After 700 miles or so, I was checking fluids, tire pressure, etc. and discovered my tires had 45 in them. Holy catfish, Batman!! The door sticker says 32 and 33, but I'm wondering if that's just another suggestion we're supposed to ignore (like the amount of oil our engine takes according to the manual).
I reduced them to the recommended pressures, but the car feels different (as you might expect). It rides REAL NICE, but it has more "play" as well. I even checked to see if the stabilty control was off accidently.
What do you folks set your pressures at? And Why?
Thanks

 

Those are good pressures for the street.

 

I run 32/33 psi, since that is what the manual says.....

:-)

 

what are the tire monitors set to be triggered at? or is it based on sudden pressure drop in any tire, indicative of a flat tire. Because in another of my cars the tire monitors are more intuitive showing individual tire pressures, regardless of a preset factory pressure.

 

Hi...


What the sticker says... 32/33...
Note... it says use these pressure at maximum (car) load capacity... which isn't much... 400-500 lbs I recall...

Dave...

 

OK - two people and a couple of cases of beer and you hit that 400 lb weight pretty quickly.....

And the TPM will light up with a pressure loss of 4-5 psi in any tire. It does not have to be a sudden pressure loss. It would have been nice if it would indicate which tire was low.... That was discussed in one of the "I wish We Had A...." threads.

As I recall, there have been posts where the TPM was indicating low pressure, and by the time the car was driven to an air pump, the tire heated up and raised the pressure enough to trun off the sensor.

So all in all, it is still a good system.

8)

 

Sounds like your dealer didn't do all their checks before you picked the car up. When I test drove mine the dealer said it had just come off a lorry from their warehouse and the ride would be rougher than usual. When they are delivered to the dealers they have a higher tyre pressure. Something about making sure they don't move when on the lorry being delivered. It reduces the potential of small movements that could damage the car when on the lorry.

 

You will have more even wear if you run them as 32-34 with a normal load. Overinflating them will cause the tyre to wear in the middle.

If you have snow or ice, you may want to lower the pressure slightly to get more rubber in contact with the road, or as the story goes to get under a very low bridge.

I am planning to swap my tyres over every 3000 miles or so to even out the wear (if they are non uni-directional). Must remember to check that.....

 

Not a problem. The owners manual suggests they be rotated side to side... of course.

 

Michelins are directional.

 

Interesting. That makes some sense. Thanks.

 

I have directional Michelins as fitted by DC. Looks like I better not swap them over :!:

Does anyone know what the effect of running directional tyres the wrong way :?: I assume it means that any water can't be dispersed. Wonder if it improves grip in dry conditions...

Have just realised that if I buy a wheel and tyre to act as a spare, I had better not get a directional tyre (as I can't guarantee which side will the puncture. Will do some analysis of the tyres available in the UK and post the details.

 

Nope. We've hashed this over ad nauseum. Neither tire brand/model fitted by D/C on the Crossfire are uni-directional tires. EIther type tire can be "rotated" side to side just as recommended and depicted in the owner's manual.

 

I have directional tyres aswell. The manual does state you can swap them, but it would seem not in the UK !

I run 32 in the fronts and 36 in the Rears. Slightly higher than recommended.

 

You must have changed to a different tyre than the factory offerings, since neither are a directional tyre. What did you get?

 

The tyres are brand new, as is the car. Came with Michelin Pilot Sports all round. I have just checked them and they are defo directional :?

 

My Michelin Pilot Sports are not directional. They are asymmetrical.

They have an "outside" and an "inside" and must be mounted on the rim correctly. The only way you rotate the tires on a Crossfire is from one side to the other. If these tires were directional they couldn't be rotated and there would be left side only and right side only tires. That is not the case.

 

yeah if they were asymmetric and directional you could not rotate the wheels at all. especially being that the front and rears are different sizes. not to many tire companies do this, I know on porsche 996 and turbo they do, which really shortens tire life even more.

but then again people like us, buying cars with 400 dollar tires probably thought about that before buying these cars, and 400$ doesn't mean that much.

 

A uni-directional tire would be marked on the sidewall with a rotation direction arrow. Look at this pic of a directional Goodyear Eagle:
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/BigPic...cleSearch=true
See how it shows the word "rotation" and an arrow on it?

The PS2's aren't so marked. They say "outside" on the sidewall, which means they can be on either side of the car as long as the "outside" is out... hence they can turn either direction. A directional tire is designed to only rotate one direction.
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/BigPic...cleSearch=true

I suppose it's conceivable you got regular Pilot Sport's?!? The 'plain' Pilot Sport is indeed a directional tire, vs. the Pilot Sport PS2 that's available over here as OEM tire.

Is the tread pattern on your tires a 'V' shape or an 'S' shape?

 

The reason WHY they say you shouldn't change the direction of rotation on radial tires is this:

Radial tires have layers of webbed belts built into them (sometime made of steel) that are meant to only run in one direction. When you switch a tire to the opposite side of the car it changes the direction those belts are pulled which can cause them to break in some cases. That's when you might see some steel wires sticking out of the side of the tire, which indicates that a (steel) belt is broken and poked through the side wall.

The problem does not happen as often with tires that use other types of reinforcing (other than steel). Therefore some radials (not steel belted) can be switched from side to side. So it depends on the tire and how it is made.

Doc