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Happy tireween to you too.
nice to have a low pressure holiday.
@spicytuna62 Yep, happens with my tires every fall, without fail.
Spooky!
Is it normal for tire emergency lights to come on in autumn?
We usually get a big enough quick drop in temperatures that I get this each autumn. Even with new tires
My winter rims don’t have sensors because those cost money.
I live somewhere that I can’t get away with all season tires from late October until late April.
Same
Yes, if the tires were close to the cut off before the temp dropped. The sensor in my vehicle readstire pressure about 10% low in colder weather, which can be enough to trigger the warning on chilly mornings if I haven’t topped it off during the summer.
Just the low tire pressure warning.
Cold temperatures reduce the pressure, and since air leaks out of tires naturally over time, it is quite common for the change in temperature to suddenly put your tires below the threshold for normal tire pressure.
The cold weather compresses air which reduces the pressure… there no need for a leak for this to take place.
As soon as the day warms or the tires warm (with use) the pressure returns… it’s a pain the ass and I have yet to find a proper source that explains what the proper thing to do is.
I just top up my tires in a cold morning, and now they run 4 psi over the mark when they warm up.
Heat up gas => pressure go up
Cool down gas => pressure go down
pV=nRT
♥️
It’s only normal if you’ve been neglecting to check your tire pressure on a regular basis. Unless you live in a place with a massive yearly temperature differential, properly inflated tires won’t lose enough pressure to trigger the TPMS light once temps drop in the autumn.
Prevent a blowout: please stay on top of your tire pressure, people. Check it at least once a month.
But tpms means the car tells me when the tyre pressure gets low?
It’s only normal if you’ve been ~~neglecting to check your tire pressure on a regular basis. ~~
It’s only normal if you’ve been living in an area when temperature drops significantly.
There FIFY
I think you need to check your definition of “massive”. Coming from the opposite perspective, I assumed that essentially everyone sees this when the season turns.
Question for the Lemmings down under: is fall/autumn when it gets cold or when the calendar says October? What season do you call it when the weather turns cold? Or does it just not?
So where I live it gets as low as -40 in the coldest days of winter and in the summer it usually tickles about 100F. October is usually when the nightly cold weather starts, with lows in the 40s or so, and it just takes progressively longer each day for the day to warm up (and therefore the high temps drop over the course of the month) and usually November/December is when the temperatures are below freezing more often then not (with January/February being the peak of winter and when we get snow that lasts until the thaw in late March/early April
I don’t bother with snow tires because we really don’t get much snow where I live anymore. Maybe like a foot total each year, so I just get all-season tires which I leave on year round. Only times my tire pressure drops noticably is when we have the one week of -40 each year and that’s when my pressure can drop low enough to trigger the warning lights, but it doesn’t even happen most years. I also really don’t top off my tires often at all. Maybe like once a year when I feel like they need it but otherwise they tend to stay fine (maybe the shop tops them when I get my oil changed? I should ask about that…)
Where I live is nowhere near that but we do have distinct seasons. Similar to what you said I don’t bother with snow tires because we don’t get much and all the towns are really good about clearing it. However it’s warm enough that we don’t get snow that stays through winter. Any how, seems like I get these warnings about every other year
But yes, a lot of shops check and adjust tire pressure when you get oil changed.
35 to 27…buy a small compressor, its handy
I got a Ryobi battery powered air pump. It’s so nice to not have to drag out the whole compressor just to add a couple lbs my tires when the temperature drops.
Yeah I’ve got a small battery powered compressor that will top off tires up to about 37ish PSI but struggles to put more than that in. It’s nice for a quick top off, but my bike wants 60PSI so I had to buy a real compressor to keep my bike tires happy
Get a first gen Porsche Cayenne for a couple thousand and you get a hose from passenger footwell. Uses air from the air suspension lol
Fuel economy is as abysmal and it MAY eventually need an engine rebuild. Still best car I’ve ever owned.
At least one of my sensors is busted. The gauge says it’s fine. Looks like I’ll be fixing the issue with electrical tape.
Is that the symbol for a cauldron? I don’t get it
I don’t own any horse shoes.
Its a low tire pressure light.
In the fall, lower temperatures cause tire pressure to drop.
Get an air pump that runs off your car battery. Don’t get a jump/pump as those are more expensive and they break. Get one with a flashlight.
It’s one of those cheap purchases that makes a world of difference.
Most places still have a few gas stations with free air!
Don’t buy the cheapest tho, look online for one that has metal piston & cogs (are are only slightly more expensive, or perhaps even not more expensive).
The plastic ones break easily when heated (5 ~ 10 minutes).
But yeah, why not just pump the air at gas stations?
They usually have to recertify the gauges once a year.You are absolutely right about heat. They get hot
As for free air, more and more gas stations have attached credit card machines to their pumps. Having to hunt for ones that haven’t had become a chore. Also, it is so helpful to just have it on hand at any time.
we top ours up at tireween and tirester every year
Do you mean the time of year where a battery cell goes bad, ruining both the battery and the alternator while you have an Uber passenger in the car an hour from home and every system in your car is cartoonishly shutting off one by one?
Because YEP I GUESS IT’S ABOUT THAT TIME. :(
Chances are that the alternator was already bad, but symptoms didn’t manifest until the battery started to die. A running car should be able to stay alive purely from the alternator. It’s not a great long term solution, since it causes extra wear on the alternator. But it is possible to just push-start it and then keep it alive with the alternator alone.
But it is possible to just push-start it and then keep it alive with the alternator alone.
can confirm. had a buddy in HS whose car had neither a starter nor a working battery. every day after everyone left the parking lot, he would have us push his car over to the street on top of a hill, and then he’d clutch start it on the way down. we only had to push it back up the hill a couple times when he was learning how to do it.
You may well be right, but I’d already wrestled with the battery previously, and as soon as cold weather hit (literally like day 1.5 - 2), the problem cropped up, which is classic battery in my (admittedly pretty limited, but enthusiastic!) experience.
Edit: I see now that what I’m saying doesn’t contradict what you said.
I live in Taiwan and it’s been 90-95 since February.
It never really occurred to me that most people don’t check their tire pressure once or twice a month and let it get that bad.
I check mine when my car tells me to <shrug>
In the last month, the high temps where I live have dropped approximately 40 degrees.
That enough to drop tires pressure to the point of the light coming on if you’re not checking it at least biweekly
Which biweekly are you referring to?
Every two weeks.
Twice a week seems excessive…
Exactly
Or they made their seasonal change from their summers to winters, and if, like me, you have separate rims so you can easily do it at home, you now get to drive around with the car whining about no tpms. Because fucking cars can’t have this as built in diagnostic functionality in these giant computers on wheels.
When I have time I’ll pop over to a shop that can reprogram them to the second set, but it’s not exactly priority numero uno.
Mine got down to 18 psi
I used to be somebody who checked tire pressures much more often. Oil level too.
But even though our current vehicles are 12 and 13 years old, the tire pressure monitoring works right away on a cold day, and its threshold before turning on the light isn’t super low. It’s high 20s psi I believe.
It’s not that I want to ignore the workings of my car. I often enjoy using my phone olconnected to my bluetooth OBDII scanner to provide a bunch of extra gauges. I drive an old Mazda3 and it doesn’t even have a temperature gauge, just a light. So it’s cool being able to monitor coolant temperature, voltage, actual gallons of fuel in the tank, and various other sensors if I feel like it.
“That bad” is dropping from 32psi to 28 on the first cold day of the year. Doesn’t matter, I fill up once I’m back home.
I’ve just realised I’ve completely stopped checking mine since switching to an EV. I can go a couple of months without even stopping at a service station, so the old habit is broken.
Edit: For the confused people replying to me, we don’t call them gas stations outside of North America. We call them service stations or petrol stations.
I’m sure we do dumb things too, but calling a liquid “gas” is fucking comical btw 😆
What did you stop for at a service station before? Do you mean filling the car up?
Why do you need to stop so often at a service station with an EV? I thought the second plus was not having to get it serviced as much.
You don’t get it. Snow tires.
You buy a second set of wheels, and its more expensive to add TPMS so you don’t and you just get the light 4 months of the year.
Have snow tires, don’t have this issue. If I didn’t have that measurement thing then I could just reset the system to zero.
It only happens if you have a separate set of rims for your snow tires (and those rims have no TPMS sensors installed)
I’m not sure how the terminology works in English. I change the tires I open the bolts and take the tire off and it just has that small round metal part left where the brake is and that the bolts attach to. If without rims means just the rubber part then I haven’t really seen that sort of tire changing where I live. I wonder how you change such tires yourself, the rubber part seems pretty firmly in place
Oh so you are changing the rims in fact. Not sure why you’re not getting a tire pressure warning in that case, either the second set of rims has sensors, or there’s something wrong with the system
But to answer your question, around here most people who only change the tires (rubber) and re-use the same rims (metal) have it done professionally. It’s not impossible to do it at home but it’s generally not worth the trouble
Isn’t it great how cars just have like random lights that come on whose design is so ambiguous that there’s no possible chance you could work out what they’re trying to indicate.
My car occasionally displays a blue tick, what the hell is that supposed to mean? It only comes up maybe once every 4 or 5 months so it’s really hard to work out a pattern.
Dont you have the manual? I did buy a used car and it had manual
I bought a used car and it had not just the manual, but the original sales offer to the Estonian government (a specific department of it that I won’t name because that’s too specific). And this was a pre-EUR one, to give you an estimate of how long it’s been in the glove compartment.
But in general it’s been hit and miss for manuals with used cars. Sometimes I’ve looked them up online, but not all are easily found.
I don’t think I’ve owned a single vehicle that didn’t come with the manual in the glove compartment, and I’ve always bought used vehicles.
3 with over 100k miles, 2 that were over 15 years old when I bought them and 2 that were less than 100k miles and less than 5 years old when I got them. Half of those cars I only got one key with, a couple didn’t last 2 years before developing severe mechanical issues, but the one thing that every single one has was the original owners manual in the glove compartment
Okay yeah, I’ve only ever bought one with LESS than 100k miles (I think 3 or 4 that were under 200k) and only 2 that were under 15 years old. I’ve had 11 cars lol
I used to drive a Sprinter, and on the dashboard was a light with iconography of waves, wind, and raindrops. I concluded that it was warning me of a storm at sea.
I just got a used Cadillac and it has this little blue icon quite frequently. Had to get out the manual. It means I’m driving over the speed limit. Fuck’s sake what a useless light.
It doesn’t sound like a bad thing. But I suppose that raises the question of wether something has gone wrong when there isn’t a blue tick
My car occasionally displays a blue tick, what the hell is that supposed to mean? It only comes up maybe once every 4 or 5 months so it’s really hard to work out a pattern.
I got the same issue with my BMW, except it’s a green arrow pointing either left or right that flashes and makes a ticking sound. Only lasts for a few seconds though.
Oh that sounds like the swerve suddenly into another lane without looking light.
You should read your car’s manual.
It’s spends half the time telling you stuff you already know like how to open the engine bay.
They should just have a section called “all the bloody stupid decisions we’ve made” and just put the explanation in there, because that’s the only bit anyone will ever need to read.
They generally do have page that includes all the warning lights in one place.
oh, like a changelog manual. That’d be useful.
I thought this was some bent over woman sign
The dot being her dot
The line being the groove of her spine
The symbol meaning get laid
4-5 month is an awfully long time to be too lazy to rtfm
I mean, I agree it’s silly design, but come on
It’s like hearing observational comedy from 30 years ago, before you could google what a light was
Ten seconds to search. It’s either low engine temp (don’t rev high), or he’s driving with high beams on.
Hah, nailed it. Happened this morning. First frost this year.
fall? yeah, the front will fall off soon
Yeah, that’s not very typical. I’d like to make that point.
remember to tow your car outside the environment if it needs work
