Tyre Pressures

dmiller555
dmiller555 Forum Participant Posts: 717
500 Comments
edited January 2017 in Towcars & Towing #1

Two questions here:

I wonder how many of you with caravans change their tyre pressures between towing and not towing?

I ask because the recommended tyre pressures for my VW Passat varies between 33psi all round for two people to 36 front and 41 rear when fully laden with 4 people and luggage, which is quite a difference.

I have little idea what will constitute correct pressure when towing with two people plus luggage in the car and 75kg noseweight so I'm currently using 35psi front and 40psi rear, does this seem reasonable?

 

 

Comments

  • Heethers
    Heethers Forum Participant Posts: 641
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    edited January 2017 #2

    The Tyre pressures when towing are in your hand book and usually on the drivers door pillar

  • dmiller555
    dmiller555 Forum Participant Posts: 717
    500 Comments
    edited January 2017 #3

    Thank you, that's where I got the figures that I quoted from but I've yet to find anything helpful in the VW handbook; I shall look again. 

     

     

  • ocsid
    ocsid Forum Participant Posts: 1,395
    1000 Comments
    edited January 2017 #4

    IMO with a background in engineering the towing vehicle tyre pressures whilst towing are far more related to stiffening up the lateral stiffness of the tyres than directly to the load carrying.

    Clearly they need to have enough pressure to carry any loads, but to improve the outfits towing stability they need to be as high as possible. This makes particularly the rear end of the car as resistive to side forces as practical and this lifts the speed at which instability can develop.

    So I would whilst towing, in the absence of a definitive makers statement, put them at the highest load carrying value, irrespective of whether you are loaded to that maximum load or not.

  • SteveL
    SteveL Club Member Posts: 12,303 ✭✭✭
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    edited January 2017 #5

    So I would whilst towing, in the absence of a definitive makers statement, put them at the highest load carrying value, irrespective of whether you are loaded to that maximum load or not.

    That is certainly what it recommends for my XTrail. 

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