Tyre pressures - urgent, please help

B

bras0782

Member
Before starting my trip to Europe tomorrow I went to check the tyre pressures at a petrol station using the self-service air they have. The manual says the front should be 33 psi and the back 36 psi, but here's what I found:

front-left: 14 psi
front-right: 19 psi
rear-left: 9 psi
rear-right: 21 psi

WTF!!! :o

Are these things bad at measuring pressures of RFTs? Surely those figures are wrong?!? I filled the tyres to requred levels and reinitialised the computer (as per the manual). I'm worried to say the least. :(

I've never checked the pressure (bought the car in April), but haven't had any noticeable problems and the light has never come on in the on board display.

Any ideas?
 
Ah - you're right - you did say you could worry me.

Don't rely on petrol station gauges at all. They are given so much hammer that they are close to useless for other than the source of air.

Get yourself a decent gauge and get them set to the correct pressure especially as you're about to embark on a long trip. Failing that drop by any local tyre shop and aske them nicely and I'm sure they'll check for free.

Runflats will of course run on Zero, but for limited time and speed so if one were at 9psi you'd have had one horrible ride of late
 
cj10jeeper said:
...if one were at 9psi you'd have had one horrible ride of late
Click to expand...

Exactly what I though. Even if they were all at 20 psi I'd expect a heavy/rough drive, let alone the fact that they were all vastly different.

I'm worried that either the tires are losing air or that the machine was wrong and I've now massively over-inflated the tyres :o I'll pop out to another service station to test the pressure and maybe shed some light on what's going on.

I need to catch a 6am ferry - so not sure how much more I can do now. Hopefully they'll have something on the ferry.
 
Agreed, get a decent gauge and check them again.

TBH the tyre monitor only detects rather rapid changes in pressure, and IIRC on mine the runflats do tend to lose air more than other cars (did on mine anyway). BTW the ride must have been absolutely shocking with those kind of pressures, it must be like a new car with some air in the tyres?
 
Wondermike said:
BTW the ride must have been absolutely shocking with those kind of pressures, it must be like a new car with some air in the tyres?
Click to expand...

No, that's my point - not noticed any difference at all. The steering is just as light as before and I still get the infamous tramlining/roughness on poor roads (RFTs).

I just took the car to another service station (4.5 miles since the last check) - Esso, the first check was at Sainsbusry's. This time the fronts read 31 psi, the backs 33 psi - I filled them to 33 and 36 respectively before. Those differences could be due to the different machines, especially considering the front and back differences are consistent. Will try again in the morning at the same station.

If the tyres really were that low then either all four have 'expired' recently or they've been very slowly losing air over a long tim. Alternatively, perhaps these machines are not too good at reading pressures below 25 psi or around there - I did notice they tyre quickly filled up to the lates 20s, but took longer to fill from there to 33 or 36 psi.

Hope the week goes smoothly - won't be much of a road trip if the tyres go :wink: If I go missing for a while then assume the worst :D
 
Ah OK good luck then, if you can't notice the ride quality then they must have had air in them. When you get back it (if you get back :P ) might be worth running them down to 20psi or so and having a quick drive (that's all you're spine will be able to take) so you can tell the difference in future.

Good luck, remember the pics :thumbsup:
 
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