Tire Pressure Survey

[Karl Roenick]

What tire pressure do you use?

I'm going to use, I think, 40 psi.

 

[jaydhall]

I always use the max to max - 2 PSI. I have had no wear problems with my tires for 12000+. 40 certainly sounds OK.

 

[Fritz]

Karl,

I have been running 40PSI front and 37PSI rear for about 10K miles and it works well for me. The handling characterics seemed to improve but it COULD be my imagination. Such is not the case on economy however. I gained about 2 MPG overall which is now 48MPG.

The stock tires are Goodyears and they allow 51 PSI max pressure (cold).

Fritz

 

[Dezl Don]

I run 35-36 psi on all 4 Michelin Greens that came on the 99.5 Jetta. A nice compromise between comfort, longevity, fuel mileage, and cornering grip.

If you want somewhat less understeer, run the fronts harder than the rears, like Fritz mentioned.

------------------
Dezl Don

 

[Tom Bombadill]

35 in the front 38 in the rear in my Yokohamas. Just enough to give it a bit more oversteer.

 

[Ric Woodruff]

40

 

[Wolfgang Jaeger]

I always use 40 to 42psi / 2.8 - 2.9 bar (recommended for full load) rear and front.
My decision in favor of milage and cornering grip.
My stock tires are Dunlop SP Sport 185/60.

Next I will try Dezl Don's tip

Wolfgang
---
Excel sheet to convert US and metric units: www.01019freenet.de/wojaeger/convert.htm

 

[mickey]

Max cold tire pressure for my OEM Michelins is 44 psi. It set all 4 to 44 psi HOT, which works out to be about 41 COLD. Wear has been perfectly even, ride is fine, handling is sharp. No problems.

-mickey

 

[colinstone]

On my 98 Mk IV Golf with 195/65 - 15 Continental Eco Contacts tyres I use the manufacturers recommended pressures which are 2.1 bar front and rear - approx 32 psi. Over 20k miles the fronts have worn by 2mm, rears by 1mm. With the tyres at 40 odd psi, do not the centres of the contact patch wear rather quickly?????
The new car has Michelins and it will interesting how they shape up.
On my old Mk II, the first fronts lasted 70 k miles, and the rears were replaced at 11 years old when all tyres were replaced with Continental Eco Contacts.

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MY2000 UK Golf IV GT TDI 110 bhp plus Tuning Box. Canyon Red/Beige leather.
MY1986 Golf II (petrol!)

 

[BIGJOHNO]

Oohh, am I in trouble for using the 26 psi front/rear it recommends for half load? I just filled up my fiancees tires and they look fine enough. BTW how do you determine "hot" or "cold," and if they are "hot" what is the formula to use in conversion (we always have to drive to fill up tires -- live in dorm

).

John

 

[KO]

26 psi front
30 psi rear

48-56 mpg

 

[roadrunner]

I've always set my tire pressure to 2 lbs under the recommended pressure for the particular set of tires that I am using. Of course the road temps where I drive can reach 140 degrees F so expansion is a major factor. 42 lbs on the stock Goodyears (rated at 44 lbs). 32 lbs on the S306 Yokohamas that were rated at 35 lbs (worst tires I ever had). 42 lbs on the Energy Michelins rated at 44 lbs (best tires I ever had). I've always had very even tire wear and my 96 Passat TDI seems to have the best suspension for performance and tire wear of any car I've ever driven.

 

[ENUTPEN8]

33 all around on my badyear LSs. Driveon...

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'71 green Super Beetle w/Hurst & header (94mph); '99 green/tan A4 Golf GLS TDI automatic, lux.

 

[WOOCHOW]

How do you create oversteer on a front wheel drive car? The only way I can get the back to come around is to use the hand brake-otherwise the front always pushes-just wondering.

 

[RabbitGTI]

PassatTDI 38F 37R cold. Goodyear Crap
88 Golf 37F 32R. D60s or A509
RabbitGTI Kumho AX tires 35F 32R

How do you get a FWD car to oversteer? Go into a corner a little too hot. Turn in hard and lift at the same time. Get the timing right and it will rotate. Ya gotta be a little violent so the car knows you mean it! Get ready to catch it and when it is pointed in the right direction, plant it. The best way to get neutral handling on a VW is to add a bigger rear anti-roll bar in addition to the stock rear bar. Take the front bar off and throw it away. Put 38 to 40 lbs in the front tires and 32 or so in the back.

 

[Frank TDI]

Rabbit GTI,Would it be better to ADD a rear bar instead of removing the front bar?Also what rear bar setup? Whose make? So many out there. Any suggestions?

------------------
Frank TDI
1997 Jetta TDI
1999 Golf TDI

 

[RabbitGTI]

In general Stiffen the end you want to "unstick" and soften the end you want to "stick". So, if your car understeers, add roll-stiffness to the back and remove roll-stiffness from the front. Change one thing at a time. Add a rearbar first and drive it a while. You might be happy with that. They can get kind of spooky on wet pavement, in the snow or on bumpy roads with a stiffened rear and no front bar. As far as sources of bars goes, all my experience is A1 and A2 tuning. I would get copies of European Car and Grassroots Motorsports. Then order a bunch of catalogs and start making phone calls: Autotech, New Dimensions, Shine Racing, OMP, BSI are a few I can think of. Shine has a nice website to check out.

 

[RabbitGTI]

In general Stiffen the end you want to "unstick" and soften the end you want to "stick". So, if your car understeers, add roll-stiffness to the back and remove roll-stiffness from the front. Change one thing at a time. Add a rearbar first and drive it a while. You might be happy with that. They can get kind of spooky on wet pavement, in the snow or on bumpy roads with a stiffened rear and no front bar. As far as sources of bars goes, all my experience is A1 and A2 tuning. I would get copies of European Car and Grassroots Motorsports. Then order a bunch of catalogs and start making phone calls: Autotech, New Dimensions, Shine Racing, OMP, BSI are a few I can think of. Shine has a nice website to check out.

 

[Dezl Don]

Woochow & others:

RabbitGTI is exactly correct.

------------------
Dezl Don

 

[SpiraL1117]

When I picked up my NB a couple days ago, the maintenance department manager said an interesting thing about tire pressure. He said that the pressure should be varied over time a couple of psi up or down. I think maybe every couple of thousand miles or so, so that you distribute the wear by varying footprints at different pressures. It sounds like valid idea to me, but I haven't had experience doing this. Has anyone else done this and noticed any difference over the life of the tires?

------------------
Namaste!
2000 NB TDI, white/black leaterette.

 

[Lug_Nut]

I've always used 45 psi cold. The original Goodyear GA tires went nearly 60,000 miles before being retired (not a pun) to the stock steel wheels for car shows. The replacement Sumitomo HTR100 tires were bought used with about 20,000. I added another 45,000 before they came off. They still had tread, but the number of flat repairs was very high. The tire shop was going to sell them as a used set. The tread always wore evenly even even on the HTRs which were not rotated. I have just gone back to a set of GA's (thanks D'nardo).

------------------
Jonathan Bartlett
It's not diesel soot, it's tire smoke!

 

[RabbitGTI]

You can also mess around with the alignment to make your VW neutral or even oversteer. A good street setup is 1 1/2 degrees of neg camber at the front and 1/8 toe out. It will turn in like it is on rails with 1/8 toeout instead of zero toe. On A1 and A2 tubs you can also shim the rear stubaxle to change the rear alignment. I run 1/8 toeout and a little positive camber on the back of the Rabbit for track use. The way it is setup I can go around an oval track with the backend hung out and it is very easy to spin. What works for each individual car and driver has a lot to do with driving style, comfort level and the roads you travel. One rule when modifying your car is "change one thing at a time" and drive it a while until you understand what the change did. If you change more than one thing at a time, you will never figure out the cause and effect of the new parts.

 

[Truckeratlarge]

How do you create oversteer on a front wheel drive car? The only way I can get the back to come around is to use the hand brake-otherwise the front always pushes-just wondering.

Minimize the contact patch between tire and road. Toyota has a car that has prius sized tires on it just so that it wags its tail. I would say fill your rear tires to max pressure and keep your front tires inflated to VW specs probably found in your door jamb and see what may happen - at your own risk of course.

Oh, keep un-needed weight at home (from items in trunk & back seat) to help it not grip.

 

[30_Yr_Dsl_Veteran]

40 on all fours.

 

[50harleyrider]

PassatTDI 38F 37R cold. Goodyear Crap
88 Golf 37F 32R. D60s or A509
RabbitGTI Kumho AX tires 35F 32R

How do you get a FWD car to oversteer? Go into a corner a little too hot. Turn in hard and lift at the same time. Get the timing right and it will rotate. Ya gotta be a little violent so the car knows you mean it! Get ready to catch it and when it is pointed in the right direction, plant it. The best way to get neutral handling on a VW is to add a bigger rear anti-roll bar in addition to the stock rear bar. Take the front bar off and throw it away. Put 38 to 40 lbs in the front tires and 32 or so in the back.

Heel and toe braking helps induce oversteer or pulling on the emergency brake in the turn all of which eat up pads and rotors. That's the way a buddy of mine road raced his 900 Saab back in the early 80s. Effective tricks to combat inhertent "push" in our poor FWD.

 

[RIP TDI]

Epic thread resurrection - almost 15 years!! This could be a new zombie TV series, "The Walking Thread"

 

[LNXGUY]

Let's hope the OP has figured this out in the last 15 years.

 

[Datalore]

Epic thread resurrection - almost 15 years!! This could be a new zombie TV series, "The Walking Thread"

I was just going to say this! What a crazy amount of time to pass and someone actually finding this thread. THIS is why we keep telling people to use the search function. For what it's worth, on my 2000 Beetle I run 42 PSI in the front (they need to be filled every week; leaky seal I think) and 40 PSI in the rear.

 

[volmaniac]

Zed's dead baby... but not this thread. I would rather see an old thread Lazarus'd than having a new one. I run at 40 psig all around but I enjoyed reading what they did back in the day.

 

[deejaaa]

.............. THIS is why we keep telling people to use the search function. .......

and read the thread date.
i run mine at 50 on all corners.