Correct Way to Check Tire Pressure on Your Vehicle

Welcome back guys, it's the Tightwad and today we are talking about tire PSI, how to find the accurate inflation rates for your tires, and also why your PSI changes over time, typically during seasonal changes. Many modern vehicles have automatic tire pressure sensors inside the tires, so that links to the computer of your vehicle and you can see that I can easily tell the front right or passenger side tire on my wife's car has a low tire pressure, so that gives me a indication that I do need to stop and check the tire pressure. This frequently happens in the transition of seasons from fall to winter whenever the temperatures drop dramatically. As things warm up, air expands, and as things cool down, air contracts, so it takes up less space, so therefore the pressure in the tire goes down. So that's why you commonly have to put air or need to put air in your tires in the transition in the south from fall to winter or whenever you're starting to hit those 30s and 40s. Vehicle tires have a lot of helpful information on them that you need when you're purchasing new tires, but they also have other information as well, and this one talks about the max load and then the max pressure here, and on the max pressure it says right here 44 PSI, so a lot of people misinterpret this as that's the PSI that I should run my tires at, which simply isn't true. That is the max, meaning the upper end of the threshold, so now today I'm going to show you where you should look to find the correct PSI for your tires on your vehicle. The correct PSI is actually listed on your vehicle, and it's on a tag right here inside the door jamb. If I come right here, I see the recommended tire size is a 245-65-17, and then over on the right side here, we see the cold tire pressure, meaning you haven't been riding down the road, so after the car has been sitting idle, and you'll see that it is 32 PSI, which is way lower than the 44 max PSI that was listed on the tire itself. So we're gonna check my wife's tires today, and we're going to make sure they're all inflated to the recommended 32 PSI. Now that we know exactly which tire pressure we should have, I'm gonna check her front passenger tire, and I'm gonna use this tire gauge right here. This is a digital tire gauge. I've had this thing for probably 10 years, and it still works great. If you're in the market for a new tire pressure gauge, check the description or the pinned comment for links to some of my favorite ones on Amazon.com. With these tire gauges, you simply turn it on, and I can see it's calibrated at 0.0 PSI, and I push it into the tire and back out, and it says it has 26 PSI. I always check a couple of times just to make sure, and we are definitely at 26 PSI on this tire. So we've got to add a fair amount of pressure. We need to go up 6 pounds of pressure on this particular tire. I do have an air compressor in my basement typically because I do woodworking, but if you don't, most gas stations have air tanks where you can go and pay a couple of quarters. If you go to, in the South, if you go to something like a quick trip, they typically have it for free, but just make sure you take your own tire gauge. So I'm adding a little bit of air, and then I'm gonna test it again, and I'm up to 29 and a half, so we're halfway there. Test it again here, and I got to 32 and a half. I'm gonna use this to take a little bit out, and I do that just by not completely sealing it, and now you just keep adding and removing until you get it dialed in, and you keep checking it until you get dialed in, and remember mine was 32 PSI, so this particular tire is dialed in. Now I'll go ahead and check all the others because even though it didn't show that they're low, they could be a couple of PSI low. I hope you found this video helpful. If you did, give it a thumbs up. Subscribe to my channel for more DIY style videos. Post any questions you have in the comment section below, and I promise I'll get back to you as soon as possible. Click any of the videos on the screen now, and they'll open right up on your device. I hope you guys have a great day.