Adjusting Your Tire Pressure For Summer

When getting ready for a long road trip checking your tire pressure is an essential step. Carrying heavy loads like dirt bikes, ATVs, Boats, or Jet Skis can put a lot of strain on your tires and raises the possibility of a flat if the tire is not properly inflated.

The first step is to check your vehicles tire pressure followed by your trailers tires if you’re using one and last, but certainly not least your spare tire/donut. It’s especially important to check your spare tire, because if one of your main tires fails putting on another flat tire certainly won’t do you any good.

As for the correct tire pressure, it’s better to worry less about the maximum tire pressure and focus on the manufacturer recommended inflation pressure. This can usually be easily located in one or more places. Many times you’ll find this information within the owner’s manual, but if you don’t see it there or lost your manual you can check the tire placard, which is typically located on the inside of your driver door. Please note that the maximum tire pressure located on the tire side wall is not the same as the recommended tire pressure and should generally not be used for day to day driving.

If your load is extra heavy due to a camper, etc, then feel free to use the maximum tire pressure, but just don’t exceed that limit or your tire could blowout. Just keep in mind that tire pressure will go up a pound or so for every 10 degrees Fahrenheit. So you might want to stay a few pounds below maximum pressure in case of extra hot days at the beach or parks. If you do inflate to the maximum limit be advised that your tires could potentially blow out leaving you stranded at the beach unless of course you’ve invested in a service like AAA to come and save the day, but still it’s a headache you’d probably rather not have to deal with.

Other things to be aware of are that most tire pressure warning lights will only alert you when a tire is under-inflated, not when it’s over-inflated so if the weather has caused your tires to inflate to dangerous levels you may not necessarily have any idea. If that’s not bad enough over-inflated tires will wear out faster and may result in poor breaking and steering.

If you want to do a preemptive tire pressure check before a long trip or just want to play it safe come into any Town Fair Tire location and get your tire pressure checked for free.

All in all, I hope you’ve found this article useful and wish you safe travels on your summer adventures! And maybe you even learned a thing about tire pressure at the same time.