Tires pressure

This free-air-if-you-buy-gas sounds very frustrating. Maybe ok if you could just show them a recent receipt, still... I rarely am adding air, but most typically I don't need to be adding gas at the same time. I mean, we tank up maybe once a month, and that's with the tank barely below the half full point.

Up here Chevron has old style air pump. It's there, free to use.

As far as the price of gas, I can't get to excited: if it's up or down a penny or two per liter.

 

Between pressure gauges inaccurate from being continually beaten up, and lots of condensed water along with the compressed air, I gave up on service station air even when free air was common.

Easily a 20 to 50 cents per gallon difference down here.

 

Nobody varies much in price, maybe a nickel a liter, at the most. Say Costco vs downtown.

I wasn't aware of condensation in gas station air. Could be. At least at the stations I use there's no built- in gauge. I wouldn't rely on it if there was. Use mine.

It's funny, there's always a water hose too. Nowadays, with special, premixed coolant the norm, doubt that sees much use.

 

This morning, in the zip code where I usually shop, Costco is $0.39/gallon less than the Seattle metro average, $0.60/gal less than Chevron on the same street, and $0.80/gal less than the Shell/Texaco on the same street.

 

In my opinion, almost an automatic purchase every car owner should make is a good (not cheap) tire pressure gauge.

I keep a good, pretty expensive one at home that I use when I'm actually putting air into the tires. It holds the reading, and has a bleeder valve that allows me to adjust the PSI with the gauge on the valve stem.

I keep an accurate but smaller portable one in the car itself.

TPMS will only alert you once you have a significant problem. And I don't trust the gauges at coin operated air filling stations and/or the gauge that comes with most portable air stations. Even though I would say the one that is part of the portable air compressor I use, is relatively accurate, but it is really hard to read, and I only use it to estimate where I am as I add air. I then use my good gauge to more precisely adjust the PSI.

To the OP, it's really the only way to tell what pressure a tire is at...there can be a great discrepancy between tires and air pressures before you notice anything visible from the outside, and even before your TPMS might be activated. Owning one, also allows for monitoring seasonal changes in Tire Pressure brought about by outside temperature changes.

For that matter, I always recommend one of those portable air compressor/battery jump stations. IMO those are really handy not only for emergencies, camping, and jumping batteries if needed, but obviously also for keeping your tires maintained at proper PSI.

 

It's brain-dead simple. If the coolant thermostat isn't keeping the engine up to operating temperature, partially covering the radiator can help the situation (it's not bad for the engine, to help it get up to operating temperature when it can't get there on its own).

It should go without saying (but it doesn't, unfortunately) that the radiator shouldn't be covered too much, otherwise the engine can overheat (I assume that's why some people think it's a bad practice). I recommend leaving a gap between the cover and the radiator of at least 3", so the fan can compensate by pulling more air thru the rad as needed.


Turn Up Your Heater - Popular Mechanics

 

i think the heated seats are tied to the mpg problem. o/p is awol unfortunately.

 

I'd gladly trade a little fuel economy for some interior heat any day in the winter.

 

I have found that if you can stand not turning on the heater, it will make a significant improvement in the mpg. It makes sense when you realize that the engine must run more to generate heat for the cabin.

 

I thought Maryland had a law that air to fill tires should be free, but I do pay at some stations there. But that idea makes sense to me to conserve fuel.

 

the longer you run in cold start mode the lower the mpg. short trips and low temps will yield 25 mpg. my pickup on the other hand, gets 8 mpg in same circumstances. a block heater may be beneficial.

 

Kinda hard to pull the dipstick w/o popping the hood

I don't mind paying 3 quarters every other week to check and adjust the tire pressure, especially if the inflator kindly dehumidifies the air before pumping .. which I am not 100% in.

 

A perfectly valid plan, except...............that the pressure gauges on gas station air hoses are notoriously inaccurate.

I prefer to have a digital gauge at home or in the car, which costs less than $10.
That way, I can check the pressure whenever the mood strikes me.

Actually I also have a small air compressor. From Harbor Freight for $39.
It works fine for car, motorcycle and lawn mower.
It strains a bit adding air to the motorhome tires though (80 psi).

 

During a last-gasp ski trip to interior BC just over a week ago, I checked fuel prices on gasbuddy, and was astounded by the uniformity. Every listed station in Vernon had exactly the same price, not even a penny's spread. The same situation applied in Kelowna, where the community price was 2 cents lower, but 0 spread. (At least Safeway had some discounts based on purchases.) In Kamloops, Costco was running 5 cents lower than the otherwise fixed community price.

Down here, this would be prima facie evidence of illegal price fixing.

The trip needed only a single partial fill in BC, that was enough to get us back to our home state. Most of our money went to lodging, grocery stories, and discounted lift tickets, very little to gas.

 

I have a small, gauge-endowed air inflator in the car, being the fretful individual I am. I never thought of its gauge as particularly trustworthy .. anyway .. how does one even check if it's reading correctly? Unless you have several gauges of different types and take an average reading? I also would be a little skeptical about a $10.00 gauge accuracy .. cheaps things are cheap for a reason.

 

I've got a digital gauge (got recently) and a stick gauge (had it for decades). I used the digital a few times and it was reading the same as the stick, so I...: stick with the stick.

 

And gauge with the gauge

 

My household has 6 different gauges useful on household car fleet. 3 are cheapie sticks, one is a less cheapie dial, one is integrated into a 12V auto inflator, and one is integrated into a bicycle floor pump.

This collection produces 3 significantly different answers. The integrated units each have their own mind, while the stand-alone units are in very close agreement with each other.

While I would like a true calibrated unit, this hasn't yet been really necessary.

 

There is a difference between "inexpensive" and "cheap".

You compare it's reading with another one or two.
A tire shop is a good place to do that.

Oh, and I stick with the digital ones because I can read them without fumbling for my glasses.

 

^ OK, I'll stick with a bright red one, because it matches the color of the car. Measuring tire pressure with 3 gauges could be an exciting pastime for a Prius-owned driver .