Appropriate tire pressure

I had noticed AA had been citing 35 PSI everytime he pointed out his MPG but I always thought our tires were supposed to be filled at 32 PSI?

I've been running mine at 40 PSI lately. The only drawback is slightly lower traction but otherwise it rolls much easier. I can coast much farther than with the tires at 32 PSI.

I think our 'proper' fill level is 30 PSI. It's a comfort thing.

When I'm at the track I run 20-23 PSI for the extra traction. Driving for long durations at that low of a pressure is bad for the tire. Not enough internal support.

I use 35 PSI mainly to compensate for wear to the outer tread blocks during cornering. If I ran 30 PSI, I would see a lot more wear to the tires' edges. But because I drive long distances frequently, 40 PSI would wear out the middle tread more (for city it's no problem). Over time, I've learned to adjust the PSI for optimum tire wear with my car and driving style.

Everyone's car and tire set-up is different, so you have to watch the tread over time. If you don't see anything odd happening, I wouldn't change anything.

i run 35 front and 38-40 rear for normal driving. helps with gas mileage and steering response. plus i tend to have the same wear "problem" AA does.
just be careful running 40 rear on the highway in the rain if your tires are not good.
i'd say for most drivers on this forum with stock 225/60/16 tires they should have them at 32-34, but again it depends on the tires and speed rating.

My local Firestone, who I've been dealing with for a few years, will remount my tires about half way through their life, for free. What I do is rotate the Firehawks front to rear (directional tires) until all are worn about the same amount on the outside edges (fronts always wear faster). Then, once they're bald, I have all the tires taken off and remounted with the good edges out. I used to think this was because of misalignment, but it appears to be more a function of really hard cornering.

I can usually get 40k out of a set of tires. At the point I have them remounted, the middle tread is about half worn down. By the time both outer edges are bald, the middle tread has about caught up. The tire looks a bit like a racing slick at this point.

I run 40 in mine to and it does roll nicer and coast farther

AA wrote:

I use 35 PSI mainly to compensate for wear to the outer tread blocks during cornering. If I ran 30 PSI, I would see a lot more wear to the tires' edges. But because I drive long distances frequently, 40 PSI would wear out the middle tread more (for city it's no problem). Over time, I've learned to adjust the PSI for optimum tire wear with my car and driving style.

Everyone's car and tire set-up is different, so you have to watch the tread over time. If you don't see anything odd happening, I wouldn't change anything.

My car has this wear too. I do a lot of city driving and corner hard. I wonder if we should ask for a little positive... ummm camber? Someone who knows alignments help me out here - I think we want like +1.5 degrees of camber over the stock setting, does that sound right?

Is it camber? Or caster... grrr. Basically we want the top of the front tires to point in a little more so the tires level out in cornering and wear more even.

I thought about doing that, but would you see more inner wear with straight driving? Great for the track, or city diving, but what happens after a few thousand highway miles. I'm not sure, anyone know?

I've driven my car many thousands of highway miles, and many thousands of city miles. I think if it would have any negative effect it would just be wearing inside and outside together, and that can be overcome by running at a higher tire pressure!