Winter tires PSI

I'd sure be increasing that. Cold weather is bad enough, but with those pressures you'll be pretty unhappy with MPG.

 

The standard pressures are listed on the drivers side door jam.

 

But his door jamb label is likely to show recommended pressure for only the 17" OEM wheels that came on his trim, not for smaller sizes such as he just put on and are common on other trims.

 

42/40 works well in winter west Michigan

 

I go to Costco too, but have wondered about topping up my tire pressure with standard air in-between visits. I can't imagine that it matters that much. Anyone know otherwise?

 

Costco won't go over manufacturer specs, adding air contaminates the helium, but if you want 42-40, which you do, you do what you gotta do, bo-bo

 

Besides cost (for places that charge for it, not at Costco), this is the other significant downside to nitrogen: people reluctant to perform regular top-offs or pressure increases with regular air, thus possibly running lower pressure for a while than if they didn't have nitrogen.

Go ahead, add regular air if nitrogen is not immediately available. The nitrogen 'benefit' is mostly hype, and regular air is almost 80% nitrogen anyway. Any downside to the 21% oxygen coming in with regular air is minuscule compared to the costs of running low tire pressure.

 

The sticker shows pressures for all the tire sizes that come with the car. Have a look at yours.

 

Mine shows pressures only for 15" main wheels and the 16" spare. Nothing for the 17" wheels on another trim.

But half the label is in French, even though that isn't one of the top dozen languages spoken here. (Spanish, Korean, Mandarin, Japanese, Russian, Arabic, Farsi, Somali, Hindi, Tagalog, Romanian, etc., are all more common.)

 

Ok, stand corrected. Sorry for getting snippy.

We've got the 17" OEMs, and the label shows both 15" and 17" pressures. Could be a Canadian thing too.

 

I meant to ask about this. I put the Blizzak MS80s on steels for my first winter in Denver. I run 42/40 on my all seasons, but snow/winter tires are made of a softer compound so decided to run them at 38/36 psi...just guessing as I never had snow tires. Feedback on pressures from people that actually drive their Prius on 15" snow tires "in the snow A LOT" is what I seek...as it applies to traction, not mpg.

 

I was going to call it a Yankee thing, we have to be different than the Rest Of World. And with a much larger market, we could easier justify the costs of designing / ordering / stocking multiple labels. Though it that were really true, our labels wouldn't include unAmerican things such as French and kPa's.

I don't recall if my 2010 was the same as your 2010 or as my 2012.

'Everyone' here is a not actually everyone, just a strong majority, and speaking only to MPG and treadlife.

For winter performance and wet traction, the opinions are much more varied, I wouldn't call it a consensus. You will have to make your own judgement which faction to follow. Many dealerships will match your dealership's view, and we don't know if they are really technically correct or just doing CYA for liability reasons.

Both my Prii were delivered with 39-40 psi on their OEM A/S tires, the ocean shipping pressure. They were not reduced during dealer prep. I didn't ask about winter tires. My independent Subaru shop goes about 3 psi higher on all tires than door labels by default, which they feel is a better overall compromise between the competing goals (comfort, mpg, treadlife, traction). And they have no qualms about leaving higher pressures be if the customer arrives with such.