The Pressure Is On

THE PRESSURE IS ON

Here's a brief explanation on why you should probably be paying more attention to your car's tire pressure.

To begin with, having your tires inflated properly prevents blowouts due to under or over inflation.  An underinflated tire can wear from the inside, weakening the sidewall and eventually causing complete tire failure.  An over inflated tire can be problematic as well.  As you drive your tires heat up and when you heat up a container the pressure increases even more, and this could also cause complete tire failure.

An over inflated tire can also wear the tread from the center out thus shortening its usable life span.  And since they are not giving tires away these days, you really want to make sure to maximize your tire mileage by always having a properly inflated tire.

By simply looking at a tire it is impossible to determine if it is inflated properly, therefore, keeping a tire gauge in your glove box is never a bad idea.  They are cheap and you can find them anywhere automotive supplies are being sold.  End of story right?  Not really.

One of the most common misconceptions about inflating a tire is that you just read what the maximum pressure is on the side and then just pump away.  On my car it appears as so:

photo by Darrin Hartford

Filling the tire to the maximum pressure stated on the side is not really a good idea.  While technically the tire can handle that pressure, it is most likely not what the engineers determined the optimal pressure to be.  They spend millions of dollars in research in order to find this number.  All vehicle manufacturers are required to place a label on the car that tells what the recommended psi should be.  Most often this label is located within the driver's door jamb and it looks like this:

photo courtesy of www.autorepairconnect.com 

This label tells you the original tire size, the maximum load rating and what the proper tire pressure is for your particular vehicle.  

It is recommended that you check your tires when they are cold, not after you have driven through the Mojave desert, at least once a month if you are using conventional air to fill them.

Another option for inflating your tires, is using nitrogen.  Your tire pressure will remain constant over a longer period of time.  To find out more about the benefits of using nitrogen to fill your tires click here.

Thanks for reading and of course stay pumped!