EntropySink
Nothing & Everything => Open Discussion => Topic started by: micah on December 27, 2017, 10:29:08 AM
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So it was somewhere between 1 and 4 degrees this morning when I left for work, and as seems to happen throughout the cold months, my TPMS light came on. I double checked that I didn't have a flat and hit the road, driving to the closets gas station with a free air compressor. About a 5 minute, mostly highway, drive. The door jam of my car says my tires should be at 33psi. They were all reading about 29 (sigh of relief as at least they were consistent so I knew I didn't have a leak). I fought through the pain of holding a metal air gun in 4 degree temperatures and added air. It was taking a while and it was getting pretty painful so I only filled each to about 31psi, enough to turn the TPMS light off.
So, question. I get tires expand as you drive and they heat up, and I get that the bitter cold shrinks them and thats why they loose air. So should I have filled them to 33 as recommended? or was 31 fine because its so cold and they'll expand a bit?
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33 is the max. It's entirely reasonable to run them at 31. This happened to me about a week ago and I had to hit both of our cars (thankfully in our garage).
EDIT: ok, so I had to go read up on it. The max on your tires is likely higher than what the door jam says. The door jam pressure is the optimal pressure for your car for the tires that are supposed to be on it. Any higher or significantly lower than that and the tires will wear faster on either the inside or outside of the tread. I don't think 2 PSI lower is going to have any negative effects and realistically you probably run in the 31 range more than you think just because tires will lose air over time and most people don't check them until the TPMS light comes on.
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A couple psi over or under is not going to be much. Many people prefer their ride to feel a certain way so they'll go over or under. It'll wear your tires though so a good way to gauge if your pressure is actually correct is to pay attention to the tire wear, too much on the inside or outsides.
Also I'm not sure about in the cold, but if you measured after you drove your PSI might be a bit higher than a "cold" read which is when you're supposed to read them. So you might still be a bit low. Also, when the weather warms up again make sure you check them to possibly let some air out.
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Tire pressure can vary by as much as 2 to 3 PSI per day with extreme temperature changes.
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C’mon, Micah. I would have assumed you were a Patriots fan who knew everything there was to know about cold weather and air pressure.
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:lol: