Grit dog wrote:
Durb wrote:
Let's see, 17 replies, 5 say go with the Ram engineers, the other 12 suggest tire pressures that differ from each other and the factory, sometimes quite a bit. What is the OP to do?
Realize that if you don't want to or can not discern/understand, the relationship between tire size/rating/pressure/load then use the "engineers" reccomendation. It's the "safe for max load" scenario.
All valid points, comment on the higher pressure, less traction/contact patch is also true, but with that realize what is "enough" vs what may be "better." You're not going to wear your tires out by tomorrow or skid to a fiery death with nominal over inflation, in the context we are discussing here. You WILL have an unnecessarily stiff ride and maybe get .1mpg better fuel economy.
Regarding engineers' design parameters, I'm a civil engineer but work on the construction side. One of the projects I'm looking after is a design build, and alMost DAILY I'm able to economize a preliminary design from our designer that may not take into account real world conditions or limitations. It's just different views or knowledge on the same subject, and just like auto mfgs design parameters, they are not able to take into account individual conditions/uses, so the design needs to be as absolutely conservative as practical to envelope the greatest majority of conditions/uses.
From there, if one understands what they're dealing with, modifications or improvements can be had.....for free. Because they were there already, hiding behind an ultra conservative design.
Excellent post!
Electronics engineer here and the same design parameter concept exists in my world .
You also have to consider that tire pressure, like many other things consists of trade-offs. In this case between load capacity, ride quality, braking contact patch, cornering ability, puncture resistance, tread wear and likely more I missed.
As you say, knowing what you're after and what you may need more of versus what you can spare factors in. Consider too that if braking is what you're after, loaded vehicles tend to add plenty of that load to the front when you are braking the most. Loads are not static,
