Tire pressure gauge question

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I have the worst luck with these things. I've probably spent $100 on them in the last several years. I'm not forking over another $10 or $15 for a quality dial or digital - the bronze dial ones will become uncalibrated with the slightest jar or drop. My $15 digital one died on me today after 2 years. The pencil ones I've found aren't accurate and the readings end up all over the map sometimes.

The cheaper dial ones without a bleed valve: does the measured pressure stay put on the gauge and slowly drop, or does it just go back to 0 the instant you remove it from the valve stem? I'm thinking of giving one a try. I've read they aren't as succeptable to damage as the precision bronze bourdon tube.

Thanks!
 
Use the cheap pencil kind that has the white stick that comes out the back - mine works accurately for at least 15 years!
 
Being that 99.9% of them are made in China it would be hard to find a quality guage.
 
For the cheap digital one, try taking it apart and identifying the batteries. For me, they were a pair mercury cells that were easy to get. It took a #0 Phillips screwdriver for mine.

Now the accuracy isn't going to be better than it was, but it may be close enough.
 
Just for the fun of it one time, i gathered all my grandfathers,dad and my gauges one time to see how close they were. I was suprised to see the tolerance between them was about 5psi. That was the worst and it got tossed. most were around 3psi of each other. Not a big fan of the stick ones myself though i have seen them work well for a long time. You wouldnt think it would that hard to make a tire pressure gauge that is accurate.
 
They go back to 0 as soon as you remove the gauge from the valve stem.

I used to have a decent one like that. I liked it, but I loaned it to a friend who promptly lost it.

Now I have a Victor "SUV and RV" gauge... basically a gauge with a plastic thing around the round part. It's OK. I don't think I paid much for it.
 
I have a pencil gauge I bought more than 10-15 years ago and my brother in-law gave me a digital gauge more than 7-8 years. Both of them are still working great and within 1 PSI of each other.

The range of the pencil is 5-40 PSI, so that if I need to inflate the tires to above 40 PSI for long trips, I must use the digital gauge.

The newer pencil gauges I saw at Kragen, PepBoys, AutoZone looks very low quality and feel cheap to the touch, and all of them are made in China now.
 
Originally Posted By: Drew99GT
Originally Posted By: bretfraz
Gotta step up and run with the big dogs.

http://www.longacreracing.com/catalog/catlist.asp?catid=8

I have a fancy digital gauge but much prefer my dial one. Pretty much everything else I've used is junk.


Dude, I'm not airing up the tires on the space shuttle! .1 psi increments?


All you need is one like this: http://www.longacreracing.com/catalog/item.asp?id=231&catid=8

$25.50 + shipping. You might even find it cheaper at one of their dealers. Much better and more accurate than almost anything you'll find in a store. I've had one for over 20 years and it reads just as accurate as my fancy digital gauge.
 
Get a cheapie and calibrate it. The way to calibrate is to gather as many gauges as you can (enlist yor friends for this) and read the same tire... much like jstutz did. In industry this is called "round robin" testing.
 
I would agree with bret. I'm not sure why folks want a digital gauge. Drew, since you aren't airing up tires on the space shuttle, why have you been buying digital? I believe they are typically less accurate because folks automatically think they are better so they spend less on the quality of the gauge.
 
Actually, consumer reports and a few other organizations have tested gauges, and the digital ones as a group are the most consistently accurate.
 
I have used many many varieties, dial, digital all kinds of pencil types and the best I have found is made in the USA by Milton pencil type. The metal construction is the most durable as the plastic body ones are trash. The key is just not to drop them and they will last a very very long time.
 
Originally Posted By: Kestas
Get a cheapie and calibrate it.
The issue with a poor gauge is not just calibration, it's fine to know it's +2psi and live with it. The problem is consistency. If sometimes it reads -2 and sometimes +2 or more, then you get a problem.
 
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