Would you prefer that the light was ON?
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Are these guys your bosses? Are you filling the tires? This might not be a battle worth fighting.
Of course filling the tires per the manufacturer’s specifications is the right way, but the placard on the door is for cold pressure, and unless you’re mounting new tires, they’re likely to be warm when you fill them.
Whether you’re right or wrong, what makes this your fight? In the grand scheme of things, I can see valid points on both sides. After all, the average customer doesn’t check his/her pressure very often, so there might be good reason to over-inflate, particularly if the tires are warm or hot when you fill them.
If the Subaru is your car, and you’re the customer, of course you’re right. If it’s a random customer’s car, and you’re not supervising these employees, I think you should let it go, because it’s not a big enough problem to stick your neck out for.
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My experience has been about 1 psi/month and it did not matter whether steel or alloy wheels, new vehicles or old. BUT, it is not like I see this month to month. I check and balance the pressures in my tires in the spring and I find the pressure remains the same throughout most of the summer. Then I see a big drop (4-6 psi) in the fall when the weather turns cooler. It drops again in the cold of winter but I do not add air at this time. I pretty much only add a little in the spring and a little more in the fall. This has been consistent over a wide verity of vehicles. Your experiences may vary.
Just two issues from a cursory looksee. One, you still have to enter mileage information on a routine basis since it doesn’t know miles driven. Two, I didn’t see anything about multiple cars with the same program. Three I guess, I never track costs like gas and insurance. I just find it a bother and not useful. I record repairs and maintenance and their cost. My main drawback on paper records is knowing at what mileage certain tasks should be done like tire rotation, but a simple post-it note can take care of that. Plus, in my maintenance book, I have everything in one book including small engines, home repairs, yard maintenance, paint colors, etc. Any truly useful software for a home owner would include all this stuff to help manage and not just cars. For computer geeks though that insist, I suppose $30 is not the end of the world.
The degree to which they are wrong really doesn’t matter. When you’re wrong, you’re wrong. Imagine if word got out that that was their practice. Someone gets into a serious accident and the lawyers find out the company has not only knowingly, but insisted, that its employees disregard the manufacturer’s recommended pressure in favor of their own with no scientific backing for that alteration.
The last statement to me is the most ridiculous. If deviating from the recommended pressure would “improve all characteristics of the vehicle” why do you suppose the manufacturer didn’t recommend it in the first place? Is a retail tire store more knowledgeable about the engineering of the vehicle and tire than the companies that developed them? Does that make ANY sense?
I ran into this once on a pickup I had new LT E tires installed on. Shame on me for not checking before I left. But when I got home, the tires were pretty hot and checking the pressure, they had 35 psi when they should have had 60-75 psi. Needless to say I was pretty peeved about it. These kind of policies can have very undesirable outcomes…
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I don’t know about other manufactures but Dodge trucks came with a tire pressure chart showing light load and full load pressures. Light load was usually 35 to 40 PSI, full load 60 to 80 PSI depending on truck configuration.
In 2007 when tire pressure monitors were first used on 2500 and 3500 series trucks there is a light load switch for the TPM to allow the truck to be operated at the lower pressures.
The door placard had the standard pressures listed front-back I have in my post. You could go up to max 85 if the load dictated. No way a load range E tire on that truck would take running at 35 psi for long. I wasn’t joking or exaggerating about the tire temps. They were quite unusually hot after a short hop on the expressway home.
That must have been a heavy truck, I have Michelin LTX load range E tires on my truck and I have always inflated them to 35 PSI but it is only a 1/2 ton truck, 6400 # GVR.
I have seen many diesel pick up trucks with the tire pressure down to 35 PSI when they came in for their first oil change, the trucks sometimes sit on the lot for 6 months before being sold, the buyer drives it for 6 months without ever checking the tire pressure. Tires will loose 10 to 15 PSI over a 12 month period.
I have a 2007 Silverado 1500 Classic LT 4x4 that I run load range E tires on and about 36 psi. It hasn’t been a problem yet. The truck calls for load range B but it is a pretty heavy truck. The tires wear evenly, center and edge wear equal.
What does the door placard state for tire pressure?
A 1500 is probably in that range.
Load range E usually dictates slightly higher pressure due to the construction. Apparently, it is overkill for your truck and so running 36 psi is not affecting the tire. Fill it with wood or some suitable load and run 36 psi…
The whole point of this discussion is tire places ignoring door placards which is what happened to me. Not if a load range e tire can take 35 psi or not on any given truck.
The tire placard on my truck shows 225/75R16 41 PSI.
That is the full load pressure, the light load pressure is not listed on that label. The light load pressure information is on a chart that came with the owners manual.
The tire pressure for the optional 245/75R16 tire is 35 PSI.
That’s unusual from my prior experience. All the cars and trucks I have just say Cold Tire Inflation pressure on the placard. Not that it is the maximum or full load pressure. In fact, on that truck I know it is not the maximum or full load as that is specified to be much higher than the placard. But those are only a sample of what I have owned and by no means all encompassing.
Here is a tire pressure chart for light trucks, some models are 40 PSI for light load and 80 PSI for full load (I didn’t draw the circles);
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Ok, let’s get back on topic. How would you feel if you owned that particular truck, bought brand new tires and the guys at the tire store in question put 35 psi in them because that’s what they do to every car or truck they service? Would you leave it alone or fix it?
I put 60# in my trailer tires and stand off to the side a little. I wouldn’t feel very comfortable putting 80# in a truck tire, especially if it was aged a little. Just me I guess but when I was about 10, the neighbor had a truck tire come apart on him and he was out of work for quite a while. I never liked putting air in tires after seeing him in a sling so long. Then a friend had a tire store and showed me where the truck tire ring had put a mark on the wall when it came off. Then he bought a cage. Yeah I know the LT don’t have rings but still I don’t like loud noises.
265/70R17, 35 psi.
I would have instructed them what pressure to inflate the tire to based on my use of the truck and made sure that it was written on the work order. If they can’t follow my instructions I would have to adjust the tire pressure myself.
The office boy in the tire store that writes the work orders should be checking what the proper tire pressure is for light trucks, prints that on the work order and make sure the crew inflates them properly.
Older trucks like mine don’t have the standardized tire labels, the tire information is on the VIN/GVWR label and that pressure is for maximum load. If a tire buster goes by that label he might be inflating the tires on an empty truck to 80 PSI when 40 PSI might be more suitable.
Some people here seem to get bent out of shape when a tire is inflated 3 PSI over spec, collisions and lawyers etc. What about having light truck tires over inflated by 40 PSI?
When I was servicing trucks at a Dodge dealer I had to inflate the tires based on the appearance of the truck because the owners never indicated their preference. Clean cargo box and no trailer hitch; light load pressure. Fifth wheel hitch; full load pressure.
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Many A&Ps in the aviation industry have gotten killed during tire inflation/maintenance procedures:
https://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/aero_05/textonly/m03txt.html
Airplane wheels are in “halves” with bolts connecting the two pieces. These have been known to come apart. Hence the use of cages while inflating, and deflating the tires before any maintenance
The old split ring wheels were the killers that required a cage. Drop center rims with tubeless tires don’t have the ring to throw.
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