Tire Pressure Guide
Taking care of your tires is important. The traction they provide helps you safely stop and steer. So, how can you look out for them? Friendly Dodge Chrysler Jeep Ram walks you through how to check your tire pressure, which is a frequent task in our service center, so that drivers in Penn Yan, Geneva, and Watkins Glen can keep up with tire maintenance.
How to Check Your Tire Pressure
Checking your tires is both easy to do and important to their maintenance and performance. Before you go through the following steps, it’s important to wait for the right time to check your air pressure. Driving affects the pressure levels in your tires, especially if it’s a hot day. The best time to check your air pressure is in the morning before you’ve driven anywhere. If you’ve already used your car today, wait about three or four hours for the tires to cool down before checking the air. Once you’ve found the right time, all you need is a notepad, something to write with, and a tire pressure gauge. After you’ve got that together, you only need to follow these simple steps:
- Check How Much Air Each Tire Needs: First, you’ll need to know how inflated each tire should be. Look for a sticker on the inside of one of your doors or check your owner’s manual. It will tell you the pounds per square inch (PSI) rating for the front, rear, and spare tires.
- Locate the Valve Stem: Each tire has its own valve stem. This usually looks like a small rubber nub on the inner rim of your tire. You should be able to find it right by where the top of your hub cab meets the tire. It will have either an aluminum or black rubber cap on it that you can unscrew.
- Hook the Gauge Up to the Valve Stem: There’s three types of tire pressure gauges: stick, dial, and digital. Each one is easy to use and can give you a reliable PSI rating. Unscrew the valve stem cap, then use whichever style you prefer and connect it to the valve stem. Press hard so that no air escapes.
- Write Down Your Results: All three types of tire pressure gauges should tell you the tire’s PSI rating after only a few seconds. Write this down and compare it to the recommended PSI for that tire. Repeat these steps for all your tires, including the spare.
Why Checking Your Tire Pressure is Important?
Both under inflated and over inflated tires wear out faster and need to be replaced sooner. They’re also dangerous to drive on because once they’ve lost their shape, they won’t be able to give you adequate traction. With too much air, the middle of your tread will wear out faster because it’ll be the only part that’s making contact with the road. When there’s not enough air, too much of the tire makes contact, creating friction. This causes heat, which also leads to your tires failing sooner.
Tire Service
When your tire pressure doesn’t match up to your recommended PSI ratings, visit our service center at Friendly Dodge Chrysler Jeep Ram. Our team of highly trained technicians is proud to take care of tire maintenance, refills, rotations, and replacements for drivers in Penn Yan, Geneva, and Watkins Glen. Schedule service with us online if you have any tire issues or contact us to learn more about how to check your tire pressure.