Tyre pressure chart — PSI, kPa and bar
Typical pressures by vehicle, the conversion table, and what to add when you load up. Your actual number is on the placard in the driver's door jamb — this page is for looking things up quickly once you have it.
These are typical ranges, not your pressure. Start from the placard in the driver's door jamb — and on a car or SUV with standard tyres, we would add a couple of PSI to it. The figure moulded on the tyre ("MAX 51 PSI") is the tyre's structural limit, not a setting. Why we say add a couple.
On this page
The PSI ladder
Every pressure from dangerous to commercial, and what sits at each rung. Anything under 26 PSI on a passenger car is a problem rather than a setting.
| PSI | kPa | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 20 | 138 | Dangerously low — heat building, handling gone |
| 22 | 152 | Blowout territory under load or at speed |
| 24 | 165 | Under-inflated for almost any car |
| 26 | 179 | The low end — a few small cars run here |
| 28 | 193 | Small hatchbacks |
| 30 | 207 | Sedans, light load |
| 32 | 221 | Most common — sedans and crossovers |
| 34 | 234 | Most common — SUVs and crossovers |
| 36 | 248 | Common — SUVs, loaded cars. Standard-load maximum. |
| 38 | 262 | SUVs, XL tyres, full load |
| 40 | 276 | 4WD, heavy SUV, max load |
| 42 | 290 | XL and reinforced tyres at maximum, utes |
| 44 | 303 | Utes and light-truck tyres, working |
| 50 | 345 | Load range C (6-ply) maximum |
| 65 | 448 | Load range D (8-ply) maximum |
| 80 | 552 | Load range E (10-ply) maximum |
The load range maximums are the tyre's ceiling, not a target — you only run near them with the load the tyre was rated for. How load and pressure relate.
Typical pressures by vehicle type
General ranges for New Zealand vehicles, for orientation rather than for setting. Check them against your own placard — and note that on cars and SUVs with standard tyres we generally run a couple of PSI above the placard figure, because under-inflation is far the more common fault we measure. The reasoning.
| Vehicle type | Front | Rear | NZ examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small hatchbacks | 28–32 PSI | 26–30 PSI | Yaris, Swift, Jazz, Demio |
| Sedans & crossovers | 32–35 PSI | 30–33 PSI | Corolla, Civic, CX-30, Impreza |
| Family SUVs | 33–36 PSI | 33–36 PSI | RAV4, CX-5, Outlander, X-Trail |
| Large SUVs & 4WDs | 34–40 PSI | 34–40 PSI | Prado, Patrol, Pajero Sport |
| Utes on LT tyres | 36–44 PSI | 40–50 PSI | Hilux, Ranger, Navara, Triton |
| Vans & commercial | 40–50 PSI | 44–65 PSI | HiAce, Sprinter, NV350 |
The engine and steering sit over the front axle, so the front usually runs a little higher on a car. Utes reverse that when loaded — the rear is the end designed to carry the payload, which is why the rear figure climbs so much further.
Use the unladen figure. A load-rated tyre set for a full tray and driven empty wears a strip down the middle — 40% of the light-truck tyres we measure are over-inflated, against 6% under.
PSI → kPa → bar
New Zealand placards usually give kPa, most gauges here read PSI, and European vehicles quote bar. Same pressure, three scales.
| PSI | kPa | bar | Commonly |
|---|---|---|---|
| 26 | 179 | 1.79 | Small car, light |
| 28 | 193 | 1.93 | Small hatchback |
| 30 | 207 | 2.07 | Sedan rear |
| 32 | 221 | 2.21 | Sedan and crossover front |
| 34 | 234 | 2.34 | SUV |
| 36 | 248 | 2.48 | SUV, loaded car, SL maximum |
| 38 | 262 | 2.62 | Full load |
| 40 | 276 | 2.76 | 4WD, heavy SUV |
| 42 | 290 | 2.90 | XL maximum |
| 44 | 303 | 3.03 | Ute, working |
| 50 | 345 | 3.45 | Load range C maximum |
| 65 | 448 | 4.48 | Load range D maximum |
| 80 | 552 | 5.52 | Load range E maximum |
PSI × 6.9 = kPa · kPa ÷ 6.9 = PSI · kPa ÷ 100 = bar. Close enough for a forecourt: PSI × 7 gets you within about 1.5%. Most NZ air pumps show both scales.
What to add when you load up
Weight goes in the back, so the rear is what moves. These are additions to your normal placard figure — unless the placard gives a full-load column, in which case use that instead.
| Situation | Front | Rear |
|---|---|---|
| Normal — one or two people | Placard | Placard |
| Full car — four or five people | Placard | +3–5 PSI |
| Light cargo — camping gear, luggage | Placard | +3–5 PSI |
| Heavy cargo — building materials, moving house | +3 PSI | +5–8 PSI |
| Towing | Placard | +4–7 PSI |
| At maximum load | Full-load figure | Full-load figure — typically 38–44 PSI on a car |
An under-inflated tyre carrying a full load is the classic summer failure. The extra weight makes the sidewall flex further, flexing makes heat, and heat is what breaks the bonds inside the casing. Two minutes with a gauge before you leave is the whole fix. The calculator will work out the exact figure from your axle weights.
Why "check cold" matters
Driving heats the air inside the tyre and the pressure climbs with it. A tyre set to 33 PSI on a cool morning can read 38 PSI or more after a run on a hot day — the tyre has not gained air, the air has gained heat.
Cold means before you drive, or at least three hours after stopping. If you have no choice but to check warm, expect the reading to be 4–6 PSI high — and never let air out of a hot tyre. Do that and it will be badly under-inflated once it cools.
- Permeation: 1–2 PSI a month leaks straight through the rubber. Over an autumn that is 3–6 PSI.
- Temperature: about 1 PSI for every 5–6 °C on a car tyre — so a 15 °C seasonal drop takes roughly another 2.5 PSI.
Together they explain the tyre that reads 33 PSI in March and 28 in July with nothing wrong with it. It is also why monthly is the right interval. On higher pressures the temperature half moves faster — the full breakdown is in the guide.
The five golden rules
- Check coldBefore driving, or three hours after stopping. Every published pressure is a cold pressure.
- Check monthlyTyres lose 1–2 PSI a month through the rubber itself, before any leak or temperature change.
- Never release air from a hot tyreThe reading is high because the air is hot. Bleed it down now and you are soft later.
- Add pressure for heavy loadsCheck the placard for a full-load column, or add to the rear per the table above. On a car or SUV we would be a couple of PSI over the placard even unloaded.
- Do not forget the spareIt is useless flat, and it is the one tyre nobody ever checks.
Running soft raises the casing temperature, lengthens braking distances and wears both shoulders away. Running hard is less dangerous but wears a strip down the centre and rides harder. Both shorten the life of the tyre — and in our own workshop measurements, only 44.7% of tyres wear evenly. How to read which one you have.
This is the quick chart. Need the exact number?
For pressure worked out from your axle weights, load index and load range — or the full explanation of load tables, temperature and towing — use the guide and the calculator.
(07) 573 9090 · Te Puke, Bay of Plenty · Free North Island delivery
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Taylor Houghton
Manager, Tyre Dispatch · Warehouse Manager, Traction Tyres
Taylor Houghton has spent his working life in the tyre trade, beginning in his father's tyre business at the age of five and handling import containers through his school years. He developed Tyre Dispatch, the retail arm of Traction Tyres, and now manages it alongside the Traction Tyres warehouse in Te Puke, with responsibility for buying and brand selection. He holds no ownership interest in either business.
Both brands the company distributes exclusively in New Zealand, Anchee and Predator, were his selections, each assessed on factory accreditation, compound composition and independent test data rather than name recognition. More than 100,000 Anchee tyres have since been sold here, and both brands hold five star review averages.
The guides, calculators and tools on this site are his own work, as is the workshop dataset behind them, which covers 1,700+ documented tyre inspections and 45,000+ photographs and represents more than a thousand hours, the majority outside business hours. He is the petitioner to Parliament for mandatory tyre performance labelling and minimum wet-grip standards in New Zealand, and appeared in the launch video for Tyrewise, the national tyre stewardship scheme.
Photography, measurements and advice on this site are first-hand; where a figure comes from elsewhere, it is attributed.
Looking for tyre training data? The imagery and structured inspection dataset are available to licence. Contact email@tyredispatch.co.nz.
General guidance based on published standards and our own workshop data — reliable but hand-compiled and not guaranteed error-free. Spot something wrong? Email email@tyredispatch.co.nz and we'll fix it.