Low Pressure on All Four Tires - 2014 Ram 1500 EcoDiesel Long-Term Road Test

Edmunds.com

Low Pressure on All Four Tires - 2014 Ram 1500 EcoDiesel Long-Term Road Test

The tires on our long-term 2014 Ram 1500 EcoDiesel are relatively new, but now all four of them are in need of some air.

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longtimelurker

Travis, I'm suspecting not that Monticello is putting you on, but rather that Edmunds is putting US on...tire pressure change with ambient temp change is like Car Maintenance 101. We're aware that the primary mission there is journalism rather than auto maintenance, but...even the more consumer-level Edmunds main site has plenty of info on this subject...and this is the supposedly more enthusiast-oriented What's Hot. So...

schen72

I suspect most people never check their tire pressures, even when the seasons change. So having TPMS is great for them. I'm personally one of those people who would never need TPMS as I check my pressures weekly and if they drop just 1 psi, i adjust them.

tlangness

longtimelurker said:

Travis, I'm suspecting not that Monticello is putting you on, but rather that Edmunds is putting US on...tire pressure change with ambient temp change is like Car Maintenance 101. We're aware that the primary mission there is journalism rather than auto maintenance, but...even the more consumer-level Edmunds main site has plenty of info on this subject...and this is the supposedly more enthusiast-oriented What's Hot. So...

Having checked several other cars in our fleet, the ambient temperature change is not a likely culprit. Also worth mentioning - the ambient temperature in Santa Monica was 86 degrees two months ago, 86 degrees a month ago and 86 degrees a week ago. This week it's in the 70's but that type of change is not dramatic nor severe enough to warrant a 3-4psi drop on a tire.

The joke about Monticello was just that, a joke.

Also, despite my close inspection with a flashlight while the Ram was parked, I missed something on the right-rear tire that the next driver discovered. Stay tuned for that update.

stever

I dunno, average temps here dropped from the mid 80s to low 70s a few weeks back and I got the TPMS light on my van (I'm not as good at regularly checking as @schen72 is). Three of my tires were low, between 2 and 4 psi.

longtimelurker

Thank you for the reply. Were you not the editor who penned that note in the post? Because that statement about the weather conditions seems in contradiction to yours in your comment.


I live in NYS, which has much more variable temps than you do in Santa Monica, but my TPMS never shows me that kind of all-tires-low reading...but I check my tires once a month, and I'm the only one doing it. So that leaves the possibility that someone is checking the tires when they are hot, and letting air out, which leaves them almost low enough to trigger the TPMS, or there is someone with an inaccurate gauge checking and adjusting them. Then, all it takes is one cool morning, and...so it may be a too-many-cooks type of thing.

tlangness

I wasn't the editor that penned that note, but I agree with it. We did turn our attention to the weather, and I still don't believe it to be the culprit. In the Viper (the other car I had PSI issues with) had recently returned from a track day, so that's likely the culprit in that case. For the Ram, there's a clear explanation on that one tire (upcoming) but the other 3 being low is suspicious. It might be weather and we're all keeping an eye on the cars for that - thanks for the concern.