Quote:
Originally Posted by qx4dude
Hey, it's a free country. If you want to inflate your tires to 200, or modify your car to run with bicycle rims & tires - fill your boots. I'm sure someone on the Internet says it's perfectly safe to do so.
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Actually... nobody does. Most hypermilers and even hard-use drivers like cops and stunt drivers
*** settle around 50-60 psi.
As Frank says, burst pressure is
high. For a crappy (read: Chinese) car tire, it's around 100 psi. For good ones, higher. I wouldn't quite say 200... maybe 150 or so. For truck tires, it's somewhere around 300 psi (and sidewall sticker is between 60-90 psi). Bike tires use around 90-100 psi.
"50 psi" is not some magic barrier. It's determined by a number of factors. As said before, it's typically where the tire stops gaining usable load capacity, which means there's no mundane,
everyday reason to exceed it.
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***Most people don't realize how low everyday pressures really are.
(I'm the guy with the GoPro on his face. Assigned data logger.)
And even if you have low profile tires...
(yes, that one made me nervous... as the GC has failed the moose test due to blow-outs)
As long as you're not lifting the edges of the tread, you can go higher. Harder (up to a point) is safer. Less sidewall deformation. Less heat. Less wear on the tires. Better steering response. Less chance of it de-beading if you have to suddenly avoid a moose. Braking distances
may increase (contrawise, they will definitely increase below 35 psi), but that is highly dependent on a number of factors.
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The pics are from handling tests earlier this year. We did acceleration and braking, too. While I was datalogging most runs, I did get to drive every fourth run...
