PontiacBonnevilleClub.com

After long research and trying to decide what tires to get. It came down to the General Altimax RT43 vs Conti PureContacts. Both tires are at the top of their class for over all performance. For winter handling they also excel. Something rare for Touring all season tires. Tire Rack and Youtube have some good video's comparing these tires. I finally just went with the Conti's. Almost a flip of the coin. It was Consumer Reports top tire so I went with that. The General's, however, were significantly cheaper though. Anyhow, the Tires feels and rides great. I can't wait to really test them. One brand of tire I have to mention that I put on my wife's 97 Toyota Corolla are the Kelly Edge A/S. An excellent low priced tire for cars you don't want to spend a lot of money on. We have been very happy with their performance. I actually thought about getting them on the Pontiac but the car is still too nice to be putting on low priced tires just yet.

One question I do have. I know somebody with a new Chevy Impala with the V^ 305 hp engine. He has the 20 inch wheels and the recommended tire pressure for the car is 35 PSI. I notice all the new cars today come recommended with higher pressures. Anybody know why that is? Maybe they discovered it's better to run with higher pressures? 30PSI now sounds low to me. I've always ran around 33-35 PSI. What is everybody's thoughts on this?

BTW, if your going to get the new Impala. Do not get the 20 inch wheels! He has had three blowouts and has destroyed three wheels in the process do to potholes.

Personal preference really as long as it's within the range of the tire and the car, does it really matter? There are plusses/minusses to either side of the coin.

I tend to run 32 - 35 on the cars (including our Impala SS, the one with the 303hp V8 like the person you know), with Continental Extreme Contact DWS's and DWS06's.

Part of the reason is because most of the newer cars also come with manadatory TPMS systems that in winter around here (or change of seasons), can be very finicky with temperature changes, resulting in pressure changes. If it is a true sensor based TPMS reading (not a calculation like GM likes to do on lower tier models), running it higher can somewhat negate the sensitivity of the sensor.

This is an issue I have every fall and every spring with my Wife's van. The sky gets cloudy and those sensors go berzerk. So to counter it, I tend to run it a little higher. This way she's not calling me every day telling me that her system has triggered the light and that 3 of the 4 tires is low...

I think he meant a new-gen Impala with the 303 HP V6 (^ is shift+6).

Also, you need a certain volume of air to hold up a car in a given width tire, from what little I understand of the physics of it. So with a smaller sidewall, you need higher pressure to get the same volume of air into that space. That's probably another part of the reason for the higher pressures. I run around 40 in the 275/5rR20's on my Yukon, and that seems to be the best for wear, ride and fuel economy.

Yea, Also, ours doesn't have 20's. That should've been a tip-off. :p

Lower profile tires do have stiffer sidewalls though in all fairness so that can help to not needs high PSI. But across a wider contact patch, more psi would be needed to support the center of the tire.

I should have said Impala 2LTZ but it's all good. My mother just got a 2014 Ford Focus SE with 17 inch wheels. They also are recommended at 35 PSI. I'm going to keep my Bonneville at 33psi.

Sidewall stiffness has to do with pressure as well. Now this is an extreme example, but this topic reminds me of the time I once ran my tractor without only about 5psi in the tire and the recommended is like 20psi. The stiffness of the tire due to the thickness of the sidewall kept it from looking totally flat. I never even noticed, go figure...

We have a 96 John Deere AMT 626 (Added pic for reference). The tires on the back are the only rear suspension, and are big floater turf tires. If you run too much or too little pressure in them (rec is 5-7 PSI) you feel it....

(Random Image stolen off Google)