The PSI that you refer to as the rating for the tire is, I think, the maximum safe PSI that the tire will tolerate. That is vastly different than the recommended inflation, which is the figure found on the door post. Go with the door plaque, not what the sidewall of the tire says. That sidewall figure is too high for normal use.
An SUV is really a tall station wagon, in my view. There are certainly things called SUV that are built on a truck chassis and have broad capabilities, but the Venza is closer to the tall wagon model. It’s size and the AWD make it desirable as a comfortable family car that can deal with snow and mud but loading it with roof racks and expecting it to be capable of dealing with scrambling over land that has never been converted to a road is probably expecting too much.
Please do me a favor:
On your Venza’s driver door pillar or door itself, please photograph all placards visible. You may edit out the VIN if you prefer, as I do not need it for the calculations I will do.
Thanks!
Are you really using the internet to find out what your tire pressure should be when all you have to do is look at the the plaque on the drivers door jamb.
You keep blaming the Toyota Venza , the design engineers and other stuff when you just plain bought the wrong vehicle for your needs . I even doubt if you know how your Miles per gallon compare to the EPA rating which you should have checked before buying this thing.
This is the problem I run into all the time, and not just on forums like Car Talk, when educating people about these rubber and steel-belted radial sandwiches we refer to as tires.
Then, when they compare the drivers pillar placard tire pressures to the max value stamped on a tire side wall, they think that the vehicle placard pressures are somehow “too low” and/or “dangerous”…
This is why I created that table I shared, a few posts back.
I don’t understand ChrisTheTireWhisperer’s table, because I’m not an engineer, and do not know how vehicle weight load ratings are calculated.
I get that the car is designed to normally place a certain amount of the weight on the front tires, and a certain amount on the rear tires, when it is standing still on a level surface. I guess that is the 2403 and 2061 lbs are coming from. I’m not sure what the F/R bias is - though I find Internet definitions relating to brakes.
And in your quotients, I’m not sure where the first number is coming from, and how it relates to the tire load, or whatever the ending % is supposed to be.
It seems obvious that one needs very different numbers to handle bumps on roads, especially dirt or gravel roads, where there are probably times that all the weight goes on one tire - and that bouncing contributes a lot more. And a lot more if the vehicle is ever towed by the front or rear (can you do that with AWD vehicles)? Or even if you are driving up or down a hill.
In any event, are you calculating related to the capacity of the tire, or of the suspension - or both?
My basic assumption is that virtually any SUV is designed to take some bumps and bounces, as well as hills, and has quite a lot of leeway in turms of suspension strength. If I don’t push anywhere near that, and also carry much less that the rated capacity, it should have some excess strength.
The good tire place said that the wheels are not the limiting factor - that they are always substantially overbuilt. My wheels were from a junk yard, but they were not significantly rusted, and they were same type Toyota wheels. (Though even junkyard Toyota parts are quite expensive. A new wheel would have been close to $700, back then.)
But I don’t know about the suspension, and how staying well below the GAWR load, as I hopefully do, plays into things. It’s designed to carry 5 people, and I drive alone. I might carry a total of 100-200 pounds of gear. I don’t have an easy way to measure the actual vehicle weight, so I don’t know how much margin the GAWR has. I have been a bit worried about the amount of that weight that goes on the roof - 2 sea kayaks of the type I buy could be 70-85 pounds (many plastic sea kayaks are about 85 pounds each or a bit more, but I physically can’t lift them onto the roof, especially with that curved roof line) - substantially more than Toyotas own roof racks are designed for, which is why most outdoor sports people don’t use Toyota racks - or almost any OEM racks. But a lot of paddlers do that sort of thing. (I would love a sun roof, but it pretty much must weaken the roof.)
My example - my 2010 Accord - is a front engined, front wheel drive, front transmission sedan.
Hence the front gross axle weight rating, the maximum, being much higher than that for the read, and the 54% forward weight bias.
Now onto the tires:
The OEM size tire, as stated in my table, carries a certain maximum load at each of the cold tire pressures I listed, according to standardized tables available online or through the U.S. TRA(tire and rim association).
And the maximum load at each of those pressure point exceeds the front GAWR/2 (per tire that is) from 104 to 130 percent.
Now what exactly is this “GAWR” thing?
It means GROSS, or MAXIMUM, weight to be placed on each axle.
It means, not just you and your coffee mug going to work. Gross means you, four adult passengers, plus luggage, a full tank of gas, and, the dog! As much as you can possibly ever imagine putting in your vehicle at one time. Gross… MAX.
And the tires, in my case Honda, exceed the gross load weightings from just over 100 up to 130 percent. Again, no reason to inflate to higher cold pressures.
People do not even check their oil, think they are going to ask the weight of their passengers and luggage and adjust tire pressures? Fat chance!
To put it in plain, simple terms that you don’t need to be an engineer to understand. Use the cold tire pressure listed in the owners manual or the door frame placard. Easy, no specialized training involved.
I already did that - to prove a point: That the pressure listed on the door placard satisfies the weight of the vehicle combined with the heaviest load it will ever carry. In my Accord’s case, 110% of the front gross, and nearly 130% of the rear gross.
I was going to do the same for grunes’ Venza, just to get the point through to them.
Therefore, no need to inflate any higher. Those door frame sticker pressures take into consideration not the curb(OEM manufactured empty) weight of the car, but in fact the gross/MAX weight of car plus passengers, cargo, dog, etc.
But the point is most people, including the public at large, don’t get it.
Take our present Venza owner, with the stuck hatch. A few posts back they explained how they noticed a ‘discrepancy’ between the pressure they saw on a tire side wall(42 or 44psi) vs the pressure on the vehicle frame placard(32psi). Right here >>> https://tirepressure.org/toyota/venza/2013 <<<
Yesterday, I helped a guy who was pumping up his early gen. Yaris tires with a 12v pump. The dude had over 60psi in one corner, and 47 in another… Why? Because like ninety percent of drivers, they don’t notice the placards affixed to their driver’s door frame!!
Psychologically, it’s in their mind that the pressure on the tire must be correct, because that’s the item on the car that they’re adjusting.
That’s the tire pressure misconception that folks like Capri and I are trying to “unf___” people’s minds about, lol!
+1
The OP is making this much, much more difficult than it needs to be. Simply use the exact “cold” inflation pressures listed on the placard affixed to the door jamb, or perhaps add 2-4 psi if he/she is interested in better handling and slightly better gas mileage, but do NOT inflate the tires to the maximum pressure listed on the tire’s sidewall.
And for reasons I alluded to already:
It is purely human, for most people, to seek tire inflation guidance on the tire itself. Looking for tire inflation guidance, on a part of a car, is less intuitive.
It’s more challenging to realize that the correct information is in most cases only a few inches behind ones backside as they swing into the drivers seat.
On another subject, I’m also trying to explain to the masses that we didn’t just “add one hour of sunshine” to the days, last weekend! Perhaps many of those people are the same ones who would inflate their tires to the max pressure on the tire.
Do I correctly understand that you are assuming all the weight goes on one side of the car - i.e., you did forget to divide by 2? Or is that the normal assumption, to account for the forces caused by bumps, going around curves, acceleration or braking?
I hope the former, because based on the following information, without that factor of 2, the tires the store put on can’t take the weight.
My tires are as shown here:
i.e. 245/55R19 (103H), which, if they haven’t changed since around 2018, has approximately the following specs (note: since mine are 103H, and the chart I found is for 103SL, there is probably some difference).
The info from the door jamb:
Just put the tires at 32 psi cold - don’t have passengers and what ever else you have in the silly vehicle exceed 895 pounds and go on with your life . People do this all the time and stop reading charts because they seem to confuse you.
The front axle has a maximum loaded weight of 3090 lb. That is 1545 per tire, well below the tire capacity @ 32 psi.
One end. The front gross axle weight on both my Accord and your Venza is higher than the rear GAWR on both our cars.
Anywho… Onto some calculations! lol
So:
Front GAWR per wheel on your 2013 Venza = 1,545lbs(3,090/2).
Rear GAWR per wheel = 1,400lbs(2,800/2).
At 32psi cold, tire size P245/55R19, standard load, has a max capacity of 1,779lbs.
This means, at door pillar placard cold pressure of 32psi, your front tires carry 115% of gross/max load - a 15% safety margin, and the rear tires, 127% of gross - or, a 27% safety margin.
So Honda, in my case, and Toyota, in yours, seem to know what the heck they’re doing.
Load that conestoga wagon up with yourself and 3 guys each weighing over 200lbs, plus a full tank a gas, and feel safe knowing that the pressures on that dadgum door sticker are more than adequate!
Or, yourself, your wife, three kids and all your luggage in the back, a German Shepherd, plus gas.
I think we are finished here.
I guess the fact that the pressure table for similar Michelin tires includes 32 PSI implies the tires won’t be damaged by going that low.
But am I correct that ChrisTheTireWhisperer’s tables were calculated too high by a factor of 2?
I’m puzzled by the weight capacity. A 5 person “crossover SUV” with an extended cargo area should be able to carry more than 895 lbs.
I can’t replace it without being wasteful. I’m over 65. If it is as reliable as many Toyotas are, it may outlive me.
NOOOO!
I took the front GAWR for both our vehicles, and divided it by two get the gross rating per wheel/tire.
Then I did the same for the rear.
And I averaged a C in high school and college math and still managed to do it.
If that’s the maximum weight of passengers/pets or cargo combined that Toyota states, that is for the safety of both said occupants, and said vehicle.
If you can locate the curb(as manufactured, empty, half tank of gas only) weight for the trim level of your 2013 Toyota Venza, and add 895lbs to it, the sum should be less than the GVWR(gross vehicle weight) on that certification label: 5,160lbs.
NOTHING “LOW” ABOUT IT! Sorry for yelling, but I don’t know how to get through to you…