...A good rule of thumb is 10% less than the max. tire pressure..This gives you the best footprint on the road with good tire wear, nice ride, and minimal drag...
...Example:...35psi max -10% (3.5 psi) = 31.5...I round it up to 32 psi myself...
...Hypermiler's use max. suggested psi to get the best milage, but they never tell you about their tire wear...(center of tire wears out)...
...What kind of car, and what tires???
...Run them at 45 psi for a tank or two of fuel, then let us know what you think...You should get more responsive handling, better gas milage, and less wear to your front end...
...Tire wear starts with good tires and keeping up on maintenance and alignments...Most big tire shops offer lifetime alignments for $10-$50 more than the normal alignment...So, as long as you have the vehicle, for a one time fee of about $80-$100 you are set...
...I have had several tire shops mount tires with 32 psi, even on 80 psi tires..
...I can't wait to here your report back as Falken's will respond...
Finding the Perfect Tire Pressure - the Chalk Test
There is a trick you can do to determine precisely how much pressure to keep in your tires for your particular vehicle. It will give you the best tradeoff possible between mileage, tire life, and comfort. Make sure you use an accurate tire guage so that once you learn this pressure you know it is correct.
With a cold vehicle and cold tires, air them up over pressure - 40 psi or so. Take a chalk and mark a chalk line sideways across the tread of a front and rear tire. Drive your vehicle several yards in a straight line (30-40 or so should do it). Now look at the chalk marks.
You should see the inside of the chalk marks worn off but the outsides should still be showing. In other words, the bowed out overinflated tire was wearing the middle of the tread and not touching the outside of the tread.
Release a couple of pounds of pressure from the tires and repeat the experiment. Continue until the complete chalk marks wear evenly. (Once there, you might want to then release another pound of pressure to make sure the entire tire is bearing down across the tread with weight). You have now determined the tire pressure at which you are keeping the entire tread on the road.
Under this pressure you are wasting available fuel economy, generating excess heat, and prematurely wearing the tread. Over this pressure you will get better fuel mileage but it will come at the cost of comfort from the rougher ride and decreased tread life from wearing the middle of the tread out prematurely. Keeping at this pressure will wear the tire evenly and thus extend its life to its greatest extent and offer the best compromise possible between gas mileage, comfort, and safety (you'll have your whole tread on the road). The pressures may be a couple of pounds different between front and back for your particular vehicle application.
A caveat: this needs to be done on NEW tires as soon as you buy them. If you have already logged 25,000 miles on overinflated tires all you will be doing is verifying the excessive pressure you have already been using (in other words, the chalk line will wear evenly even though the middle of the tread may be quite a lot shallower than the outside tread).
Since they're new, you should use the Chalk Test:
...You can do the 10%, then try the chalk test...
...Actually, I kind of excited to see CBII's result's...As long as he can keep off the gas pedal once he feels the response difference...
Question: If the I "calibrate" my tires to the perfect pressure so I pass the chalk test with cold tires, what happens when the tires get hot? My intuition says that they would then appear overinflated. But then again, my intuition is not that reliable .