Tire Pressure What's Up With Tires
In the first month of my driving the '07 Impala, I noticed a drop in tire pressure caused an icon to light up on the console. My first thought was the sudden cold weather had caused the tire pressure in the left rear tire to drop, but I added some air anyway. A few days, later another tire suddenly triggered the low-tire light to come on. I hate reading car manuals to discover how to operate a new car. I prefer to punch the controls until I figure it out for myself. It's not always the most expedient method, but it's how I'd rather learn something new about a car. Early on, by pressing the right "buttons" on the console, I found that I could retrieve various data other than trip miles and total miles driven. My '07 model also displayed the tire pressure for each tire. I understand some manufacturers carry the tire pressure information to a higher level and display the tire pressure of the spare tire, too. My Impala doesn't have this feature, though I imagine the top of the line models of Chevrolet have this as an option. A couple of years ago, I bought a digital gauge to measure tire pressure in the tires of my lawn mower. I keep it in my car, because my last company car had the capability of alerting me of low tire pressure but did not display the tire pressure of an individual tire. Thus, whenever the low-tire indicator came on in my new car, I'd manually check the low tire, just to be sure the electronic reading on the console was accurate. Because of fluctuating tire pressure (as reported on the console), I started keeping a portable air compressor in the trunk. It's one that is powered by the auto's cigarette lighter. I'm not sure how much air should be in my tires. The manufacturer's sticker inside the driver's door states 30 PSI (pounds per square inch) for each tire. The quick lube place that performed my first oil change put 45 PSI in each tire, which I thought was too much and promptly reduced the pressure to 33 PSI after discovering what they had done. 35 PSI was the average pressure, at the time I received the new car. Leaving home last week for an overnight stay in Natchez, MS, I noticed my left rear tire was registering 26 PSI. I stopped in Bruce to air up the tire at what used to be a full service gas station. Now, it's a detail shop, but the air is free. The owner was wiping down a freshly washed car and commented, "That sure is a clean looking car." "Thanks, but it's hard to keep it that way," I replied, and asked if I could borrow some of his air. He offered the use of his tire gauge, but I used mine. I thanked him for the air and drove away. By the time I reached Indianola, the tire had lost a couple of pounds of air, and I finally convinced myself there must be a slow leak. Before leaving my office to continue my trip to Natchez, I inflated the tire to 35 PSI. It held that pressure all the way to Natchez but overnight dropped down to around 26 PSI. I aired up the tire again, before departing to St. Francisville, Louisiana to meet with a retailer. I checked the tire pressure once I got on the parking lot of the supermarket, and it was down to 27 PSI. "My slow leak is becoming a fast leak," I mused to myself, before airing up the tire once more. Two hours later, I left to meet another retailer in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, and made the trip without incident or significant loss of tire pressure. However, as I prepared to leave Hazlehurst around four p.m., the tire pressure was down to 11 PSI. "If I can get back to Pontotoc on this tire, I'm taking it to Boyles Tire store tomorrow," I thought, wondering if I'd have time to have a flat fixed and still make it to Tupelo Thursday morning for an eight o'clock dental appointment. It's a hard three-hour drive from Hazlehurst to Pontotoc. By that I mean, it's hard to make the trip in three hours and impossible to do so by driving the speed limit. I kept a close eye on the console, continually watching the tire pressure. I was alarmed by how fast the left rear tire was losing air. One hour into the trip, a full 12 pounds of air had escaped. I stopped near Lexington to inflate the tire once more. One hour later, I stopped near Grenada to inflate the tire for the fifth time that day. I calculated I could make it to Pontotoc without inflating the tire again, providing the rate of pounds lost per hour didn't change. It took me almost four hours to make the trip, but I managed to get home without having to add more air to the tire. The next morning, I aired up the tire and drove it to the tire store. "Can you fix a flat in time for me to get to Tupelo by eight o'clock?" I asked. "That won't be a problem. Let me get the air turned on and these doors unlocked," he replied. It didn't take his serviceman long to discover a hole in the side of the tire, and shortly after breaking down the tire, Bill told me a patch wouldn't hold, because of the area where the puncture occurred. I needed a new tire. As we chatted, I told him I'd been adding air to the tire regularly, and I mentioned the tire pressure monitoring system and asked him how it worked. "They put a battery operated monitor in the valve stem of the tire It transmits a signal to your car's computer. Here, let me show you," he offered, pointing to the portion of the valve stem that was visible once the tire was removed from the rim. "If one of those goes bad, a replacement runs about sixty dollars. I know, I broke one the other day breaking down a tire." "That is steep," I commented. "Yeah, but if the receiver part inside the car has to be replaced, that'll run you about sixteen hundred dollars," he continued. "You can thank your senators and congressmen for passing the legislation requiring tire pressure monitoring systems (TPMS) in new cars. 'Came about because of overreaction to those Firestone tires on Ford Explorers blowing out and causing wrecks. And that’s all because the manufacturer didn't recommend enough air pressure for a fully loaded vehicle…the tires overheated and blew up." "Worse," Bill added, "The days of pulling up to a service station or convenience store and putting a dollar into a machine to air up a tire are about gone. The new valve stems will require a special connector; the old inflators won't work. I figure folks will charge $25.00 to air up a tire. Anyway, some folks won't buy a six or seven hundred-dollar machine just to put air in a tire. You're lucky your car was made in 2006, because all the 2007 models are supposed to have the new type valve stems." Bill hasn't bought the new equipment needed for the new valve stems, but if he continues to operate a tire store, it's an investment he's sure to make. Of course, he says he’s old enough to retire and might just do so, if things get any worse for the tire business. I've stopped checking tire pressure on the console every day, as I did for a while. I've gone back to displaying trip miles and fuel range (an estimate of the miles one can expect to travel, given the amount of fuel left in the tank). By the way, after being educated on TPMS and purchasing a new tire, I managed to get to my dental appointment on time. Learn more about TPMS at: Advance Auto Parts/Safety/ Tire Pressure Monitoring or at Electronics Information Online/ Tire Pressure Monitoring
String Thing On Coming Unraveled I suppose that as long as road paving companies need string to mark where the center line stripes need to be on the highway, the string or twine industry is relatively safe, in that they are assured of a continual demand for their product. But I'm sure the kingpins of "string" weren't exactly thrilled to loose their business relationship with Kingsford Charcoal, who for about as long as I can remember, used string to secure the tops of the paper bags of charcoal. In my youth, I remember opening sacks of corn and cottonseed that were finished at the top of the sack with string. Persons older than me may remember feed sacks and the value of the sacks as cloth for sewing undergarments and outerwear. In Reminisce magazine, I occasionally see a picture or two, from an era long past, of someone wearing a dress crafted from feed sacks. My family wasn't a farming family, but my grandparents were. I was exposed to some of the hardships of farming, but Dad made a living working in a grocery store. He liked to supplement his income, very modestly, I should say, by working about five acres of cotton and corn. I doubt he made much off the crops, but I figure he thought the exposure to farming would be of benefit to me, sort of like allowing me to work at something he knew I'd never want to do full time.
For grilling, I've used a charcoal grill more the past three years than the ten years prior to that. I don't know how many sacks of charcoal briquettes I've opened, but I got to be pretty good at unraveling the strings sewn at the top of the bags. I wasn't ever good enough to compete on ESPN3's "Wide World Of Unraveling," but I had a string of successes going my way. Imagine my surprise, when I brought home a bag of charcoal a few months ago and discovered it didn't have a string closure. "This is a fine how-do-you-do!" I exclaimed. "Here I am in my prime unraveling years, and now there's nothing to unravel." The new closure is a series of v-shaped punches at the top of the bag that I suppose are mechanically crimped to fasten the top of the bag. This is finished with a strip of heavy paper that's glued to cap off the top. A two-year old could open one. Without the string, maybe the Kingsford folks save a few bucks on the costs of materials, but I'll bet they've saved a lot more by downsizing the standard 10-pound bag to 9 pounds. I'm not happy about the change, but I'm not so unhappy that I'm going to boycott Kingsford, at least not until they downsize the 10-pound bag even further.
Gas Prices Rise Fast - Fall Slow It’s as though USA Today believes the bulk of its readership is comprised of idiots. I seldom read their newspaper (no comics), but occasionally I page through one, if it gets left outside my motel room door, as was the case earlier this week while I was in Atlanta for meetings. The bold print on the right side of the page stated, "Gas Prices To Fall, But Slower Than Expected." That may not be the exact quote, but it’s close.
Most of us know that when the price of crude oil rises one day, the price of gasoline at the pumps goes up the next day, and all but the least bright among us know that when the price of crude oil drops today, the price of gasoline at the pumps will go down...just not overnight. In fact, industry watchers state that retailers make money in a falling market. Gasoline stations in Northeast Mississippi have not been in any hurry to lower their pump prices, though the price of crude oil continues to decline. Pontotoc stations held to the $2.16 to $2.19 range well beyond that of neighboring cities, but finally dropped prices by an average of $0.10 per gallon last week. Tupelo, in a strange twist for a city with some of the highest gasoline prices in Northeast Mississippi, has of late, been the low price leader. I bought gas there on Thursday for $1.89 at an Exxon station. I was in Indianola the following day where Exxon gas sold for $1.99 for the first time in months. In fact, since Katrina and Rita disrupted the normal distribution of gasoline, Indianola has only experienced prices less than two dollars on one other brief occasion. Pontotoc gasoline prices were slightly less than two dollars per gallon in mid-October. The time for Pontotoc stations to get their prices in line with others is now. Addendum: Pontotoc prices were just under $2.00 at press time.
Bodock Beau Hi-Tech Bar Sometimes the best way to think of politics is the humor we find in this strident subject. We thank Linda Ball Reeves for the following submission: Hi-Tech Bar A man walked into a very high-tech bar. As he sat down on a stool he noticed that the bartender was a robot.
The robot clicked to attention and asked, "Sir, what will you have?"
He returned and took a seat, and again the robot clicked and asked what he
would have? "A Martini please." So the robot started discussing Nascar racing, the latest basketball scores, and what to expect the Dodgers to do this weekend. The guy had to try it one more time. So he left, returned and took a stool.
Again a martini, and the question, "What is your IQ?" Copyright © 2000 - 2007 RRN Online.
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My new company car, a 2007 Chevrolet Impala,
is less than three months old, and I'm still getting acquainted with it.
Other than the fact it doesn't cost me a dime of my own money to operate
it, the best thing I can say about it is, "I like the ride better," as opposed
to the ride of the '04 Impala.
AWhen Dad brought me into his grocery store
(at an age that would sic the labor-law-people on him today) potatoes were
purchased in 100-pound sacks, and there was a piece of string at the top
of the potato sacks that was as hard to unravel as those I remembered from
the seed or feed sacks. I've never known if the sacks were sewn with a double
needle or a single needle, but I'm guessing a double needle. If one pulled
the right string the whole top of the sack would open in the blink of an
eye. If one chose the wrong string to pull, things didn't go as well.
Most consumers purchase gasoline, which is
about as price sensitive an item as anything in the marketplace. For one
to expect "Gas Prices To Fall Rapidly," would be about as foolish as thinking
orange groves caught in a freeze won’t affect the price of orange juice
until next year.
