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Witch’s cauldron on top of a rack. How appropriate for Spooktober!
I was genuinely wondering, if that’s the joke, having never seen this light before…
This is the warning for low tyre pressure. Often shows up after you’ve had a tyre change, such as when you go to winter tyres around this time of year.
Colder air also takes up less volume relative to warmer air, therefore exerting less outward pressure. So, if you haven’t aired up since July, it’s entirely possible that the lower temperatures alone can cause this light to come on.
Yeah, this is the actual joke here haha.
We get it when we switch over to winter tires and never installed the tpms in the other wheels.
It’s there all winter, and ignored. If cold air is enough to set off the low pressure warning, your tires were already really low in July. Or you have a leak.
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Not 10 year old Subarus!
Actually I turn of TC lots in the snow to have a little fun without the Nannies, but it works fine with my snow tires which still don’t have tpms in them like the summer ones.
Interesting fact, the tyre pressure warning isn’t always measuring your tyre pressure! At least, not directly.
Some cars have actual pressure sensors inside the wheels which do measure it, while others (like mine) use the ABS sensor - which measures wheel rotations - to determine pressure as a byproduct.
The theory goes that an under-inflated tyre is smaller in diameter than properly inflated one, and so will have to make more revolutions than a properly inflated one to cover a given distance. By comparing the current status against a programmed normal, a mismatch that indicates possible low pressure can be detected.
Because what is ‘normal’ can change after you inflate your tyres or change them, cars with this type of indirect sensor will also have a button somewhere to reset it (mine is inside the glove box) so you can redefine what ‘normal’ is and cancel any spurious warning.
Or in my experience, when one of the 4/5 transmitters fails.
You must live in warm climate 😀
Cold air in tires makes pressure go down. Low tore warning light.
Nah, I haven’t had a car for a few years and my car before that didn’t have this feature, because it was an old car… 🙂
The part I find funny is I’ve never had seasonal low tire pressure except when the polar vortex rips through and drops temps down to -40ish (which fun fact is the same in both Fahrenheit and Celsius) maybe this is a thing for folks with heated garages?
Happens to me every year in the north parked outside. I have had it happen on low profile tires, van tires, and bike tires. I wonder if humidity plays a role? Or maybe the drasticness of the change, I’m pretty close to Canada.
fall? yeah, the front will fall off soon
Yeah, that’s not very typical. I’d like to make that point.
remember to tow your car outside the environment if it needs work
It never really occurred to me that most people don’t check their tire pressure once or twice a month and let it get that bad.
I check mine when my car tells me to <shrug>
In the last month, the high temps where I live have dropped approximately 40 degrees.
That enough to drop tires pressure to the point of the light coming on if you’re not checking it at least biweekly
Which biweekly are you referring to?
Every two weeks.
Twice a week seems excessive…
Exactly
Or they made their seasonal change from their summers to winters, and if, like me, you have separate rims so you can easily do it at home, you now get to drive around with the car whining about no tpms. Because fucking cars can’t have this as built in diagnostic functionality in these giant computers on wheels.
When I have time I’ll pop over to a shop that can reprogram them to the second set, but it’s not exactly priority numero uno.
I’ve just realised I’ve completely stopped checking mine since switching to an EV. I can go a couple of months without even stopping at a service station, so the old habit is broken.
Edit: For the confused people replying to me, we don’t call them gas stations outside of North America. We call them service stations or petrol stations.
I’m sure we do dumb things too, but calling a liquid “gas” is fucking comical btw 😆
Why do you need to stop so often at a service station with an EV? I thought the second plus was not having to get it serviced as much.
What did you stop for at a service station before? Do you mean filling the car up?
I used to be somebody who checked tire pressures much more often. Oil level too.
But even though our current vehicles are 12 and 13 years old, the tire pressure monitoring works right away on a cold day, and its threshold before turning on the light isn’t super low. It’s high 20s psi I believe.
It’s not that I want to ignore the workings of my car. I often enjoy using my phone olconnected to my bluetooth OBDII scanner to provide a bunch of extra gauges. I drive an old Mazda3 and it doesn’t even have a temperature gauge, just a light. So it’s cool being able to monitor coolant temperature, voltage, actual gallons of fuel in the tank, and various other sensors if I feel like it.
You don’t get it. Snow tires.
You buy a second set of wheels, and its more expensive to add TPMS so you don’t and you just get the light 4 months of the year.
Have snow tires, don’t have this issue. If I didn’t have that measurement thing then I could just reset the system to zero.
It only happens if you have a separate set of rims for your snow tires (and those rims have no TPMS sensors installed)
I’m not sure how the terminology works in English. I change the tires I open the bolts and take the tire off and it just has that small round metal part left where the brake is and that the bolts attach to. If without rims means just the rubber part then I haven’t really seen that sort of tire changing where I live. I wonder how you change such tires yourself, the rubber part seems pretty firmly in place
Oh so you are changing the rims in fact. Not sure why you’re not getting a tire pressure warning in that case, either the second set of rims has sensors, or there’s something wrong with the system
But to answer your question, around here most people who only change the tires (rubber) and re-use the same rims (metal) have it done professionally. It’s not impossible to do it at home but it’s generally not worth the trouble
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“That bad” is dropping from 32psi to 28 on the first cold day of the year. Doesn’t matter, I fill up once I’m back home.
Happy tireween to you too.
nice to have a low pressure holiday.
Do you mean the time of year where a battery cell goes bad, ruining both the battery and the alternator while you have an Uber passenger in the car an hour from home and every system in your car is cartoonishly shutting off one by one?
Because YEP I GUESS IT’S ABOUT THAT TIME. :(
Chances are that the alternator was already bad, but symptoms didn’t manifest until the battery started to die. A running car should be able to stay alive purely from the alternator. It’s not a great long term solution, since it causes extra wear on the alternator. But it is possible to just push-start it and then keep it alive with the alternator alone.
But it is possible to just push-start it and then keep it alive with the alternator alone.
can confirm. had a buddy in HS whose car had neither a starter nor a working battery. every day after everyone left the parking lot, he would have us push his car over to the street on top of a hill, and then he’d clutch start it on the way down. we only had to push it back up the hill a couple times when he was learning how to do it.
You may well be right, but I’d already wrestled with the battery previously, and as soon as cold weather hit (literally like day 1.5 - 2), the problem cropped up, which is classic battery in my (admittedly pretty limited, but enthusiastic!) experience.
Edit: I see now that what I’m saying doesn’t contradict what you said.
Is that the symbol for a cauldron? I don’t get it
Its a low tire pressure light.
In the fall, lower temperatures cause tire pressure to drop.
I don’t own any horse shoes.
Is it normal for tire emergency lights to come on in autumn?
Just the low tire pressure warning.
Cold temperatures reduce the pressure, and since air leaks out of tires naturally over time, it is quite common for the change in temperature to suddenly put your tires below the threshold for normal tire pressure.
The cold weather compresses air which reduces the pressure… there no need for a leak for this to take place.
As soon as the day warms or the tires warm (with use) the pressure returns… it’s a pain the ass and I have yet to find a proper source that explains what the proper thing to do is.
I just top up my tires in a cold morning, and now they run 4 psi over the mark when they warm up.
We usually get a big enough quick drop in temperatures that I get this each autumn. Even with new tires
Yes, if the tires were close to the cut off before the temp dropped. The sensor in my vehicle readstire pressure about 10% low in colder weather, which can be enough to trigger the warning on chilly mornings if I haven’t topped it off during the summer.
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♥️
My winter rims don’t have sensors because those cost money.
I live somewhere that I can’t get away with all season tires from late October until late April.
Same
It’s only normal if you’ve been neglecting to check your tire pressure on a regular basis. Unless you live in a place with a massive yearly temperature differential, properly inflated tires won’t lose enough pressure to trigger the TPMS light once temps drop in the autumn.
Prevent a blowout: please stay on top of your tire pressure, people. Check it at least once a month.
But tpms means the car tells me when the tyre pressure gets low?
I think you need to check your definition of “massive”. Coming from the opposite perspective, I assumed that essentially everyone sees this when the season turns.
Question for the Lemmings down under: is fall/autumn when it gets cold or when the calendar says October? What season do you call it when the weather turns cold? Or does it just not?
So where I live it gets as low as -40 in the coldest days of winter and in the summer it usually tickles about 100F. October is usually when the nightly cold weather starts, with lows in the 40s or so, and it just takes progressively longer each day for the day to warm up (and therefore the high temps drop over the course of the month) and usually November/December is when the temperatures are below freezing more often then not (with January/February being the peak of winter and when we get snow that lasts until the thaw in late March/early April
I don’t bother with snow tires because we really don’t get much snow where I live anymore. Maybe like a foot total each year, so I just get all-season tires which I leave on year round. Only times my tire pressure drops noticably is when we have the one week of -40 each year and that’s when my pressure can drop low enough to trigger the warning lights, but it doesn’t even happen most years. I also really don’t top off my tires often at all. Maybe like once a year when I feel like they need it but otherwise they tend to stay fine (maybe the shop tops them when I get my oil changed? I should ask about that…)
Where I live is nowhere near that but we do have distinct seasons. Similar to what you said I don’t bother with snow tires because we don’t get much and all the towns are really good about clearing it. However it’s warm enough that we don’t get snow that stays through winter. Any how, seems like I get these warnings about every other year
But yes, a lot of shops check and adjust tire pressure when you get oil changed.
It’s only normal if you’ve been ~~neglecting to check your tire pressure on a regular basis. ~~
It’s only normal if you’ve been living in an area when temperature drops significantly.
There FIFY
35 to 27…buy a small compressor, its handy
Yeah I’ve got a small battery powered compressor that will top off tires up to about 37ish PSI but struggles to put more than that in. It’s nice for a quick top off, but my bike wants 60PSI so I had to buy a real compressor to keep my bike tires happy
Get a first gen Porsche Cayenne for a couple thousand and you get a hose from passenger footwell. Uses air from the air suspension lol
Fuel economy is as abysmal and it MAY eventually need an engine rebuild. Still best car I’ve ever owned.
Get an air pump that runs off your car battery. Don’t get a jump/pump as those are more expensive and they break. Get one with a flashlight.
It’s one of those cheap purchases that makes a world of difference.
Most places still have a few gas stations with free air!
Don’t buy the cheapest tho, look online for one that has metal piston & cogs (are are only slightly more expensive, or perhaps even not more expensive).
The plastic ones break easily when heated (5 ~ 10 minutes).
But yeah, why not just pump the air at gas stations?
They usually have to recertify the gauges once a year.You are absolutely right about heat. They get hot
As for free air, more and more gas stations have attached credit card machines to their pumps. Having to hunt for ones that haven’t had become a chore. Also, it is so helpful to just have it on hand at any time.
I just checked my tires, somehow only lost 0-1 psi per tire since April. I did check them on a hot day so that probably helped.
we top ours up at tireween and tirester every year
When living in Florida I used to air up my tires constantly because of the temperature overnight. Now in Oregon it’s been 2 years and it’s only been filled once during an oil change.
Hah, nailed it. Happened this morning. First frost this year.
At least one of my sensors is busted. The gauge says it’s fine. Looks like I’ll be fixing the issue with electrical tape.
I live in Taiwan and it’s been 90-95 since February.
