• Hey Guest!
    British Car Forum has been supporting enthusiasts for over 25 years by providing a great place to share our love for British cars. You can support our efforts by upgrading your membership for less than the dues of most car clubs. There are some perks with a member upgrade!

    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Upgraded members don't see this banner, nor will you see the Google ads that appear on the site.)
Tips
Tips

Tire Gauge

DNK

Great Pumpkin
Country flag
Offline
So SWMBO'd and I were out doing a little shopping.The steering felt a little squirrely so when we parked I glanced at the tires to check them and one looked a little low.
The wife says lets just buy another gauge while we are here.
The store isn't a real high end store and was a bit concerned about quality.
When I got hom I checked the offending tire and only showed a lb. low.
Checked it with the new gauge and there was a 2lb low difference.

SO ...what is the best way to check a tire gauge?
 
DNK said:
So SWMBO'd and I were out doing a little shopping.The steering felt a little squirrely so when we parked I glanced at the tires to check them and one looked a little low.
The wife says lets just buy another gauge while we are here.
The store isn't a real high end store and was a bit concerned about quality.
When I got hom I checked the offending tire and only showed a lb. low.
Checked it with the new gauge and there was a 2lb low difference.

SO ...what is the best way to check a tire gauge?

Dude, two things.

Whose wife says lets go buy a tire gauge?

And, you are talking about <span style="font-weight: bold">one pound</span> difference.

I think ya'll have a lot of time on your hands. :jester:
 
You get out all 15 of your tire gauges and compare them and take the average.

Yeh, there are companies that calibrate gauges, but it costs more than the tire gauge and even then you can't adjust the gauge to make it correct.
 
the digital gauges self calibrate every time you use them. I used to test mine against the tire pressure sensor readout on the scantool. It was usually within .5 Lbs.
 
Motorcycle Consumer News did a test of tire gauges and found that all of them (digital, cheap pencil type) were all about the same as far as accuracy goes. Basically pick one and use it.
 
drooartz said:
Motorcycle Consumer News did a test of tire gauges and found that all of them (digital, cheap pencil type) were all about the same as far as accuracy goes. Basically pick one and use it.

I have several, but my favorite is a dial gauge
 
Not much on TV tonight is there.
grin.gif
 
I was watching Paul McCartney at the CBS Studio playing with some greats like Joe Walsh on Classical Guitar and none other than Diana Krall on Steinway! It is being streamed for a limited time on iTunes Store, for those of you who have access to the iTunes store via iTunes.
 
So what, I keep buying gauges until I find 2 that read the same and then throw he others out?
 
DNK said:
So what, I keep buying gauges until I find 2 that read the same and then throw he others out?

The problem with that is they both may be wrong.




Speaking of inflating tires, I checked the air in the wife's Accord tires before a long road trip, found them all equally ('twas a chilly morning) low so I got my handy Chinese electric air pump out and ran them all up to 30 lbs. I use the cool dial air gauge from TRF. Visibly, they all looked fine after inflating, they all had that nice "radial sag.". When she arrived in Dallas, car trouble caused her to pull into a Honda dealer for a quick fix. They were nice enough to give her car a once-over and found the tires to be dangerously over-inflated, 45 lbs! Was it the British air gauge, the Chinese pump, the French tires or the Japanese car?
 
Bill said:
Was it the British air gauge, the Chinese pump, the French tires or the Japanese car?

Multi-national Conspiracy!!!
 
TR6BILL said:
The problem with that is they both may be wrong.




Speaking of inflating tires, I checked the air in the wife's Accord tires before a long road trip, found them all equally ('twas a chilly morning) low so I got my handy Chinese electric air pump out and ran them all up to 30 lbs. I use the cool dial air gauge from TRF. Visibly, they all looked fine after inflating, they all had that nice "radial sag.". When she arrived in Dallas, car trouble caused her to pull into a Honda dealer for a quick fix. They were nice enough to give her car a once-over and found the tires to be dangerously over-inflated, 45 lbs! Was it the British air gauge, the Chinese pump, the French tires or the Japanese car?

Or the correct answer: The Honda dealer is an idiot. Tire pressures are for COLD tires. That is why you are supposed to check them after driving less than 3 miles. When you drive the tires warm up, and the pressure goes UP. A drive on the highway, the temperature went up, and the pressure went up to 45 PSI. Plain old physics.
Now if the Honda idiot took air out of the tires your wife's car is dangerously underinflated. Re-inflate those tires ASAP. BTW unless you can wait till the morning you are going to have to put more air in because the tires are warm of course since you probably don't have a thermometer, know the volume of air... it is just a guess as to exactly how much more air you need.
 
Back
Top