Does increasing pressure also increase tire wear? Especially right down the middle of the tread?

The reason I ask is that a few motorcycle riders have noticed this. But, motorcycle tires are different from car tires. At max psi, the tire rides on a more narrow footprint. So now the whole weight of the bike is riding on that smaller area, causing accelerated wear. Some riders have lowered their tire pressure down slightly enough to have a larger footprint. Now, the weight of the bike is spread out over a greater area. And thus, has shown longer tread life.

I haven't done this experiment myself. My former boss over in the motorcycle safety office did. He's pretty particular with his tires. When he made the switch to slightly less pressure, his tires would gain nearly 30% miles in tread life.

I'm still sticking with recommended tire pressure. I'm just curious if anyone has noticed if their treadwear is increased.

 

It depends, but overall, if you over inflate your tires, the wear pattern will be down the middle.

 

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Higher pressures, within approved limits, improve:

a) wear resistance, b) mpg, c) hydroplane onset speed (as in higher), d) braking performance and e) handling (stiffer side walls).

Braking performace can be seen at: http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/...FEA/TPMS3.html
Scroll down to tables near the end of the study.

I would also think that higher pressures improve ability to go in snow since the footprint is smaller, and probably degrade traction on ice (same reason, smaller contact patch. Every skinny tired vehicle I've had went thru snow better than my vehicle(s) with low profile, high aspect ratio performance tires.

Hydroplane onset speed (rule of thumb) is 9*SQRT Tire Pessure. A 21% increase of tire pressure should increase hydroplane onset speed by 10%. Going from 35 psi (53 mph onset) to 42 psi should raise onset speed to 58 mph! Again, rule of thumb. The proportional change holds, but tire specifics will result in unkown variance.

 

Higher PSI makes a noticeable improvement in handling and BRAKING... I forgot that one. In the rain, the higher PSI test where amazing. As for MPG, not noticeable at all.

 

now a days i keep my tires near the 50 psi limit. But before they looked kinda saggy at 30, and now if I'm not mistaken are going to look just as saggy as 30 but when I check my pressure it says 48. So are my tires being worn out?