Tire Pressure

[Jude]

Just brought our rig home from Goodyear. We asked them to check tire pressure & add air if low. Checked the pressure when we got home & have 50lbs all the way around. Does this sound right? The specs inside the drivers side door say 55lb front & 80lb rear cold? Any suggestions???

Thanks!

[skater]

Just brought our rig home from Goodyear. We asked them to check tire pressure & add air if low. Checked the pressure when we got home & have 50lbs all the way around. Does this sound right? The specs inside the drivers side door say 55lb front & 80lb rear cold? Any suggestions???

Thanks!

Go with the specs! This thread has a great picture of what happens to the rear tires when they're underinflated.

You'll need a decent air compressor to do it - the 12-volt lighter-plug models probably won't work. There's an article in the articles section of the site that describes a 12 volt compressor I bought (for $50) that handles the job nicely.

Basically, as discussed in that thread, the rear axle has almost 6,000 lbs on it. If you read the sidewall of the tire, you'll see the carrying capacity at 80 PSI is something like 3,000 lbs. That means there's not a lot of room for error if you have the tire under 80 PSI (as the pressure goes down, so does the load-bearing capacity - this is why those Bridgestone tires on Ford SUVs failed; the recommended inflation was too low).