I'm looking for a decent quality tyre gauge for the car.

[daleyd]

Has everyone gone that critical on tire pressure ?
You could get your gage calibrated by a standards lab every 6 months, traceable to NIST/UK or other international standards, but really ?

Not at all - I just use the one that’s built into my pcl inflator. It was calibrated when new and only gets used every now and then so it’s hardly had a hard life.

If it checks out roughly accurate with a dial gauge or the car tpms (when I can be bothered to check ) thats more than good enough, for me at least. I use the same dial gauge for motorbike tyres as a few psi can make a real difference on those. But I’ve never seen any difference between the pcl and the dual gauge…

 

[dobbslc]

But, as I was told after I asked, the torque wrench used after the windy gun, "clicked" at the right setting so it must be right . . .

I felt an explanation wasn't going to work . . .

I took the torque wrench off one guy and showed him how to use it, I could see he couldn't understand how I knew he had overtightened the bolts when it clicked at 100 then 110 then 115 nm
Thick as ****!
Then when I got home I noticed they had left all the old valves on!
£500 worth of new tyres and they couldn't be bothered to change them

 

[Wozzaaah]

I wonder sometimes just what is going on....
"Y'all" don't have TPMS systems in the vehicles ?

You and me both!
No, we don't, and "y'all" don't either!

 

[Robotstar5]

I took the torque wrench off one guy and showed him how to use it, I could see he couldn't understand how I knew he had overtightened the bolts when it clicked at 100 then 110 then 115 nm
Thick as ****!
Then when I got home I noticed they had left all the old valves on!
£500 worth of new tyres and they couldn't be bothered to change them

Reminds me of one of our old fitters, when we did a tooling change the nuts had to be done to a certain torque, he would go up to the torque then a bit more "for luck"

 

[Erie Fred]

Not at all - I just use the one that’s built into my pcl inflator. It was calibrated when new and only gets used every now and then so it’s hardly had a hard life.

If it checks out roughly accurate with a dial gauge or the car tpms (when I can be bothered to check ) thats more than good enough, for me at least. I use the same dial gauge for motorbike tyres as a few psi can make a real difference on those. But I’ve never seen any difference between the pcl and the dual gauge…

I have a top quality large pencil type bought off a tool truck, and even that one, the graduations are only 2psi each.
The digital ones (suggested above) are much easier to discern a pound or 2.

 

[Farside]

I had some new tyres fitted to my motorbike, I did query the pressure when he put 42 psi in as I normally ran on 36 psi, he said that was the correct pressure for the tyre, it was like riding on ice, so as soon as I got home I dropped it to 36 psi, sorted.

Before I started fitting my own tyres, the local tyre fitter used to whack in some stupidly high pressures.
Turned out he read the "Max Pressure at Max Load" figure on the sidewalls and assumed that was the norm.
FFS.
He did that with everyone's tyres, so who knows how many dangerously over-inflated tyres were whizzing around here at the time.

 

[ukracer]

If you buy a car made after I think 2014, you'll have them - required by law, and an MOT fail if they aren't there or don't work - assuming the MOT tester notices of course.

I have thought about simply bolting them into a welded up length of pressurised RHS - but some of them need movement, ie wheel rotation, to do whatever it is they need to do.

The ones on my Dodge are amusing - I set all tyres to the same, correct, pressure of 32 psi - the dash display tells me pressure at each corner - can vary around the car from 25psi to 45 psi.

I just got a 16 plate tiguan and that does not have them.
In fact it does not have much. Its a poverty spec I think.
In fact it does not have cruise control so watch out for a separate thread asking for advice on retro fitting cruise control to it.

 

[Farside]

Has everyone gone that critical on tire pressure ?
You could get your gage calibrated by a standards lab every 6 months, traceable to NIST/UK or other international standards, but really ?

I just like knowing what I'm dealing with - the rate of air loss, for example. Right now, I know that I can jump on and go, as no tyre is losing air over several days, so if I'm in a hurry I don't need to faff around checking stuff.
Normally, I check stuff before every trip out though.

 

[brightspark]

i scored mine of a garage forecourt 50 years ago i have a new tire gauge as well and both give an accurate reading

 

[keithski122]

I don't need to check mine as the car gets serviced every year and they get checked then.

 

[Pigeon_Droppings2]

I find the compressor gauge is a bit useless when trying to balance pressures to get the dash warning clear.

The gauges may be reasonably accurate but they're fighting against the fundamental laws of physics...bit pointless filling a car tyre accurately with hot compressed air!

 

[Erie Fred]

I find the compressor gauge is a bit useless when trying to balance pressures to get the dash warning clear.

The gauges may be reasonably accurate but they're fighting against the fundamental laws of physics...bit pointless filling a car tyre accurately with hot compressed air!

It would be good to know what pressure that alarm limit is set at, and go a few pounds higher (unless a few pounds higher leads to bad tire wear, or bad handling) in that case, I would ask one of the car electronics people about changing that set point.

 

[bricol]

Older cars don’t have them, plus some (VW for one) don’t give you an actual pressure reading, they only tell you if a tyre is deflating. Also how would you know the system is working ok, without having something to check against?

Other halfs Fiesta simply has a warning light - Doesn't tell you which wheel. and if you drive around long enough with it on, as she did, it resets itself to the new lower value . . . so when I blew them up to the correct pressure, it shouted about a fault that way instead - her commute to the railway station and back wasn't long enough for it to recalibrate, so I got blamed for a week until she went on a long enough drive for it to reset properly.

 

[bricol]

I just got a 16 plate tiguan and that does not have them.
In fact it does not have much. Its a poverty spec I think.
In fact it does not have cruise control so watch out for a separate thread asking for advice on retro fitting cruise control to it.

Unless someones took them out and persuaded it to not show an alarm, then it has - it was law in 2012, and became part of the UK MOT in 2015, regardless of whether it was Ghia or Popular spec. If your mot tester goes by the book, and it's missing, inoperative, or shows a fault, then I believe it counts as a major fail.

 

[voipio]

The Fiestas use wheel revolution counts to detect deflation. A tyre that's deflating will turn more quickly than the corresponding wheel on the other side of the vehicle.

 

[skotl]

I have 1 of these for both my motors and liked them that much I bought 2 more so the wife and daughter have 1 in their cars as well

Probably getting on for 3yrs old now

Pardon our interruption...

Bought one of these off Amazon without checking the reviews. Didn't work, just flashed the display repeatedly. Turns out the battery isn't user replaceable (!) so returned it to Amazon and got a replacement with the same fault.
Returned that and got my money back then checked the reviews and it seems it's an extremely common fault

 

[indy4x]

Bought one of these off Amazon without checking the reviews. Didn't work, just flashed the display repeatedly. Turns out the battery isn't user replaceable (!) so returned it to Amazon and got a replacement with the same fault.
Returned that and got my money back then checked the reviews and it seems it's an extremely common fault

I must have been lucky, between us we have 4, all still working and the oldest one is from 2019

They also match the readings on the pressure gauge on my PCL tyre inflator

The inability to replace batteries is something I wasn't aware of but may make me look elsewhere when they finally die

 

[bricol]

The Fiestas use wheel revolution counts to detect deflation. A tyre that's deflating will turn more quickly than the corresponding wheel on the other side of the vehicle.

The earlier system did.
They replaced it with one that measures pressure. Which when a back street tyre place replaces the leaking valve with a sensor strapped to with a conventional one, causes even more issues with inter-occupant harmony

 

[Erie Fred]

I just like knowing what I'm dealing with - the rate of air loss, for example. Right now, I know that I can jump on and go, as no tyre is losing air over several days, so if I'm in a hurry I don't need to faff around checking stuff.
Normally, I check stuff before every trip out though.

That sounds a bit odd, having to check them all the time.
Have you considered filling with nitrogen ?
Supposed to change less with temp.

Maybe add a sealant in case the rims are leaky ?

 

[Farside]

That sounds a bit odd, having to check them all the time.
Have you considered filling with nitrogen ?
Supposed to change less with temp.

Maybe add a sealant in case the rims are leaky ?

Just seems sensible to me. I know there are careless bastids around who rarely check anything, I'm not one of them.
I've already got a large percentage of N in them, anyway.
Normally, I don't need to apply sealant if the rims are cleaned, but some odd times I have to do it.