Do you know what this dashboard light means? It is your tyre pressure monitoring system (TPMS) telling you that one (or more) of your tyres is dangerously under inflated.
Under-inflated tyres are estimated to cause thousands of car crashes and hundreds of deaths each year, yet 42 percent of drivers still can’t identify the TPMS vehicle dashboard icon, and 1 in 10 surveyed admit to having intentionally ignored a TPMS warning and continued to drive, according to survey results from Schrader International.
Regardless of the style of TPMS alert you have in your car, when it lights up, your tyres are sending you a very important message: One or more of your tyres is significantly underinflated and you or an auto service technician needs to take a closer look as soon as possible. The TPMS warning symbol will illuminate when one or more of the tyres is 25 percent under-inflated, at which point the tyre is significantly under-inflated and the vehicle is impaired, affecting maneuverability, handling, and braking distance.
If you see the light, you don’t have to panic, but you should make an immediate effort to check the pressure in all four tyres manually using a tyre pressure gauge. Remember, you can’t tell if your tyres are at their correct pressure just by looking at them: it is virtually impossible to tell a tyre is under-inflated visually until it is nearly 50 percent deflated. That’s practically flat!!
Don’t wait for the TPMS light to tell you to check your tyre pressure; just make a habit of checking them yourself once a month. How do you find your correct tyre pressure? Look for a sticker inside the driver’s door, or find it in your Owner’s Manual. Tyre pressures embossed on the outside of the tyre are MAXIMUM pressures and may not apply to your specific vehicle. Besides tyre safety concerns, keeping your tyres inflated to proper pressures also improves your fuel economy saving you money on fuel, and lengthens the lifespan of your tyres saving you money on untimely replacements.
Here at Jons Tyres we have the equipment to check your TPMS valves including their battery levels and we also stock a range of universal replacement valves which we can programme to be compatible with most manufacturers systems and we also stock components to enable us to ‘service’ or replace individual seals or valve stems in some systems.
So if your light pops on your dashboard feel free to come down to Jons Tyres for advice or just to have your pressures checked.
