Huge Suspension Damage from High Tire Pressure?

I have learned from cycling and driving a car that high tire pressures do not necessarily result in better mileage or lower rolling resistance. Use the numbers recommended by the car manufacturer and enjoy the ride.

 

Not to detract from your story but if you “lost” a tie rod and it was recently replaced i Would tend to believe they didn’t install it correctly or it was a bad rod.

I myself have hit potholes big enough to bottom an entire tire and never lost anything but I did bend a kingpin this way.

I tend to be of the mindset that large impact road obstacles + speed equals one of two scenarios (choose one)

1. Blown tire or bent rim (low pressure)

2. Damage to suspension (high pressure)

I do not view 40ish PSI as high pressure, my guess is regardless of your tire pressure you would not have avoided damage and personally I rather bend my suspension a little rather than blow a front tire on the highway but that’s just me.

 

did i miss the mileage?

 

Higher pressures have got to transmit more shock, accelerate wear-and-tear on the suspension. How much is endlessly debatable, but I'm in the "I don't want to find out the hard way" camp.

I'm also a real nervous Nellie over those #@$&! speed bumps, take them at dead slow, thank you very much. And/or avoid parking lots with them, shop elsewhere when possible.

 

When I first bought my Gen 1 in 2008, it was seven years old with about 125,000 miles, and was silent as a church as I drove it home from Merrillville.

Then I discovered PriusChat, and got the 44 psi bug for a few weeks, and eventually backed down to 38/36 or so to keep my fillings in, but all the interior squeaks and rattles that sprang up during those few weeks, I was never again without for the eight years I had the car.

 

I'm an obnoxious proponent of just running the manufacturer recommended PSI.
But having said that?
Who know's what caused all that suspension damage?
Certainly higher PSI being tougher on your suspension IS one of the reasons I would recommend just going with the manufacturers recommendation. BUT...I can't look at your pictures and offer the conclusion that it WAS the reason you manifested that damage.

I think it was Colonel Mustard in the Conservatory with a portable air compressor!

 

Sounds like long term potholes did the damage. I run all 44s year long on flat no bump roads and tires are quiet. At any average psi, potholes sooner than later will crap any suspension related components up.

 

There's a couple of threads started up recently, regarding the travails of "Front No. 1 Lower Suspension Arm Sub-Assembly RH/LH" (aka "lower control arm") replacement, due to rubber bushing going bad.

Someone ended up torching access holes in the "Front Cross Member Sub-Assembly" (a name that should and does strike fear) to get a purchase on a captured nut therin, to further the cause of extraction of aforementioned "Front No. 1 Lower Suspension Arm Sub-Assembly RH/LH".

I'll take a few 10ths of a mpg drop over that grief any day.



And once the deed is done, the tightening of the two main bolts of the Front No. 1 Lower Suspension Arm Sub-Assembly RH/LH must be done delicately...



With the car lowered back to the ground, and the front end bounced a few times, to settle things. How you torque the bolts with the car down, who knows: on ramps, using an oil change pit??

And then there the aligment. And first step of that is Zero Point Calibration procedure (just that title makes me break into a sweat), and when you get into alignment, there's a possibility you'll be needing alternate bolts (with narrower shanks) for these:



There's various sizes...

Reality being, a lot of these procedures are so arduous/involved, I'd suspect they don't get done. The instructions are behind the paywall at toyota tech info, which doesn't help.



So cowboy mechanics get new parts in there, the car feels funny, noisy, and the bushing on the parts have accelerated wear, and you're back where you started.

 

why would you run the prius at 46/41?

 

Suspension or tire tread suicide.

 

is that much suspension wear unexpected at 130k?

 

I run 42 front 38 back..... 42.3 average mpg
247,000 miles on the clunker

 

No way! Run the rears 46 psi also, be different. Run those potholes over like a boss, you own them.

 

One of the drawbacks of following too close.

 

but the door sticker is a two pound difference. do you think there is an benefit to 5, or is it a ratio?