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At least I saved 50p...

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CryptoPlankton
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At least I saved 50p...

#80395

Postby CryptoPlankton » September 11th, 2017, 1:07 pm

I've never had a car with a tyre pressure monitoring system before so it was quite exciting when the light came on a couple of months ago. I was on my way to Sainsbury's so popped into their petrol station to take advantage of the free air. Sure enough, one of the tyres was about 3 psi low so I pumped it up and went on into the shop thinking what a jolly good asset this pressure monitoring business is.

Roll on a few weeks and the light is on again. Ah, I wonder, perhaps I have an extremely slow puncture, it'll be interesting to see which tyre is low. Unfortunately, I'm nowhere near a Sainsbury's, but decide to pop into a garage to check. Disappointingly, they charge for air; 50p for two minutes or £1 for four. Hmm, two minutes usually seems longer than you'd imagine, the miser in me thinks - so 50p it is. I test the previous culprit first and, sure enough, it needs a few psi again - I make a note to attend to it when I have more time (I'm on my way to meet someone). I am just finishing checking the pressure of the third tyre when it suddenly occurs to me that I have no idea how much of my two minutes is left. I feel sure I am comfortably on course to finish in time, but am struck by a sudden impulse to get on with it, just in case. In that split-second of haste, I pull the nozzle of the pump away from the valve at the slightest of angles and... CRACK! Clearly, I have damaged the valve. I then watch with horror as it takes about thirty seconds for the tyre to expel every last molecule of air...

I'll never know whether I would have broken the valve if I'd paid for four minutes and not had that slight moment of panic. So I'll never know whether I could have avoided damaging my back putting on the spare wheel (am I getting old or are wheels much heavier than they used to be?!). Or whether I would have saved the £92 it cost for a new pressure monitoring valve. But I do know that I wouldn't have been there without the pressure monitoring system and that I would have done a regular check of my tyres (as I used to and at a leisurely pace) at Sainsbury's for free. And, if I had broken a "normal" valve in the process of checking the tyre pressures it would have cost me all of a pint or so to replace it.

Progress, eh?

staffordian
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Re: At least I saved 50p...

#80453

Postby staffordian » September 11th, 2017, 4:46 pm

I have one of these in the garage.

Designed for bikes, but far better made than the tinny foot pumps sold for car tyres, and works fine on cars as well as bikes.

And only a third of the price of a new valve ;)

http://www.halfords.com/cycling/bike-ma ... -bike-pump


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