Quote Originally Posted by SlowPro48 View Post
Well I'll say it then. It's dangerous!

Example: max recommended pressure on my TerraGrapplers is 50psi. At that pressure there would be about 42% less rubber in contact with the road than what Isuzu intended, which will significantly increase stopping distance - and reduce lateral grip as well. Unless you're hauling a lot of weight, for safety's sake you might want to air down a little! Who knows - it might keep you from rear-ending somebody on the freeway someday. And BTW, 29psi is specified as cold - so pressure increase according to the Ideal Gas Law is already accounted for.
Quote Originally Posted by pbkid View Post
I'm gonna agree to disagree with this statement. sure at rolling speed, you lose an amount of rubber contact with the road as the tires expand in the middle of the tread, but what happens when you press those brakes hard and the weight of the vehicle is thrown onto the front tires? you then have 100% contact and have regular tire grip.
Lets see if i can word this to make sense as it does in my head
As well, if we are talking safety, which is my point for inflating my tires so high; if you have your tires at lower pressure, say 29 psi as your door jam suggests, how is your vehicle supposed to handle in a panic skid or quick swerve? My reasoning is, as your sidewall gives, it causes body roll, increasing chance of a rollover. I personally would rather skid a little (key word little), than have the tires grab hard and roll me over.
Now, this also supports my thought behind hard straight line braking, if you swerve and put the weight of the vehicle on 2 tires, you now are operating at optimal traction levels (enough to skid but also handle). Rather, at low tire pressure you increase your traction to a level of rollover or poor handling (low tire pressure proves to make for sloppy handling).

Let the bashing and arguments begin
I'm going to agree to disagree with both Y'all.

Traction is more a factor of tire design than it is air pressure. I know that my old Wrangler MTs had a stiff sidewall so tire pressure made very little difference on any of the factors you're talking about. The Firestone ATs I'm running now have a softer sidewall so I've got to keep a closer eye on the pressure - but only in terms of wear, handling seems unaffected. IIRC Marlin is running tires with Kevlar in the sidewalls. He can prolly run at 0 psi & not notice (yes, I'm exagerating).