Tire pressure

[rbowman]

Or you ignore the amber icon all winter. I'm good with that.

[rbowman]

Holding up his hand... I rotate and swap the winter and summer rims/tires myself. I don't get any surprises if I have a flat since I don't torque the nuts down to 400 ft-lbs like the Magnificent Hulk at the tire store. When it comes time for a new set of shoes, I dump the set off in the morning and pick them up at night rather than hanging around a tire store for hours. Works for me.

[rbowman]

On my F150, I would have to go with a longer center bolt. I'm not sure if the nut assembly would interfere but I don't think so.

[rbowman]

You only needed those for the older Chrysler products with the left handed lug nuts.

[rbowman]

Semis have high pressure air available but I suppose you could adapt the system.

[dpb]

Not enough snow/ice here to bother to change the automobiles out and the

4x4 PUs all have all-weather on them, anyway. When it does snow here, it almost always blows so much that car can't do anything with the drifting anyway because such low ground clearance so the tires really make no difference.

Bought the wife a Buick Lucerne w/ the AWD and 20" rims so she'd have something w/ more traction/clearance on the muddy roads when it does (rarely last several years of drought) rain enough that the roads are muddy...it's been useful a couple of times since had it for the purpose. It's also actually a decent field-errand car for meals during harvest time and the like as she's so short that getting in/out of and driving the 4-wheelers is a lot of work and she doesn't like them. The Enclave handles the sandy fields very well and has enough clearance to not high center unduly or be a terrible fire hazard w/ the catalytic converter dragging stubble...

[rbowman]

With truck tires I could usually pick up a tire that was 10 to 20 pounds low by thumping. They were 110 psi tires and you were thumping two side by side so you had an immediate comparison unless both were low.

Down 40 pounds or so almost anyone would pick up the duller sound. As for exactly 110 psi, I definitely wasn't that good.

[rbowman]

The Feds predicted about 120 lives a year might be saved. With about 33,000 fatalities a year in the US that is hardly an overwhelming return on what they estimated would be a cost approaching 900 - 1000 million per year.

[Robert Green]

People don't have to die to suffer serious financial consequences from accidents. While I don't particularly believe in the need for automatic tire pressure monitoring (people should be taught to regularly walk around their cars to inspect for low tires, etc) I suspect it would be very hard to calculate the true cost benefit of such systems. I also suspect the price of installing such systems will drop over time as new techniques evolve.

As for the price of gas, it's falling pretty fast around here as crude drops to nearly $60 a barrel. I am not surprised to see that the people who blamed Obama for high gas and oil prices aren't giving him any credit for the drops in price. (-: (Although realistically he had little to do with the rise or fall of oil prices.)

Ironically, the cheaper oil is roiling the stock market, given Putin $hit fits and causing the Saudis to try to flood the market and collapse the frackers. I suspect crude will soon be so cheap that the Excel pipeline will be economically unfeasible because of how expensive it will become to process the tar sands compared to fracking and OPEC fire sales. China is the only country so far that seems to be doing anything about the boom/bust cycle (a cycle that's been with oil since the first wildcatter). They're building up a national reserve so they can stock up at the current low prices and draw on that stockpile when prices invariably rise again in the future.

Some interesting details here at:

and:

The dice are rolling - I can feel it!

[rbowman]

The temperatures here tend to hover around 32 for much of the winter. Add in an inch or two of fresh snow, sometimes every night, and you have a perfect environment to turn roadways into ice rinks. All weather treads don't do much, nor is 4WD all that useful when all four are sliding.

The city is very religious about snow removal; God put it there and God will remove it when He feels like it. The main arteries wear down to pavement eventually, but the side streets just turns to ice, with nice frozen berms.

[NotMe]

It's a federal requirement goin back a number of years. I'm not at all impressed with whats offered OEM but after market sensons can be reliable but you get what you pay for.

[NotMe]

You were ripped. OEM replacementas rub ~ $50 all over the internet. Many tire dealerships will do the replacement for free.

[NotMe]

Why does the second set have to have them?

[Liz Megerle]

The vehicle is looking for input from those sensors. If it doesn't see them it goes full time into some sort of stability assist mode.

[rbowman]

I'm glad my car isn't that smart. Or dumb. I've come to like the traction/stability control in most cases but at times I'd like to be able to turn it off too.

[Tekkie®]

KenK posted for all of us...

Deflection is not the way to measure. Is the fuel tank empty or full? Driver inside or out? On a stone or flat surface? Buy a dial type with hose and don't drop it. Or digital.

[Tony Hwang]

Hmm, Our cars came with TPMS. When replacing tire, they can be reused with a kit which basically new valve seal, nut, washer.

[N8N]

Buying a *good* tire pressure gauge with a good chuck on it makes checking pressure less frustrating. Good chuck especially, I want one that will go on and off with minimal pressure loss. My local speed shop just had a sale on "last year's model" Longacre dial/hose type gauges for $20 so I bought a new one and gave my old one to a kid who didn't have one at all.

Which reminds me, I better actually check that the new one works before the returns window runs out :)

Better yet, I used a Cornwell digital inflator last time I was at my friend 's shop with a locking chuck, damn that is a sweet tool. Apparently there' s a new Cornwell rep in the area who's aggressively trying to catch all the shops his predecessor missed... sure that one isn't $20 though.

nate

[N8N]

It has but I would not rely on it unless you have an actual pressure readou t in real PSI. a "Low Tire" warning just means that the tire has 75% of th e door sticker pressure, I'd prefer to know before that point.

nate

[N8N]

They only last about 5-7 years though :/ Already replaced two on my 2009 M Y car.