lgball

Mine are Kumho Ecsta 4X.

Brozee

Update:

I had the Nitto Motivo tires installed today. They have a nice subtle look to them right off the bat. I can already tell that the ride is much improved on my quite bald and very low tread Continental DWS'. Talked them down to $225 a tire at DiscountTire, which is a great price of an A/S tire with a 60k warranty especially in my 275/35/20 tire size.

I will update in the future on my experience. So far I notice it has a nice deep tread, and they are very quiet, even at speeds up to 100mph it was near silent on the highway. Also when changing lanes I noticed it kind of just nicely swifts into the next lane, where with my worn down Continentals you had more feel when you were changing lanes (in a bad way) made the car seem heavy. As usual my TPMS adapted right away and are working perfect

Will keep you guys updated.

Side ?, I plan on getting an alignment soon just in-case mine was off previously. Besides that I know MP4.2 suggested something like around 40 PSI for the tires, as my sticker says 41 up front 44 rear, which they placed the tires at. I then had them adjust it to be 41 in front and 39 in rear. Please correct me or confirm if this is the correct tire pressure that I should be running on a W12 with 275/35/20 tires.

Thanks!

Driver1.8

For the rears, 39 psi might be a little high. Based on my observation of tread wear (on the 20"s), I think 40F 37R is about right (I have a 4.2, so 41F might be proper for the W12). There's no doubt that 44 psi in the rears is much too high for normal load conditions. I wore the center of the tread significantly before I realized that the door jamb sticker recommendations are for max load conditions.

MP4.2+6.0

From a few posts historically, I found the 4.2 factory pressure stickers and the W12 stickers are apparently different, even at the same nominal tire sizes/wheels; the W12 ones are higher. I still stand at the 39-40 range for W12's in 275/35-20 on the factory fitments, and based on extended/life cycle running on tires for even wear and now trending toward 39 to be specific. 4.2's are likely a bit lower, but you would need to interpolate from the sticker ranges for the car and watch the treadwear over a tire life cycle, including the effect of any rotations if pressures or wear are varying front to back.

Driver1.8

My door sticker says 41F, 44R.

I agree that monitoring tread wear is important, and probably the best way to set the tire pressure on these cars that have very little (if any?) camber in the setup.

Besides the different characteristics of LWB vs SWB and W12 vs 4.2 vs 5.2, there could even be differences in tire brands/constructions that might dictate different pressures to get even wear across the tread.

MP4.2+6.0

See my posts further below too; this is W12 specific in 275/35-20. Brozee, also note one of my replies below dealing with 2007 era pressure sticker changes. Yours and mine (a 2006) may differ at that subtle level too, even both as W12's with the identical wheel set up and most all the same options.

On the W12 specifically 41 and 44PSI are the HIGH end of the pressure ranges with the 275/35-20 fitment and with the maximum load. I never run that high (either absolute, or at the upper end of the range) on any Audi, and in the low profiles it makes the ride quality harsher than need be anyway. Your tire shop may have Ford Explorer rollover fatigue or follow up risk training with Explodostone tires--a sad story of poor fitments, marginal tires and tragedy that Audi's are light years away from with properly speed rated tires, much less overloading risk, much lower centers of gravity, infinitely better handling, better safety systems, etc.

My net is my starting point on the W12 is the MIDDLE of the two ranges you see on the (pre-2007) pressure sticker--the lightly loaded vs. heavily loaded numbers. That puts me about 39-40, and specifically with my near full life Michelin PS2 and then AS+ experiences where I also kept track of position rotations too , I have backed off to 39PSI generally; I was seeing very slight extra wear toward center indicating a bit too much pressure. Harder to tell in front than the rear with the front edge scrub off, especially when the tire positions change with rotations. Can go up a pound or two in front if you want, but seems like 39 might be the settling point for wear, ride, decent rim protection, still in factory range, etc. Later edit: if you have the "later" pressure sticker (located on the drivers door jamb) see your owner's manual for better info that should also it better with this post.

MP4.2+6.0

If you are looking at the door jamb instead of the rear fuel door, you likely have the "new and improved" safety sticker courtesy of the Ford Explorer fiasco. If it is a white background with black, red and yellow printing and symbols, that's the one. Older years for Audis tend to be silver with black print, and commonly on the fuel door and sometimes on the fender well sheet metal of the nearest rear door when you open it.

The change happened in 2007 IIRC. Exactly when seems uncertain on the D3 and may vary by motor some too; it likely actually ties to build dates rather than strictly model years. Basically the stickers got redone to only show pressures for MAXIMUM load--the crux of the Explorer problem since they just couldn't handle the full load at lower pressures. They also had to be specific to the wheels on the car instead of several possible fitments. Some years back in some Phaeton and W8 posts I came upon this first when U.S. and Euro posters were posting just like this and then got to the sticker level. Sure enough, the U.S. ones were the same as the Euro ones pre circa 2007, but then they got jacked up pressure wise and reduced to single numbers on the U.S. side ONLY from 2007 on. Annoying to me, since I want to know what the quality manufacturer thinks for a high performance vehicle and if I later decide to change wheel sizes, not with some nanny layer to protect myself from Ford Explorer fiascos. The mandate also forced the stickers to have that newer standard appearance and to always be placed on the door jamb pillar.

Meanwhile, look in your owner's manual. A lot of manuals still have the more detailed info about tire pressures. That's what I found with my 2010 Mini S, which likewise has the dumbed down door jamb sticker but better info and pressure ranges across various factory wheel fitments and motor choices in the manual.

On the motor and wheelbase deltas by the way, the SWB vs. LWB difference is only 35kg, and spread across the front and rear wheels since the added 5" is just behind the B pillar. Neither the W12 nor S8 motors are particularly light (brochure marketing aside) and not that different from each other in total heft. More generally, a lot of the W12 overall extra weight is in the higher average level of standard equipment compared to others (and often the S8 with it)--bigger brakes, exhaust starting from quad and bigger throughout, more drivetrain related auxiliary coolers, bigger tire/wheel normal fitments, more power gadgets, more likely acoustic glass, etc. With a somewhat lighter motor and especially related drivetrain components load and then an average lower option weight, the 4.2 has that meaningful weight advantage, and enough to affect tire settings. For the W12 and S8 crowd, the single biggest performance advantage the S8 has relative to the W12 is the more aggressive differential gearing. Without that, the torque advantage of the W12 would pretty easily overcome the marginal weight delta to the S8; on the other hand the gearing hurts the S8 incrementally on mileage even with a 10%+ displacement advantage and FSI. On tires for the two (in 20's), other than the slightly lesser width (265's) common to S8's that was really meant to lower the effective profile even in the same nominal 35's, I would not expect enough differences to affect PSI settings relative to maximum tire life.

Brozee

Thanks,
So it looks like i'm going to set them at 39psi all around.