stick22

what do you guys keep your tire pressure at when it gets cold?

i only ask because my tire pressure will vary depending on the temperature and i didn't know if i should be adding air when it gets really cold to maintain a certain pressure.

jtrue28

Mine had fallen from 35 to 27, so I put more air in...back up to 35.

Nismo

The short answer is to always maintain your tire pressures to what's shown on your driver's side door jam, as measured before you begin driving the car for the day. Here are two decent articles on the subject from the Tire Rack:

Higher Tire Pressures for Winter Driving

Air Pressure: When and How to Set

flippd

This never really made sense to me. So in the summer the resting temp on the TPMS is usually 35. It MAY go to 36 during driving, but usually stays at 35 for me. During the winter it's 32 at startup, but goes to 35 after about 5 mins in the highway. So if I pump it to 35 cold during the winter, won't the running pressure become high? Why do we measure when it's cold when it's running pressure that the tires will be used at for most of the drive? I'm really curious - maybe I'll google it one of these days.

raytseng

no, because you are running low, say 32 the tires are heating up more due to friction and getting to 35.
If you started at 35, they won't heat up as much, you won't get the same +3 gain of psi.

So in summary, the tires will automatically get to similar steady states.

With proper tire pressure, and tires get there running cooly and with less wear.
with low tire pressure, the tires get to the right PSI through wear and friction and running hotter then they need to.

zicogold

Was at the dealer this morning and for my Primacy MXM4 tires the dealer says they fill to 35 psi in the winter and 32 in the summer. Mind you it depends on the how low are the sustained temperatures in your area. The recommended psi on the door jam is 33 psi.