Your tires are probably a little over inflated depending on what the temperature was on the day when you pumped them up.

Here's a good explanation about tire pressure:
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tirete...l/pressure.htm

If you measure your "cold" tire pressure (car has been sitting outside for a while so it is at outside temperature and has not been driven recently) it should be 35 PSI regardless of whether it happens to be freezing cold or a hot summer day.

Tire pressure will drop about 1 PSI per 10 degrees farenheit drop in outdoor temperature, so if you inflate your tires to 35 PSI when it is almost 60 degrees out (like the last few days in MA) and then the temperature drops to 30 degrees you'll lose about 3 PSI and you'll be running a bit low.

In Boston, the average temperature is about 32 degrees during the winter, so I try to have my tires at 35 PSI when it is about 30-40 degrees out. If it warms up to the 50s for a couple days they might be overinflated by a little bit, but not by much.

-rca

2004 5AT Coupe | Blue-Graphite | Prem-Sport-Aero | NAV, in Boston?!? Yea Right, Guy

 

Dipesh42: as RCA says, your best bet is to keep the tires at the proper inflation as per the sticker in the driver's door. What you have to remember is that as the ambient temp changes, so do your tire pressures.
I keep my Coupe tires <font color=blue>(winter or summer tires)</font color=blue> at or near the 35psi required, and check them at least once a week. If I change the pressure, it would be slightly lower to enlarge the 'footprint' for better traction. (higher pressures would do the opposite--- smaller footprint--poorer traction.)

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<font color=red>G</font color=red>S<font color=green>M</font color=green> <font color=black>Silverstone Coupe</font color=black>

 

Quick question, I looked at my tires today (Michelens) and it says dont inflate over 40 psi, it also says max pressure 51 psi. Why would it say 40 and 51 if the recommended psi is only 35?.

 

BlueGCoupe, I think if you re-read the info on the sidewall, you'll see that the fine print (I had to put my glasses on to read it) says to: "never inflate beyond 40 psi to seat beads. So that's to do with mounting instructions. If you've ever watched a tire being mounted on a rim, the last thing the mounting guy does is inflate the tire to seat the outer bead -- and It will usually seat hard with a POP

The other notation concerning MAX LOAD- 1356 lbs. (weight) and MAX PRESSURE- 51 psi. is the most important one to not exceed under any circumstances. And those pressures are cold pressures. ( a hot tire will be higher pressure obviously)
The 35 psi pressure is normal cold pressure for optimum performance at the calculated load of the car (per tire) with a normal load of passengers and cargo.

I hope that helps and makes sense to you.
Happy holidays
GSM

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<font color=red>G</font color=red>S<font color=green>M</font color=green> <font color=black>Silverstone Coupe</font color=black>

 

GSM,
Thanks, that makes sense now. All those numbers were confusing me[img]/w3timages/icons/tongue.gif[/img]