How To Check Your Car’s Tyre Pressure

Having the incorrect tyre pressure can be a serious safety concern and having under-inflated tyres will also waste your fuel thus costing you money. For your safety and bank account, read our instructions on how to check and adjust your tyre pressure.

So, how do you check your tyre pressure?

Inside the owners manual for the car there should be a standard inflation pressure (the correct pressure for your car’s tyres), if you can’t find the manual you may find it inside the door on the drivers side. Once you’ve found it, you will next unscrew the valve stem cap which can be found on the hubcap of the tyre. Then you will need an air pressure gauge.

If you don’t have one don’t worry, they are easily found online, here's a multitude on Amazon for instance. With the pressure gauge you will need to press it onto the valve stem and record the given reading. If you are hearing a hissing like noise, then you are not pressing the gauge correctly and will need to adjust until the ‘hissing’ stops.

Once you have your reading and it’s correct for your car then you can screw the valve stem cap back on.

How to release air out of your tyres

If your reading is showing that your tyre pressure is too high then you’ll need to reduce it. This can be done with a flathead screwdriver. Take the valve stem cap off and you will be able to see a metal pin inside the valve stem. Now place the screwdriver atop of the pin and press inwards, which will release the air. Keep checking your pressure after doing this until you get the correct reading.

How to inflate your tyres

Conversely, if your reading shows that your tyres are under-inflated then you will need to inflate them.

To do this you’ll need a foot pump, or you can use an air pump machine that you should be able to find at your local petrol station.

Once you have either of these you’ll once again need to unscrew the valve stem cap and attach either the foot pump or the air pump machine to the tyre valve. With the foot pump you will need to physically pump up the pressure, whereas with the air pump machine you will either adjust the pressure with the machine yourself or it will inflate your tyres automatically when you set the BAR or PSI number. To find your BAR or PSI number, check out Kwik Fit.