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I'm a newb here but have driven lots of miles in many different vehicles and tires. I have read most of this thread with interest. Historically I have run most tires on most vehicles at placard pressure for max load. When it is expressed as such or 2-3psi over placard on cars designed for comfort. With a few exceptions when running at max sidewall I have noticed in most cases a loss of wet weather traction which is important to me and not much increase in mileage. I have not seen much here to make me change that opinion.
What I have gotten is that tires are very hard to quantify. If you put a steel I beam in a test machine and bend it x# of cycle until failure you can measure that easily. change how far you bend it and you can up or down the cycles it will handle. But tires are composite structures made of many different compounds and structures depending on the intended purpose. The individual componets are easy to quantify. But the complete unit has so many stresses. Flex load of sidewalls in compression both plain compression and rolling compression as well a extension stress from inflation. The tread flex on several axises. All these things come into play and therefore the manufactures test to make sure that under MOST NORMAL condition that the tire will perform OK for a REASONBLE period of time. Beyond that hard data is hard to come up with. And like most of us have experienced most tire failures are from defective manufacturing processes along with bad maintance practices on the part of the owners. I think I'll keep doing what I've been doing.
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