Tyre pressure confusion

Stonefish

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Hello,

I checked the pressures on my 245/40R18 tyres yesterday and set them to the Audi recommended pressures from the drivers door at 41 PSI front, 36 PSI rear. This is for the lowest weight three people. I decided to check a few websites to see what pressures they recommended and got the following results

Front Rear
AA 32 30
Qwikfit 31 30
Tyresafe 32 30
National Tyres 32 30
QI (normal) 32 30
(heavy) 35 39

There are more but you probably get the picture. All these sites correctly identified the car and tyres from the Reg no. I'm really tempted to lower my tyre pressures. Is there a reason Audi's recommended pressures are so high? I know my spine would agree.
 
Which model do you have exactly? I have the same tyres and the sticker on the door recommends 32PSI on the front and 29 at the rear?
 
Its the 3.0TDI Quattro. Feels a bit hard.

Tyres
 
Firstly look at how the tyre's are wearing and secondly how the handling feels.

If the tyres are wearing more towards the outer edges hopefully your tracking is ok but that means the pressure is too low so all the weight is on the shoulders and the tyre's will shuffle giving a woolly steering response.

If they are wearing more in the center they are too high and ballooning out this will give a skittish ride.

Its finding what suits you more to be honest.
 
Just drop them and see how they feel, they are only 'recommended' tyre pressures. On My Passat Estate TDI, I run 32 front 35 rear, I drop the rear pressures if I'm carrying passengers long distance. Just play around with them until you feel it's right.
 
Thanks for the replies. I will try dropping them a bit and see how it handles. Definitely seems a bit frisky on bumpy roads in the wet.
 

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