How Often Should I Check My Tire Pressure

How Often Should I Check My Tire Pressure

| Brandon

How often should I check my tire pressure is a question we hear very often. Too many people don’t know how, or how often they need to check their tires, and why it’s even important. In this article we will try and explain why it’s important to check tire pressure, and how often you should do it. Here are the main topics we will be discussing:

How often should I check my tire pressure

OK, let’s get started, the quick and easy answer to this question is once a month. But let’s get into details a little bit. You should make sure to check the tires when the car is parked and has been standing for a few hours, you want the tires to be ” cold ” and not warm from the friction of driving.

Why when the car is parked? Because belive it or not, tire pressure can change in a rate of 1-2 pounds per square inch for every 10 degree difference in temperature. During the col winter months, the tire pressure drops while in the hot summer days it will increase by a lot. If you comply and check tire pressure once a month, you will notice this and adjust accordingly.

Try and make it a rule of thumb to check the tires once a month, some will actually set a reminder on their phone for the 1st of every month to check tires, this eliminates the human factor and you don’t have to remember this little but very important task.

Just don’t forget to actually check them when the reminder pops up

Why it’s important to check tire pressure

Again, let’s take the simple answer possible right away, your car will drive and perform better when you check your tires pressure regularly. Here are the most common issues that can happen when your tires are not inflated properly:

There are more reasons but these are just a few important examples.

How to check your tire’s pressure and fill it up as necessary

So how do you check the correct tire pressure for your car? Easy, it’s on the driver’s door when you open it on the inside, there is a little sticker with the correct tire pressure you should use.

What is PSI? Pounds per square inch 

Pound per square inch, or also known as Pound-force per square inch is basically a way to measure the stress of the resulting force of 1 pound-force applied to an area of 1 square inch. Simple right? Now you know what is PSI

How to actually check tire pressure

To properly check the tires pressure you will need to get a tire pressure gauge. You can find one of these at any auto parts store. Once you have the gauge in hand, follow these steps:

  1. unscrew the cap from one of the tires and place it somewhere that you won’t lose it.
  2. Now press the gauge on the open air valve and press it firmly for a second or two. You will normally hear a little bit of air flowing out.
  3. Now read the pressure gauge. If you use a manual gauge, you will see the dial being pushed and just see where it stops on the dial. If you use a digital once, you will just a see a number on the screen.
  4. Now compare this number with the recommended number for your car
  5. Repeat this process for each car tire.

Now you know the pressure for each tire of your car. Now let’s learn how to inflate your tires if you learned in the previous step that the pressure was too low.

How to inflate car tires the right way

  1. First thing you should do is make sure to park your car close enough to the curb so you can reach all four tires.
  2. Remove the first cap vaulve from the tire you want to inflate and place it somewhere you will remember.
  3. Press the hose firmly on the tire vaulve, make sure you hear the air flowing, you might also feel it in the hose.
  4. Remove the air hose and check the tire pressure like described above.
  5. Repeat these steps for all four tires.
  6. Once the tires are all with the correct tire pressure, close the caps again and that’s it.