Driving on the Interstate this morning, I noticed an unusual number of vehicles with flat tires.
Whats going on?
Why are 18 wheelers and cars all over the Interstate with flats? Well there could be a number of reasons for this…
First of all, there was no debris on the road, such as a truck slowly unloading its cargo of roofing nails for those of us behind to pick up. Nor was there any issue with potholes that would cause a tire to blow out.
After continuing on for some time watching and wondering what was going on, it came to me why all these cars and trucks had been put in such a dangerous situation as to have to change a tire on the side of a road while everyone else is going by at speeds of 70 MPH or faster!!
The reason for having to change tires was the cold temperature.
We have had some really cold temperatures the past 2 weeks. And as we all remember from high school, air contracts when it is cooled.
The air in our tires that was 30to33 psi when the outside air temp was 80F to 85F could now be as low as 25 to27psi.
This is IF we had kept our tires properly inflated before the cold set in. If we hadn’t kept up with them for a few months, it is possible the tire pressure could have decreased to pressures much lower than that, like around 20psi.
Low tire pressure is a dangerous situation.
Anytime an under-inflated tire causes a blow out it can cause loss of control of your vehicle.
We see low tire pressure all the time when cars are in for service. We check all tires for proper inflation while in the shop, no matter what the reason, and this time of year we see many cars with under inflated tires due to the drop in temps.
With all this said, if you haven’t had your tire pressures checked since the onset of cold weather, stop by and let us perform a tire pressure check for you at no charge, and maybe avoid me passing you on the interstate some day as you try to change a flat tire.
