The right tire pressure is printed on your car, not on a website

If you search your car's tire pressure you will get a number in about two seconds. Do not use it.

We went looking for those numbers properly, in the manufacturers' own owner's manuals. Every single one refuses to print a figure. Ford's 2023 F-150 manual, page 554, does not give a PSI. The 2022 Chevrolet and GMC Silverado 1500 manual, pages 339 to 340, does not give one either. Ram's manual does not. Ford's Explorer manual does not. Each of them says the same thing in slightly different words: read the label on the vehicle.

They are not being unhelpful. They cannot print one number, because the right pressure depends on the exact trim, the wheel diameter and the tire size your car actually left the factory with. One model can have four or five different correct answers.

Why the websites disagree with each other

Because they are guessing. When we checked the same vehicles across the two tire-pressure lookup sites that will answer an automated request, they contradicted each other:

Vehicle and size	One site says	The other says
Honda CR-V, 235/60R18	35 front, 32 rear	33 front, 30 rear
Ford F-150, 245/70R17	36	35
Ford F-150, heavy-payload LT tire	48	40

That last row is the one to take seriously. Eight PSI on a load-carrying truck tire is not a rounding difference. Underinflate a tire that is carrying weight and it overheats, and an overheated tire is how a sidewall lets go at speed.

One of those two sites is wrong about your truck. Neither of them tells you which.

Where your car actually prints it

The label is called the Tire and Loading Information placard. It is a sticker, usually white or yellow, and it carries the original tire size, the cold pressure for the front, the cold pressure for the rear, and the spare.

Most cars put it on the driver's door jamb: open the driver's door and look at the edge of the door opening, roughly where the door latch sits.

Some do not, which is why people give up and Google it:

• Ram 1500: driver's side B-pillar, the upright post behind the driver's door, rather than the door edge itself.
• Tesla Model Y: driver-side B-pillar as well, confirmed twice on Tesla's own service documentation. Owners hunt the door jamb for it and find nothing.
• Some European cars: inside the fuel filler flap.
• A few older models: in the glovebox or on the boot lid.

If it is not on the door jamb, check the B-pillar next, then the fuel flap.

How to read it once you find it

Four things matter on that sticker.

1. Cold pressure, front. "Cold" means the car has been parked for at least three hours, or driven under about a mile. A tire warms as it rolls and the pressure rises with it, so a reading taken after a drive is high and will mislead you into letting air out.
2. Cold pressure, rear. Often different from the front. On a Subaru Outback it is 35 front and 33 rear. Setting all four to the same number is one of the most common mistakes.
3. The original tire size. This is the size the car was designed around. If the tires on the car now are a different size, someone changed them, and the placard pressure may no longer be the right target.
4. The spare. A temporary spare usually runs far higher than a road tire. A Ford Explorer's mini-spare is stored at 60 PSI.

Where your car hides its placard

The door jamb is the minority case. We checked manufacturer manuals for twenty common vehicles and most of them put the label on the driver-side B-pillar, the upright post you see when the front door is open, behind the seat rather than on the door edge.

Where it is	Vehicles we confirmed
Driver-side B-pillar	Chevrolet Silverado, GMC Sierra, Chevrolet Equinox, Ram 1500, Jeep Wrangler, Jeep Compass, Nissan Rogue, Subaru Outback, Subaru Crosstrek, Subaru Ascent, Hyundai Tucson, Hyundai Santa Fe, Kia Sportage, Kia Telluride, Kia Forte, Mazda CX-5, Mazda3, Volkswagen Jetta, Tesla Model Y
Driver door jamb	Toyota RAV4, Toyota Highlander, Toyota Corolla, Toyota 4Runner, Honda CR-V, Honda Odyssey, Chevrolet Traverse, Chevrolet Malibu
Either, depending on model	Ford F-150, Ford Explorer

Of twenty-nine vehicles whose manuals we read, nineteen put the label on the pillar and eight on the door jamb.

If you have opened the driver's door, looked at the edge and found nothing, look at the pillar behind you.

The number on the tire sidewall is not your pressure

There is a PSI figure moulded into the sidewall, usually something like "MAX PRESS 44 PSI". That is the maximum the tire itself can safely hold. It is a limit, not a recommendation, and inflating to it will give you a hard ride, a narrow contact patch and quicker wear down the middle of the tread.

The placard number is the one the carmaker chose for that car's weight and suspension. Use that.

What we do about it

When we fit tires we set them to the placard pressure for your vehicle, and we read the placard on the car rather than trusting a database. If the tires currently on the car are not the size the placard names, we tell you before we fit anything, because that changes the correct pressure and sometimes the correct tire.

Questions people ask

• My tires are a different size from the placard. What pressure now? Ask us before guessing. Changing size changes the load the tire carries at a given pressure, and the placard figure no longer applies directly. It is a short conversation and it avoids a real mistake.
• Should I add a few PSI for winter? No. Set the placard pressure, but check it more often. Cold air contracts, so a tire loses roughly 1 PSI for every 10 degrees Fahrenheit the temperature drops, which is why the warning light appears on the first cold morning of the year.
• The front and rear numbers are different. Is that a misprint? No, and it is deliberate. Weight distribution differs front to rear. Set each axle to its own number.
• Can I just use 35 PSI like everyone says? Sometimes that is right and sometimes it is eight PSI wrong. On a loaded truck tire that gap matters.
• Do you check my pressures when you fit? Yes, on every wheel, to the placard figure, and we reset or relearn the TPMS where the vehicle supports it.