Maxing out tire pressures...

am1958 wrote:
I've read in a couple of places that to improve the ride some people "ignore" the tire pressure recommendation inside the door and inflate their tires, (often just the rear), to the max inscribed upon the wall of the tire itself.

I've searched within this site and the search engine isn't super helpful and I've tried google and see lots of yelling about "over-inflation" of tires.

It would seem to me that the recommendation on the door is most likely to give the most comfortable ride in an unladen vehicle, (and therefore a sales thing), while "harder" tires might dampen some of the TT TV interactions on the road.

I'm towing with an F-150 SCrew, with factory towing where the door indicates 35psi while the tire states max inflation is to 44psi. I've experienced some bouncing on rough roads but a nice towing experience on smooth blacktop. I'm taking a longish trip through four states where only one of which has any reputation for good roads, (MI, IN, IL & WI - you decide).

Would I benefit from taking all four tires to 44psi, just the rears to 44 psi or should I, (for safety's sake), leave everything at 35psi per the door and take the pain.

We have the same 44 psi max stamped on the tires of the Towncar and did a 3500 mile run last week up to Canada. While it is a car and not towing the ride was fine and it seems to have less squirm than at 35. There are bad roads every where we learned. As other noted there are no safety issues running at stamped PSI. One plus at 44 we learned was at 5pm we came out of a sales call in Minot ND with a low tire that we topped off down the street until we found a tire shop open ($30 to patch from inside). If we had been at 35 I expect we would have been down on the rim instead at 12 PSI. 44 will give more margin of safety in a case like that.