Why does dealer set tire pressure high?

Maintenance/Repairs
41

Am still laughing.

42

My urge to get involved was pretty-much eradicated a few years back. I pulled into a parking space at work, and I noticed that the car next to me had a right-front tire that was nearly flat. That tire also had almost all of the black sidewall rubbed-off from curb strikes, giving it the ultimate in “wide whitewalls”, as well as several deep gouges. Because the driver was just getting out of her car, I called her over to alert her to her bad tire.
She seemed to be mystified by the sight of her bad tire, and asked me an odd question, namely…
Why do you think it’s going flat?

Trying to be as non-judgmental as possible, I said…
Well, you probably picked-up a nail, or it’s possible that the sidewall is leaking air.

Still looking mystified, she asked…
Why do you think that the sidewall might be leaking air?
My reply was something along the lines of… Well, it has obviously hit the curb many times, and…
She cut me off by yelling, “I’ve NEVER hit the curb! How dare you accuse me of that!”.

I turned on my heel, muttered “Have a nice day”, and walked into the office building.

1 Like
43

the rough estimate by the dealership resulted in being about 4-5 psi high according to the OP

and your rough estimate of the relationship between outside air temp and tire pressure is commonly used where the tire temp has equilibrated to the outside air temp

now add in a rough estimate between daily high and low temps (20 degrees? like in San Antonio on May 2? or 25 degrees? like in San Antonio on May 5) depending on where the dealer is and time of year

and then add in a rough estimate for the temperature of the tires because of driving

44

Things are getting rough over there in a hurry @Waterbuff. Personally I air up tires to 36psi when pressure sensors are on them. It’s an unwinnable battle and playing to a draw with the first man up to the plate in the first inning is as close to winning as you can get.

1 Like
45

If you go back there just explain exactly what you did here and tell them that the pressure is supposed to be 32psi. I recently had new tires installed and they filled them to 35psi. Mine are supposed to be 30psi all around. I had no time to tell them so I just deflated them to the correct pressure. I did mention it in the comments on Amazon (where I purchased them)