Tyre Pressures

[arcamalpha]

Have any of you experimented with lower tyres pressures on your cars?

The sticker in the petrol cap says 39/41psi from memory which is awfully high for a 1300/1400kg car. I'm guessing it's to help fuel economy.

Previous experience (of other VWs) suggests the tyres will wear too much in the middle of the tread with the standard pressure so has anyone got experience of dropping the pressure to something sensible and/or done enough miles to see what the tyre wear is like with standard pressures?

Thanks!

[Jimble]

Always stuck to the recommended pressures and never had a problem.

[Skinnee D]

Always stuck to the recommended pressures and never had a problem.

Agreed.  I tried increasing by a few psi on a car with 245/40 tyres and soon started wearing out the centres.

[monkeyhanger]

Previous experience (of other VWs) suggests the tyres will wear too much in the middle of the tread with the standard pressure so has anyone got experience of dropping the pressure to something sensible and/or done enough miles to see what the tyre wear is like with standard pressures?

Thanks!

Would the other VWs include Sciroccos or Pirelli P7 tyres (or both?).

My Scirocco 170TDI had P7s which wore out on 12k miles for the fronts. I say "wore out" but the central 1/3 of the tread markers while the other 2/3 was at 6mm. They wore as if they were massively overinflated, but were inflated as per VW's recommendations on the fuel flap. The rears were perfectly fine.

[arcamalpha]

Previous experience (of other VWs) suggests the tyres will wear too much in the middle of the tread with the standard pressure so has anyone got experience of dropping the pressure to something sensible and/or done enough miles to see what the tyre wear is like with standard pressures?

Thanks!

Would the other VWs include Sciroccos or Pirelli P7 tyres (or both?).

My Scirocco 170TDI had P7s which wore out on 12k miles for the fronts. I say "wore out" but the central 1/3 of the tread markers while the other 2/3 was at 6mm. They wore as if they were massively overinflated, but were inflated as per VW's recommendations on the fuel flap. The rears were perfectly fine.

Yup, spot on! A 2.0TSI in my case but same symptoms.

I've seen it on other cars too and there does seem to be a trend towards higher pressures across manufacturers that I can only put down to economy as cars aren't getting that much heavier.

[GrahamFR]

Wow that does seem high and I lowered mine to 35 thinking the dealer had done it wrong. This may explain my crap mpg tho (long shot I know)

[Jimble]

Wow that does seem high and I lowered mine to 35 thinking the dealer had done it wrong. This may explain my crap mpg tho (long shot I know)

Recommended pressures are on the back of the fuel flap.

[GrahamFR]

I'll be topping them up tomorrow then

[Gnasher]

Don't know why but I have always run my tyres at 32psi (after some experimentation) all round on tyres/wheels ranging from 14" to 19" with decent wear rates (and even over the width of the tyre) and also good grip. Probably will experiment when the golf turns up but we'll have to see what is the best to run them at.

[cheets7]

39/41 Seems really high, the tyres will be like rock! If that what it says.......