Accurate tyre pressure gauge

stoofa

stoofa

stoofa

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I know this might be candidate for pointless thread of the year, and so soon into 2016.
Can anyone recommend an accurate tyre pressure gauge. Are digital gauges any good or should I just be sticking to good old fashioned ones?

I ask because the TPS system in my car is the older design and by the time it is flagging an issue you've probably already run the tyre at low pressure for an amount of time to damage it - I've had to replace tyres today with loads of tread on because of this.
So I want to get into the habit of doing a bi-weekly, 2 minute check of all tyre pressures.
I also ask because a mate of mine had a "cheap as chips" pressure gauge - turns out it was over-reading by about 20% and he was running on under inflated tyres.

So, digital or manual? Any recommendations?

Cheers chaps.
 
Aside from buying some unknown brand from Ebay I would imagine 99.9% of tyre pressure gauges are fine. They may be +/- 1 psi but these are road cars, not F1 :p.

The fact that you even check your tyre pressures puts you in the better 50% of road users!
 
how many miles are doing? never heard of anyone replacing tyre because they have been running them under pressure, and if they were that badly deflated that it would damage them driving on them, you would be able to see with your eyes they need more pressure....... and unless you are doing insane milage you dont need to be checking them every two weeks
 
Haze said:
how many miles are doing? never heard of anyone replacing tyre because they have been running them under pressure, and if they were that badly deflated that it would damage them driving on them, you would be able to see with your eyes they need more pressure....... and unless you are doing insane milage you dont need to be checking them every two weeks
Click to expand...

Every two weeks is the minimum you should be checking them. How else would you notice a slow leak / puncture?
 
Haze said:
how many miles are doing? never heard of anyone replacing tyre because they have been running them under pressure, and if they were that badly deflated that it would damage them driving on them, you would be able to see with your eyes they need more pressure....... and unless you are doing insane milage you dont need to be checking them every two weeks
Click to expand...

Really wasn't that far.
It was on Friday last week. Was running late, jumped in the car and started off.
Was about a 16 mile drive. Car felt heavy at the front, but as I was running late and didn't want to be late I just carried on. Arrived, did what I needed to do and then when I got back to the car I could see the tyre was badly under-inflated.
I've got an inflator that runs from the car, so used that and got the tyre back up to 32psi. On removing this from the tyre I could hear air rushing out. As I messed around with the valve the noise would stop.
Started the drive home, however car became heavy at the front again, so I stopped and put the spare on.

On removal of that tyre yesterday it was full of black dust/pieces of rubber. The inside of the walls were blistering. I was told (and as I'm no expert I can only go by what I'm told) that had damaged the integrity of the tyre and it should be replaced.
I could see where the side-wall was blistered so I had the tyre changed.

The second tyre I had changed was because of a slow puncture - took about 3 weeks to trigger TPS.
On removal that too had loads of dust/pieces of rubber floating around and there was side-wall damage. However the cause of the puncture was in the non-repairable area of the tyre, so that was replaced too.

As I've just lost one tyre due to running under-inflated and another was damaged from what looks the same, I have now decided that 5 minutes every couple of weeks to check pressures is the way to go.

My car has the older style TPS based off the ABS sensors, so by the time it triggers you've already been running the tyres under-inflated. The newer direct TPS systems are great, instant alert etc.
 
I go months without checking mine. I guess I should probably take notice of the words here and check mine out!
 
So - picked up the RaceX Tyre Gauge RX0014 from a respectable outlet, decided against the EBay sellers all for the sake of £2.
Anyway - used gauge on tyre, gauge shot up to 31psi (around where I want it) and then as soon as the gauge was removed from the tyre the reading started dropping.
I got the impression from reviews etc. that the reading remained on the gauge, even after being detached from the valve until you pressed the release button on the side.
So in the dark for example I wouldn't be trying to look at the gauge while it was still on the valve, I could take the reading and then move the gauge to me.

Retailer tells me "that isn't how this gauge works" but I'm 99% convinced it is. Just wanted to see if anyone else who has this gauge can confirm I'm right - reading holds even when removed from valve before I get this returned.

Ta
 
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