17 inch tire presure?

BangkokDean

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 25, 2008
Messages
3,343
Location
Bangkok
I have 17 inch tires and they are rated up to 45lbs, I run 40lbs but am wondering is less air pressure will smooth out the ride say 35lbs? Or will 35 lbs hurt the tires?
 
17x9.5 275/50/17 in rear 255 up front....32-35 is all I ever have run...never as high as 40.....

even the dually camper rear/front is running 35 each as they are radial tires...

:beer:
 
I have 255/50-17's. I ran 32 PSI but found the center wore faster than the edges so I dropped it to 28 PSI and now they wear evenly.

40 PSI is good for autocross, not street driving...
 
When I upgraded to 17s, I was told to run 4-6 lbs less than the tires maximum rating for best performance and handling. However, that didn't result in the best ride quality for every day driving. The key is to make sure the tires are wearing evenly. One old school way to do that is to paint stripes on the treads with white shoe polish as wear indicators and adjust the pressure as necessary.

My 17s are rated at 51 psi max. They do seem to handle better if I keep them between 40 and 45 psi but the ride quality definitely suffers. The ride is a lot better at 32 psi but I haven't done the shoe polish test yet to see how they are wearing. I'll probably end up compromising somewhere between 32 and 40.

DC
 
Top