Do tyre pressures go down when it's cold?

rogher said:
How do you measure the temp?
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With an infrared thermometer. I bought that to check that there were no cold spots after having cavity wall insulation installed, but I found it has lots of other uses. I confess I am a gadgetaholic. :)
 
dave newell lvs said:
Of course tyre pressures vary with temperature. Do you need to adjust them for summer and winter? NO! But you do need to check them regularly, at least monthly, preferably weekly and definitely before any journey.

D.
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Dave, you've got me really confused now! Are you making the point that by regularly checking your tyres when the tyres are cold, and thereby maintaining them at the recommended pressure, there is no need to adjust for summer and winter. Or, are you saying that the fact that in winter tyre pressure should be expected to drop doesn't matter? I assume that it's the former and that that means that you are, in effect, adjusting for summer and winter variations in pressure. It's just that many on this thread seem to think that it doesn't matter if you start with lower pressures in the colder weather, because they warm up as you drive along :whistle::whistle:
 
I'll answer a question with a couple of my own questions, what pressures do you run in summer and what pressures in winter? And if there is a difference how did you arrive at the winter pressure? When you contact a tyre manufacturer for a recommended pressure do you ask for summer and winter settings?

D.
 
dave newell lvs said:
I'll answer a question with a couple of my own questions, what pressures do you run in summer and what pressures in winter? And if there is a difference how did you arrive at the winter pressure? When you contact a tyre manufacturer for a recommended pressure do you ask for summer and winter settings?

D.
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'Answering a question with two further questions' is not answering a question and, I fear, may only serve to continue the apparent confusion on this thread!

My error was to use the word 'adjust' so I will re-phrase my original comment: "......You will need to add or release air at least twice a year, picking a suitably warm day and a suitably cold day to get it right. If your correct tyre pressure is say 65psi and you set it in the summer and assuming there is no loss of air in the tyre, by wintertime, with lower temperatures, the pressure in the tyre will have dropped and the pressure will need to be restored to 65psi. The reverse will be true in the warmer weather in summer....... The variation by season is significant enough to affect wear, tear and handling."

Of course you should check your tyre pressures at least weekly if the vehicle is in regular use, plus a visual check each time that you use it. Anyone who has passed the Driving Test should already be clear on this but, it would seem, many are not. In my case I check the TyrePal on my car and motorhome every time that I drive and, on the car, I find that I have to add, or release air, several times a year. In the case of my motorhome, because I have nitrogen in the tyres, changes to pressure and loss of gas is minimal.

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WhiteCheyenneMan said:
'Answering a question with two further questions' is not answering a question and, I fear, may only serve to continue the apparent confusion on this thread!

My error was to use the word 'adjust' so I will re-phrase my original comment: "......You will need to add or release air at least twice a year, picking a suitably warm day and a suitably cold day to get it right. If your correct tyre pressure is say 65psi and you set it in the summer and assuming there is no loss of air in the tyre, by wintertime, with lower temperatures, the pressure in the tyre will have dropped and the pressure will need to be restored to 65psi. The reverse will be true in the warmer weather in summer....... The variation by season is significant enough to affect wear, tear and handling."

Of course you should check your tyre pressures at least weekly if the vehicle is in regular use, plus a visual check each time that you use it. Anyone who has passed the Driving Test should already be clear on this but, it would seem, many are not. In my case I check the TyrePal on my car and motorhome every time that I drive and, on the car, I find that I have to add, or release air, several times a year. In the case of my motorhome, because I have nitrogen in the tyres, changes to pressure and loss of gas is minimal.
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Then you have answered your own question.

D.
 
BobtheBass said:
Possibly a silly question, but we all know tyre pressures go up when the tyre is hot but do they go down when it's cold? I checked the pressures on mine today and they were all 3-5 psi down from last week. It was freezing cold though!
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I do hope that you've managed to work out the correct information, 'Fun' comments aside, from all the blather and point-scoring on here? I freely admit that I didn't help by using the word 'adjust', but I've corrected that now.
 
I think anybody who has a TyrePal will know just how arbitrary recommended tire pressures are. On the Motorhome I set the pressures before the sun gets up as we live in the south of France when the temperature is around 18 degC on all wheels from the TyrePal. Before I set off, I have a compressor.
Within just a few miles the temperature has usually increased by about ten degrees. They are not filled with nitrogen but lose very little pressure.
Now if we are travelling west to east or the other way the pressures are about five degrees different from left to right.
Without TyrePal you could have a significant loss of pressure before it was noticeable either by look or feel.
If I didn't adjust pressures before every trip and the tyres lost no pressure I suspect that if first set in Spring at 80psi stationary, in summer stationary they would be 85 in Freezing winter they would be 75 either way when driving they would be at 85 to 90 psi.
So in answer to your question, fit a TyrePal, which you have. And forget about tyre pressures as as long as they don't go down significantly they will be ok.
As a previous poster said if you set them in spring they will have better grip in winter if the pressure is a bit reduced and less friction in summer if the pressure is increased.
Moral: Fit a TyrePal - (other makes may be available)
Steve
 
Are peeps aware of what the brass monkey is in the expression “cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey”?

Ian
 
bigtwin said:
Are peeps aware of what the brass monkey is in the expression “cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey”?

Ian
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It’s what you stand your balls on,before firing them with your canon on board ship.
 
Podney said:
It’s what you stand your balls on,before firing them with your canon on board ship.
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Well done sir, exactly what it is, the reason the balls fall off is that when it is really, really cold the 'brass monkey' contracts at a greater rate to the balls so the balls no longer fit in the 'hollows' as well so can fall off. Now why it is called a brass monkey I haven't a clue!
 
Minxy Girl said:
Well done sir, exactly what it is, the reason the balls fall off is that when it is really, really cold the 'brass monkey' contracts at a greater rate to the balls so the balls no longer fit in the 'hollows' as well so can fall off. Now why it is called a brass monkey I haven't a clue!
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Unfortunately, quoting from your reference, this does not seem to be the case:

"Again, while the exact meaning is unkown, the term has beeen definitively rejected by the Department of the Navy, the Oxford English Dictionary and other noted etymologists as describing a pyramid of cannonballs on a brass tray. Not only were they never used on board ship during the age of sail as they would have rolled everywhere with the rocking of the ship, but the balls and tray would expand and contract at nearly the same rate due to cold and heat, and therefore the stack would never have fallen apart due temperature change."

Otherwise, it was a great story!

However, Physics tells us that Cooling just about anything to liquid nitrogen temperatures makes it more brittle than at higher temperatures. At higher temperatures, defects in the crystal lattice of a material are more mobile. Bending a crystal will introduce slippage and cracking. At higher temperatures, bonds re-form around the dislocated surfaces, distorting the lattice nearby, shifting the stress around. At lower temperatures, the nearby atoms in the crystal lattice do not move and long cracks can form more easily. So if, for example, a monkey made of brass, had relatively heavy parts attached to it by relatively slender supports, and those parts were manipulated when the monkey was cold (maybe in an attempt to warm them), then they are likely to fall off and drop under gravity

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... perhaps someone ought to tell some of the sailing museums then ....! :D
 
I have a anal temperature probe will that do for checking my summer and winter tire temperatures :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:
 
Wildbill said:
I have a anal temperature probe will that do for checking my summer and winter tire temperatures :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:
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... don't forget to wash it first though! :censored:
 

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