Safe Speed Forums

Blimey!

All these years of striving for the perfect measuring standard and now Halfrauds will sell you it for under a tenner...

_________________
CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

Well I do have to admit that it is a little light on the decimal places, but given that a tyre pressure is only accurate for the ambient temperature at the time and the load in the car, it is probably good enough. I have verified it against several other sources (such tyre fitters and the main dealers) by checking that it reads what their equipment read, and it has always been correct.

My point however is that you cannot trust a garage forecourt air pump to give anything like an accurate reading, and sometimes you cannot even be sure that they are pumping in air - at all: I had one nasty case where I suspected that my tyre was low (nail induced slow puncture) and it was (29 psi not 32), so I plugged into the pump and it made the right noises, but didn't seem to be going up much, checked again (27 psi), so tried again, and now it dropped to 25psi!!! Told the guy behind the counter but he didn't care, and when I came out another customer had used the pump to turn a soft tyre into a complete flat!

"Tyre fitters" ???

Took a works van for new rear tyres. "change spare to rear & put new tyre on other side " -- thought - "ok, they are the experts" - took van out - rear end light , "new tyres/ no load thought me ". Got a call from one newbie driver " WTF is wrong with this van " ---he refused to drive it -i had to take it back - took it to our tyre fitters at another depot - tyre pressures too high says the manager - so who do you trust ??

_________________
lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Well I stand right over their shoulder as they do the job and tell them exactly what pressure I want set for each wheel, make sure that they use internal rather than external balance weights and also make sure that they use a torque wrench to set the wheel nuts rather than just ramming them on as hard as the air gun will lets them; I certainly don't trust them to pick the correct tyre pressure off a chart (or from between their ears). Perhaps because I have a "performance car" they don't seem to mind too much and we have a nice chat at the same time.
I do however place more trust in their pressure gauges being accurate than the ones found on the average garage forecourt.

It's commom practice for them to over-inflate a tyre when it is fitted to press the beads out against the rim good and hard. Obviously, they should then let them back down t othe correct pressure afterwards...

but they seldom seem to!

As for the strange handling that Capri 2.8i was experiencing on holiday, it's so hard to be subjective on trips like that. My car always feels quite different but I've always put it down to the fact that it's loaded up with stuff and both the weight and weight distribution are different to how they normally are when I drive it. Then there's the possibility of the car feeling a bit odd because we're driving on the "wrong" side of the road and the camber is the "wrong" way! It's also possible that the tyre footprint was slightly different due to the change in pressure / load so the centre of the contact patch might not have been where it normally was in relation to the kingpin axis... - That's before we start looking at the psychological factors such as maybe having to concentrate a bit harder in strange surroundings?

Can't explain the "pulsating" / vibrating though. did it go back to normal after the pressures were put back?

From my experience of them from years back, if I jumped in a Capri and it didn't have strange handling characteristics then I'd be jumping back out to check the tyres...!

_________________
CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

Yeah your right, its far too easy to overlook some more simple explanations I guess. There is also the fact the motorway through Clermont-Ferrand was very hilly and twisty which made the going rather sluggish.

I never felt that it was unsafe, but I had to slow down as it was stuggling a bit on the hills.

I've never had a problem with it since, but I haven't done any long trips since, and defianately not in the baking hot sunshine. I quite fancy doing it again now though...... but allowing a little more time this time!

The handling is rather "interesting" in the wet.....