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Tire air pressure?

blitzk

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City, State
Florida
Year, Model & Trim Level
04 XLT
I have Toyo Proxes S/T 285/35/R22's on Limited 704 rims... Tires say max air pressure 44 PSI...

Sometimes I tow a boat as well...

What should I set/leave the pressure at?
 






Refer to what the recommend air pressure is on the door.. Don't go by what the tire recommendations are. When in doubt do the chalk test.. Do a search on the chalk test if you wanna know more about it.
 






You go by what the door says, even if you have radically changed the tire size?
 






Ahh since your new tires have a smaller sidewall height, I definately suggest starting at 32 PSI and do the chalk test.

Excerpt from GJarrett's Registry..

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).
 






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