"It's going to be harder to drive your vehicle:" Taking care of tire pressure on a snowy day
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - In driving conditions like this morning, you're looking for every advantage you can get.
Now, with that in mind, ignoring that light on your dash saying you have a low tire can put you at a major disadvantage.
For your safety, if that light is on, on your dash, you have a tire that's under its needed air pressure and you should not ignore it - especially today.
While you may look at your tires and nothing seems out of the ordinary, if that light is on, your tire pressure monitoring system has detected a tire running lower on air than it should.
"It's a huge difference," said Tim Dietz, the owner of Troubleshooters. "If you're running on low tire pressure, the tire handling is unpredictable, the braking will also be unpredictable. So, when you have low air pressure in your tires, it's going to be harder to drive your vehicle, harder to handle."
At Troubleshooters in Ross Township, Dietz and the crew have seen their share of what under-inflated tires can do.
"Now, you're running a tire that's maybe eight nine pounds low and you hit a hole and it will blow the tire out," Dietz explained.
The lack of air pressure causes the sides to get soft and your control gets soft, too.
"We call them low-speed shimmy, so the car will actually move a little bit from right to left, with low tire pressure," he said.
So, Dietz said if your light is on, make your first stop an air pump and don't go by sight - check them all if you don't know.
If you're still unsure, check inside your driver's side door frame for a sticker that tells you the proper air pressure and inflate to that number.
Do not pay attention to the number on the side of the tire or you will overinflate it.
Finally, snow tires make everything better, but there's the inverse - if they get low, it could be a big problem.
The bottom line, this is a day when you need all your tires performing at the top of their performance.