I was wondering what is the optimum tire pressure for stock 18" wheels with Pilots. I know the sticker has one value for max load and one for up to 4 passengers. But what about 2 people in the car? I know drag racers drop the pressure to increase the contact patch, but how does varying the pressure effect the handling characteristics? What is a good pressure for all around and what would you set it for canyon runs and autoX.
Thanks

Bump.:az:

Your pressure depends entirely on the weight of the car and what you are doing with it. For things like AutoX, you want it just low enough thta 100% of the tread contacts the pavement around tight turns but it never folds onto the sidewall. Just chalk your tires and keep lowering the pressure until you find what it should be for your wheel/tire combo. If you are drag racing, you probably want it even lower so that you get 100% of the tread on the pavement when going in a straight line (remember your tires roll over during turns!) .. you probably don't want to do a lot of driving when you have your tires at this kind of pressure, though as wearing on the sidewall is very very bad.

For me, with the Conti sports on 19" OEM rims, I found that dropping about 2PSI out of each tire below what BMW recommends seems to be the best for me during everyday driving, but I'm sure for 18's it's probably a little different.

All you really need is a piece of chalk to figure out what your tire pressure needs to be!

Thanks for the info. I'll give it a try.:drink1: