Repeat Tire Pressure Question?

What determins your tire pressure? Following the recommended pressure from the manual? Whats stated on the side wall of the tire? Do you fill to the maxx cold pressure? All tires are different. Weight load? Outside Temp? Whats Safe? Helps us Find out the truth. .:huh: .:dry:

This looks like a repeat off a question asked earlier. To be safe, I recommend you check the website of the tire manufacturer for the tires on your bike. I say this because the little research I did shows different manufacturers provide different recommendations which vary quite a bit. Ed

I would reference the bike owner's manual recommendation, the tire manufacturer's recommendation for your bike, other tire manufacturers' recommendations for comparative purposes, then choose an inflation pressure. As 650ed mentioned in that other topic, Dunlop has a fitment guide for many bike models, showing the recommended tire & tire pressure.

My bike is the 81 CSR w spoked tube-type wheels & the manual states to inflate the oem tires to 25 psi front & 22-25 psi rear (depending upon the load). The Dunlop GT501s are recommended to be run at 32 Fr & 36 Rr on my 650H. The sidewall doesn't really have a Max Pressure. Instead it lists a Max Load (weight) at 42 psi. I keep them at about 32/34 Fr & 34/36 Rr.

FYI: the same tires on a KZ550-Ltd which is a smaller/ligher bike are recommended to be inflated to 30 Fr & 34 Rr.

Still not getting the RIGHT pressure. Good for gas mileage? Best for Traction? Best for wear? Whats BEST ?

mzandmz wrote:

What determins your tire pressure? Following the recommended pressure from the manual? Whats stated on the side wall of the tire? Do you fill to the maxx cold pressure? All tires are different. Weight load? Outside Temp? Whats Safe? Helps us Find out the truth. .:huh: .:dry:

Go with the manula, assuming you are running stock tire size. You have to put more air in the rear if you carry a load in the back like an extra person. basically, a tire is like a balloon that needs to be at it's optimal shape to perform best. More weight pushes it down more so it needs more air pressure to force it back to proper shape.

I run 32 front and 28 rear on mine. I have found over time I get better rear tread life if I run a little less in the back (don't burn the center strip so soon). Fronts never wear out the tread, they die of old age from sidewall rot.

depends on what youre trying to accomplish.if your after mileage or carrying a lot of weight id say go with the maximum cold pressure,if your going drag racing run max cold on front and put some screws through the rim into the bead on the rear tire and run it half flat to get some traction! :laugh: remember hot pressure is higher than cold,so if you check them after riding a while im gonna say they should be about 5psi higher than cold rating

Somewhere on the internet I saw a process to determine the optimum air pressure for your motorcycle tires, it involved measuring the pressure cold, then measuring the pressure after hot, maybe a 10 mile rides worth. The difference between cold-hot pressures told you if the pressure cold was correct. If I can find it I'll post it.

Cool. Thanks

OKC_Kent wrote:

Somewhere on the internet I saw a process to determine the optimum air pressure for your motorcycle tires, it involved measuring the pressure cold, then measuring the pressure after hot, maybe a 10 mile rides worth. The difference between cold-hot pressures told you if the pressure cold was correct. If I can find it I'll post it.

That's interesting because like I said earlier: the trick is to get just enough pressure to hold the tire well formed so it isn't "flattening" too much at the bottom where it sits on the ground. Each time the tire rotates, the sidewall flexes how ever much it goes from the top where it's fully extended and the bottom where it is compressed some. The amount it flexes makes heat and that would change the cold - hot pressure range.

Interesting, I never thought of using that for determining best air pressure, but it makes sense.

I wonder if anybody at any tire manufacturer ever thought of this?

As Plummen and others have suggested, the "right" presure depends on a combination of what a person intendes to do and what the manufacturer designed the tire to do. If you plan to mount some knobbies on a Gold Wing, inflate them to 100psi, and take that rascal drag racing, then you'd better be prepared for some unpredictable and unpleasant consequenses.

Tire manufacturers spend quite a bit of time and money designing tires devising recommended pressures because they want happy customers and no lawsuits. The best place to start is with those recommendations. You can then adjust a little one way or the other to suit your particular circumstances, but deviating very far from that is asking for troulbe and will void the warranty.

My dime's worth (inflation, don't you know.)