From time to time this subject has come up.
I had an interesting thought. Why doesn't someone come out with a gauge that you push against the side of the tire that measures the deflection? Beats removing a cap and fooling with a fussy tire air pressure gauge. It might need to be calibrated by the user with a regular gauge depending on type of tire. I'd buy one (if it didn't cost an arm and a leg).
What do you think?
I think it would be difficult to calibrate and have a cost considerably higher than a $2.95 Slime pencil type tire gauge. I picked the Slime brand because a review in a motorcycle magazine, where people tend to be less casual about tire pressures, found it as good as any and better than most, including the upscale digital models.
KenK:
The deflection of the tire sidewall is not the most accurate indicator of proper/over/underinflation.
Semi-OT: Has anyone seen that TV commercial where viewers are given 3 choices as to how much oil could be saved if everyone in America kept their tires properly inflated? I believe the correct answer was in the billions of gallons. Sobering!
The industry is one step ahead of that.
A friend of mine bought a /used/ car and it has built-in tire pressure sensors. She got a warning when one of the tires was low.
Since the car was used, that means the technology must have been around for a while now.
A decade or more ago I was in a store. They had tire pressure gauges, and for a dollar more, Radial tire pressure gauges.
- . Christopher A. Young Learn about Jesus
where viewers are given 3 choices as to how much oil could be saved if everyone in America kept their tires properly inflated? I believe the correct answer was in the billions of gallons. Sobering!
I doubt it's that much. Be interesting if that were true.
- . Christopher A. Young Learn about Jesus
my 2014 Toyota Avalon has some sort of automatic low tire pressure check
I wonder how this technology works...
marc
Besides the difference among tires' sidewall construction and stiffness you would also have to contend with 'where' the deflection was measured and what the material's temperature was and, just guessing, that the sidewall stiffness probably changes with age and mileage. Better to wait until all TPMS systems catch up with the most advanced types which give a direct readout of each tire's pressure rather than the present 'too low' indication.
For two dollars more, you could probably get a left-handed tire pressure gauge.
Paul
+1
I doubt you could come up with anything that works well because of all the variables.
How about on the fly pressure adjustment ? Drop a few pounds in rain or snow, add a few pounds for highway gas mileage. Baby whales need to breathe too.
let's see, 100 million cars means at least average of 10 gallons per car, or 40 quarts per year. Nope not being used up there, unless they meant 'lifetime'. How about trucking industry, yeah, they must be the true culprits of using all that oil. I'd be more worried about how one heavy 18 wheeler is equivalent to the traffic of 50,000 cars.
Wife's car has these sensors. One went bad and showed tire to be under inflated when it was inflated to the proper pressure. Dealer charged $100 for a new sensor and $100 to put it in. I would have been tempted to put a piece of masking tape over the red warning light. I have the same model car but older without the sensors and I've never been worried about it.
I rented a Toyota that had a screen that showed the pressure of each tire. Warning light came on but did not say which tire and I had to check them all with my gauge. Being a rental car, they varied by about
10 psi.Our masters in DC have mandated this. Can't wait for the mandated backup camera - more expensive shit to go bad.
Huh? You can buy cars less than a year old as "used". The technology has been around over five years though.
Avoid the dealer. A local tire shop charges $10 for them installed if replaced with new tires. Probably would have charged you $20 or so.
On 12/12/2014 9:16 AM, philo wrote: ...
Probably close to 10 yr if not longer; not sure whether it's yet in the "mandatory" column for new or not but haven't had a vehicle without it since an '06 model LeSabre that had them.
The '06 was the "one is bad, not indication of which" variety of indicator but all since all have at least an indication of which but since '10 all have digital readout on each tire.
I've yet to have one go bad with four vehicles and a combined mileage of probably >500k as a group, so in my mind they're _a_good_thing_ (tm) and well worth the relatively small initial cost.
Somebody brought up the rear camera -- it's in the '10 Enclave and I find it of little real value. I suppose if one had small kids it would have a chance of saving a backup incident but I've had the vehicle for five+ years now and I rarely, if ever, actually look at it. The backup IR sensors are excessively sensitive and somewhat annoying; if I had only a little more ambition I'd find the location of the beeper and put something over it to mute them significantly. I suspect in an instance or two over the life of a vehicle they'd have the possibility to prevent a fender crunch but are exceedingly irritating trying to parallel park in a tight spot as they start alarming far too far away from actual impact. That _could_ be tuned; others may be better...
I would, but she won't. Dealers won't do low cost repairs. Shops are tough too unless you're spending big bucks.
My friends cannot afford "late model" used cars.
Half my friends don't even own a car.
I don't think they have yet mandated that when this expensive shit goes bad it has to be repaired. not yet, anyway.
Stormin Mormon wrote in news:zGDiw.796562$ snipped-for-privacy@fx06.iad:
That radial air keeps twisting around and is much harder to measure.
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