Keep Up the Pressure

One of the most important things that needs to be done as you travel about is to maintain adequate tire pressure. Many trips have been utterly ruined by a blown tire. Blow outs, in the least, can cause damage to your camper but they can also lead to loss of control of your several ton home on the road.

My wife and I were traveling to Mexico Beach on year and one of our stock tires, notoriously referred to as “China bombs” blew out on us. We were lucky. We were on a nice straight piece of road and I was able to stop within a hundred yards and get off the road enough to safely change the tire. We have roadside assistance but it was quicker to change the tire ourselves.

We replaced the stock tires with tires rated for light trucks. I purchased a jack and jack stands and changed all four tires, two tires at a time, right there in the campground. It was quite the ordeal but we do what we have to on the road.

Since then I have been near obsessed with the condition of my camper tires. I check the lug nuts to ensure that they are nice and snug and I check the tire pressure on a regular basis. The mechanical gauges I tried left me wondering how accurate they actually are. Enter this little baby shown below – the digital tire pressure gauge.

As I suspected the mechanical tire pressure gauge I had just wasn’t that accurate. I had a consistent tire pressure all the way around but it was 5 PSI under what the manufacture recommended. Now after I inflate my tires I’m able to verify that the compressor at the filling station is doing a good job and that my tires are inflated to a safe pressure.