All we ever did was give the middle of the tread a good thump with a lump hammer, you soon learned which tyres were lower than the others as they gave a duller thud. Of course if you heard no noise at all then the chances were that the wheel had fallen off…
Pete.
windrush:
All we ever did was give the middle of the tread a good thump with a lump hammer, you soon learned which tyres were lower than the others as they gave a duller thud. Of course if you heard no noise at all then the chances were that the wheel had fallen off…Pete.
Yes a lump hammer works too, but they are more than 3.95 
Once a month by the tyre co. Or if they attend a vehicle for any other reason they do a pressure check on all the other wheels.
Wow shows me what type of firm i work for the ■■■■■■■■ wont even pay for bridge tolls and as for defects it will get fixed when it wont go or broke at side of the road !!! So what pressure is meant to be in truck tyres then !!!lol
what a load of bulls-hit get in it and drive it… start messing with valves and you get bigger problems… cannot most drivers see what “needs” air…
Part of a drivers daily visual check , so I do it every day…
sye-i do you mean look at em or check em…
Wheel Nut:
windrush:
All we ever did was give the middle of the tread a good thump with a lump hammer, you soon learned which tyres were lower than the others as they gave a duller thud. Of course if you heard no noise at all then the chances were that the wheel had fallen off…Pete.
Yes a lump hammer works too, but they are more than 3.95
Agreed, but I cant see that guage getting anywhere near the valve on an inside wheel, unless they have a good extension on the valve which ours never had.
Pete.
cliffystephens:
sye-i do you mean look at em or check em…
"Visual " so I just look , you can tell if you need air or not just by looking …
SYE-1:
cliffystephens:
sye-i do you mean look at em or check em…"Visual " so I just look , you can tell if you need air or not just by looking …
Exactly…you cant tell.I only work part time now but when I worked full time I did a visual check everyday and a proper check once a week.
Do drivers not realise the consequences of a wrongly inflated tyre?
What is wrong with people these days?
in 40 years of driving trucks i never seen another driver check a tyre with a “gauge” unless it was either blowing up a soft or flat one …
How many drivers know the correct pressure? Especially if your in a different truck regularly
Foxstein:
How many drivers know the correct pressure? Especially if your in a different truck regularly
There was another time ,before i even had my class 2 (van &7.5t only) On a jaunt to italia in a hired 7.5tonner , took the truck from the yard, preston, got to the collection adress nr royston Whilst waiting to get loaded i noticed again f/n/s tyre was badly worn (cords visable) this is a hire truck do the hire companies not check the tyres before they let someone hire them ? again a wait for tyre fitters to come and fit a new tyre, after which we got loaded and drove to intaly and returned to blighty without further incident , or re tourquing the wheelnuts because we had no means of re torqueing them ourselves and we didn’t know where this could of been carried out en route to dover
I bet this isn’t even covered in the DCPC
Threads like these are brilliant, do all you lot who check your tyre pressures do it while waiting for a fitter to come and change a headlight bulb… 
I know I’m a boring old git, but I have to point out that running with an underinflated tyre is an offence, as is running with loose wheelnuts. It’s down to the driver to check them. The reason why most drivers don’t bother is because, due to more modern materials, tyres don’t leak so often as they used to and, unless maintenance has been seriously neglected, you don’t see as many wheels making their own way up the motorway.
But, should anything go pear-shaped, guess who is going to carry the can?
I check tyres on our fleet every 8 weeks for tractors every 12 for trailers.
If VOSA pull you and find an underinflated tyre try blaming me! who is driving it? you get the points not me.
So who cares, not me baby!
Its worrying sometimes reading the posts some of you put on here concerning safety items on your vehicles and despite what name is on the door, if your behind the wheel its your vehicle as its you that will receive the penalty points and fines or worse jail sentance, true, the next in line being the fitter that has signed the inspection sheet to say all is well, when it isn’t, then the Traffic Manager gets it. Starts at Three points and a £60 fine up to a jail term if someone dies and Corporate Manslaughter is proved.
Its the drivers responsibility to check the correct pressures are in the tyres of the vehicle he is driving just as he has to make sure the tyres are in a legal condition. One point about reinflating tyres that have been run in an almost flat condition due to leakage, they could at some stage burst and being in the close proximity of this event isn’t recommended. Basically the inside wall of the tyre is damaged and once a pressure of around 100 psi is put back in, the tyre wall can’t take it and off it goes, when, can be anything from seconds later to hours or days.
Frankydobo:
Its worrying sometimes reading the posts some of you put on here concerning safety items on your vehicles and despite what name is on the door, if your behind the wheel its your vehicle as its you that will receive the penalty points and fines or worse jail sentance, true, the next in line being the fitter that has signed the inspection sheet to say all is well, when it isn’t, then the Traffic Manager gets it. Starts at Three points and a £60 fine up to a jail term if someone dies and Corporate Manslaughter is proved.
Its the drivers responsibility to check the correct pressures are in the tyres of the vehicle he is driving just as he has to make sure the tyres are in a legal condition. One point about reinflating tyres that have been run in an almost flat condition due to leakage, they could at some stage burst and being in the close proximity of this event isn’t recommended. Basically the inside wall of the tyre is damaged and once a pressure of around 100 psi is put back in, the tyre wall can’t take it and off it goes, when, can be anything from seconds later to hours or days.
This is the reason I would only ever use a tyre inflator that doesn’t require you to hold it on the valve stem, so you can be well away from the sidewall, and also the reason I would not advocate a company policy on a larger fleet of drivers inflating tyres.
A small haulier with a group of trusted drivers then yes it could be a good idea, for fuel economy, if they checked and adjusted tyre pressures once a week. Everywhere else they should, in my view, just be checking for obvious soft/flat/cuts/wear/bulges.
The ideas such as drivers removing dust caps and checking every tyre with a gauge every day are bonkers. For one thing every time you put the gauge on it release a small amount of air and increases the chance of damging the pin in the valve so the tyre is then slowly releasing air.
Edit: As a general point about ‘correct’ pressures there aren’t any as such it’s partly operator choice based on factors like typical load profile, work, fuel economy and what’s best on balance. On identical trailers I’ve seen them marked up with a spread of 110psi to 140psi from different operators. The main thing, in terms of daily checks, is there isn’t significant variance between one side of an axle and the other (excluding two punctures 
)
albion1971:
SYE-1:
cliffystephens:
sye-i do you mean look at em or check em…"Visual " so I just look , you can tell if you need air or not just by looking …
Exactly…you cant tell.I only work part time now but when I worked full time I did a visual check everyday and a proper check once a week.
Do drivers not realise the consequences of a wrongly inflated tyre?
What is wrong with people these days?
think you read that wrong … you CAN tell if you need air or not by looking …
Your correct in what you say Own Account Driver, it really isn’t feasable for a large operation unless you have airlines with gauges fitted that are readily available for drivers to use and drivers have the tyre information required should checks or small adjustments be needed, this though would need monitoring by the fleet engineer/workshop manager to ensure things were being done correctly and the equipment was in good condition.
A driver though should have no excuse for not knowing what pressures his tyres take and how to adjust them, as long as the pressure hasn’t dropped too low, we have a 10 psi limit from full pressure anything less than a tyre fitter has to check it out, this might seem OTT but its because of past experience of tyres going bang after being run flat (a H&S rule!). Tyre pressures do vary and the same make and model of vehicle can have different pressures to another according to requirements, all the more reason these should be marked up on a vehicle. Unfortunately tyres are an area where there is no one rule on how to manage the care of them, the many different posts on here indicate that and transport operations vary. The bottom line is though ignorance is no defence if a driver is found culpable because of tyre condition.