dont look at the sidewall of the tire. There is no inflation pressure recommendation listed there, only a safety warning as to the maximum allowable inflation pressure that tire is rated for. That has nothing to do with what the best pressure is for that tire on your vehicle.

One thing that tells you that parts of your struts are going out obviously is obnoxious popping coming from them anytime the car moves. My car has 52k miles on it and the top mounts of the front struts are rusting so badly that it's totally messing up the struts. I kinda checked them out the other day when I had the wheels off the monte and yupp rust is most def getting the best of the strut framing.

&& bout that tire pressure feud going on up there, my max tire pressure is 44 & I have always been told by my dad (who fyi is a certified mechanic, has own several shops, etc, etc) that you don't wanna go any higher than 35 lbs to be safe. & I would never put more then that in my tires bcuz of the damaging things too much pressure in a system can do (thanks to all the dumb chemistry classes I've had to take to drill that into my mind)

is that popping a sure sign of them being bad? mine does that all the time but if I use WD40 enough it goes away.

That's what my dad said and he checked out all underneath and drove it to see where the noise is coming from. I don't think the struts inside the framing is all that bad but I most def gotta replace them before they rust completely off the car. & I painted the ring on my mounts black for car shows bcuz it was bright orange so I know for a fact that the mounts are rusting badly regardless lol and the bottom of the struts down by the brakes and underneath the springs are really rusty too

just to verify, on the top of the strut like under the rubber part, that's part of the strut right? because i was worried about that being my body sheet metal ha

Does anybody hear an air whooshing sound when you go over bumps? I did the bounce test, which the car didnt bounce more than once but i did hear a canister like air sound when i pushed down. Is that leak somewhere?

Yeah that middle screw is the very top of the strut...& the black ring with the red in the middle is also part of the strut. That black ring is the part that I was talking about is rusting really bad on my struts. The middle screw that helps hold the strut together is pretty rusted too. Those 3 screws around everything are what hold the strut to the car on the top side

http://www.motortopia.com/files/6259...4/P1010479.jpg

Yes, I get that all the time when I drive over speed bumps or other bumps in the road. It's really quick, though, not like the sound of letting air out of a tire. It's done that on my car since I bought it and it had 28K miles on it (it's now got about 83,600 miles).

I don't know if that's normal or not. Anybody else know? SpinEm90?

the sound you're hearing is probably the compression of the strut, it's normal, if you listen to cars going over a speed bump you'll hear it a lot

Just for the record I've been running 40psi in tires rated at maximum 44psi cold for about 11 years now and it makes most tires wear better, handle better, and they get better fuel economy. Not once has it ever caused a safety issue and has only been beneficial.
Right now my tires are 51psi max cold and they are currently at 42psi.

It's the same debat as nitrogen in the tires it will always be 50/50 split opinions. Just FYI the air your breathing right now is over 75% nitrogen. And to achieve near 100% in a tire you would need to pull a vacuum on the rim and tire after it's been mounted and refill the tire and purge repeatedly to have over 95% nitrogen filled tires. So you can all guess which 50 I'm with. It's all opinion and thinking, I just know the facts from experience and testing.