When/how/why max tire pressures raised from 35 PSI to 44 PSI?
The cheap(er) passenger tires (Cooper / General / BFGoodrich) which are all to popular on older cars are limited by design to have much higher operating pressures then 35 psi.
Better tires can usually be filled with higher pressure.
Your vehicle was engineered with the tire PSI in mind. Go with the door sticker, not the tire "max rating", if you want all your suspension parts to last! Ever price out a new steering rack? :mad:
You don't by any chance think wheel alignments are still to be done by the manual per factory recommendations?
No one drives around with bias-ply tires on their old cars anymore, except for a few resto-folks perhaps.
It's nice an old car still has its 40+ year old doorsticker, but it's long outdated because tire-technology has moved on. Radial tires simply need a different adjustment to operate at their designed best. Just like newer, better tires are designed to be run on higher pressures. Mainly to reduce rolling resistance and economical reasons.
Steering parts could perhaps live longer when using more pressure in the tires as it takes less force to push a wheel in a different direction, especially at low speeds.
