All 4 of my tires were at 28 psi when I measured them so I inflated them to about 32 psi. I have the stock 17 inch chrome rims and the tires themselves (Goodyears) say 44psi max. Does this mean I can inflate them to like 35psi for like better gas mileage or something of the sort? Responses are appreciated.

 

yes feel free to experiment.

the manufacturer recommends 32 psi for best compromise of handling, ride, mileage and tire wear

thumbrules:
higher pressure, worse ride, better handling, better mileage
too high and the center of the tread will wear first

lower pressure, better ride, worse handling, worse mileage
too low and the outsides of the tread will wear first

for the best tire wear, you want the bottom of the tire to be flat, not rounded.

for a couple days at a time, ride around at 25 psi, then try 35 psi or higher (I suggest you stay under 40 psi for the stock tires).

You will notice the differences and you can get some idea where to try.

 

So over 40 psi and the center of the tires wear out first?

 

I was once told that center wear could come from underinflation due to overheating caused by movement in th center of the tire. I find 32 all the way around worked well on both the original 215 and seems fine on my present 225s. I'd go up for autocrossing. I cant believe that thre would be much milage gain in a G for normal driving by going to highr presures.

 

Will the center of the tread wear faster above 40 psi?

The answer is "Not necessarily".

Note that the sidewall of your tire reads Max Load 1158pounds at 44 psi cold (or something like that).

That means for the tire to *properly* support a load of 1158 pounds it needs to have 44 psi in it. Properly meaning that the tire maintains it's correct shape, ground contact patch and operating temperature. If you don't need to support that much weight, you don't need that much pressure in the tire and that's were the uneven tirewear comes into play. However, if you are an aggressive driver, you may not get this added center wear becasue the hard cornering wears down the outside/inside edges.

Tire pressure is not a static setting. If you and your 3 buddies are going on a road trip, you've got 1500 pounds of people and cargo in the car...you should add pressure to your tires probably close to the max pressure. With that much weight in the car, the ride quality will be fine.

When you go back to commuting with just you and a mostly empty car, you should lower the PSI again. 70% of max is usually a good number to go with for low profile tires. (as opposed to say, truck tires, that can be run safely at 50% of max or less)

Anyway, there is no hard and fast rule about tire pressures that I've ever seen. The stealership tire ***** like to insist on the labeled PSI, but it's really not a mandatory number. That's why it says "manufacturers recommendation".

 

Most of what imnohero and 3point5se said is correct. In my professional opinion i would run my tires at 35psi. Its a safe number... not too low and not too high. But running your tires at 40psi with no passengers or load would increase your tire wear in the center of the tire.

 

Underinflation won't wear out the middle, it'll wear out the outer edges of the tire, and severe under inflation will cause the whole tire to overheat and possibly blow out early due to stress.

As for the more pressure=better handling, less pressure=worse handling, there's really a sweet spot to this. It depends on the brand/model of tire, the car, ambient air temperature, etc. If you're really pushing it to the max, such as an autocross event, you basically want to run as low a pressure as you can without causing the sidewall to roll under with heavy cornering, which usually is in the high 30's to low 40's for street tires.

For street use, I'd stick to somewhere between 30 and 35. Beyond that, the ride starts to get too harsh for my comfort.

 

I had to raise my tire pressure from 27 to 33 PSI because the "tire pressure" warning light kept coming on.