when I received my AV almost 3 weeks ago, one of the first things I did was change out the tire pressure from 30 psi to 37 psi... 25% increase. ?I perfer this ride better.... ?Stiffer is better for me....
? Is the tire going to wear out sooner? ?I don't care, as once these tires are worn out...Thats it for GoodYear!!! ?I do not like them...again, my opinion...so far these tires have been great ( 1500kms ) but I do not like the company period......
? Thus the only other thing I want to say is keep them at NO LESS than 30.... and no more than 44.... ?My wife's Montana is running at 40 psi... not 35 as per GM... again, stiffer ride...... ?H rated tire would be nice as well....

my $0.02
 
dichris said:
MNWarrior

? ? Disclaimer.... ?I am no TIRE EXPERT!!!!! Below is my $0.02...

? ? The first 150 miles at 22 psi probably didn't do any damage.... ?Unless you were do 100 MPH...... which I do not believe you did...
? ? As for running at 33 psi, again, I don't see a problem.. actually when I received my AV almost 3 weeks ago, one of the first things I did was change out the tire pressure from 30 psi to 37 psi... 25% increase. ?I perfer this ride better.... ?Stiffer is better for me....
? Is the tire going to wear out sooner? ?I don't care, as once these tires are worn out...Thats it for GoodYear!!! ?I do not like them...again, my opinion...so far these tires have been great ( 1500kms ) but I do not like the company period......
? Thus the only other thing I want to say is keep them at NO LESS than 30.... and no more than 44.... ?My wife's Montana is running at 40 psi... not 35 as per GM... again, stiffer ride...... ?H rate tire would be nice as well....

my $0.02

Thanks for the response. I didn't *think* it was a problem, but it's nice to hear from someone else.

One more question: I noticed when I added air to them that the stem could be turned. I've never been able to do that with previous tires on other vehicles. Is that normal?
 
MNWarrior

Its probably because the valve stem was well lubed with it was inserted on the assembly line.... Shouldn't be a problem, unless you notice that the tires are still losing air. If so, take it back to the dealer and have them clean the valve stem of the excess lube... My only concern with this, is that fact that the dealer would be dismounting the tire from the rim.... Not a fan of the dealers touching my AV.....
 
150 miles on low tire pressuer shouldn't hurt the tires. I would go with the max pressure on the tire since the manufacturer is the one that rated the tire. Since the Max is 44 psi, I would pump it to about about 38 psi. You need to leave room for the air in the tire to expand as the tires warm up.

Hope this helps.
 
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