I was in Napa today, and noticed a full rack of valve cap indicators, I had looked at them befor, but they seemed to only be in the 32-38psi range, a few motorcycle ones at 44psi, but now they have 32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 45, 50, 75, and 100psi caps, with three stages, full presure, 4psi low, and 10psi low, all in one cap!
I just had to get a set of the 50psi for my snow tires (51psi max presure on these tires) and they seem pretty solid so far, black rubber o-ring seal, steal threded body, we'll see how they hold up, I picked up a digital tire gauge too, thought it might be time to join the rest of you in the 21'st century.

my brother was saying that you don't want a lot of weight on the valve stem if you do high speed driving apparently the high g forces can bend valve stems and cause air loss. But then we are talking about my brother . . . I think I know what to get my xB for Christmas!

Ryland -

How much do they cost at Napa? I got some cheapies (all plastic) from Radio Shack and they were on sale for $5 a set. What is their tolerance? Does it say on the packaging? I think the Radio Shack ones had at least a 20% tolerance, so if there were rated at 30 PSI, they wouldn't show that your tire was low until it went down to 24 PSI.

I would get a set from Napa, except now I use my "pump the gas slow" strategy as an excuse to check the tire pressure. So now I check my tire pressure at least once every 3-4 days. I'll probably get a set for my wife.

CarloSW2

__________________
Old School SW2 EPA ... New School Civic EPA :

What's your EPA MPG? http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/calculatorSelectYear.jsp

I think it was around $11 for a set of 4, what really sold me on them was that they would show you when your tire was both 4psi low, (turn yellow) and 10psi low (turn red), the idea of checking your presure at every fillup is good, other then your tires are warm then (higher presure), and every time you check the presure, you are taking a sample of the air, so it's droping by that much.

I have only seen the 32 and 36's around here. Now that I know they are out there looks like I will be finding some stockings this year. We dont have a NAPA around here so I will have to do some shopping.

Thanks for the info.

Jack

__________________
See my car here:

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2452824

After some internet shopping I found these:

http://www.brookstone.com/store/prod...516&pid=539106

and these:

http://www.dingking.tv/family.asp?fam_id=ZACP

But neither were close to $11 for 4.

*****Edit******* Bought em on ebay for $8.18 shipped seen here:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/SAFET...spagenameZWDVW

__________________
See my car here:

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2452824

Those Brookstone ones are smart - show a pressure drop of 4psi from ANY PRESSURE - not too good in hot and cold weather that we are having now of course since the pressure will fluxuate that much from the temps alone. But these also have an LED that flashes - more weight and tech to go bad - nice bling bling!!

As a long-time "tire pressure adjuster, checker"... let me give you my experiences with these tricks.
A) They tend to freeze up during slushy (cold) conditions... You'll never know....
B) Do this...place your 4 caps on one tire valve stem, one at a time. Check each psi reading. What you are looking for is : Do all caps read the "same"? I think you will be surprised!
C) Metal caps? Are they heavy enough to affect tire balance? You be the
judge , here....
I tried these years ago...they don't throw too well, either! LOL!
I've got (and have had) a high(er)-dollar analog (I like the number scale!) pressure gauge. Digital? Hmmm.... With batteries? Don't get caught with low voltage (cold) or old batteries....

I've had the same thing happen with the mecanical gauges, and figured that one that had a warenty on it's acuricy seemed like a fair way to go, of course how much they stand behind that is another question, but I got the caps, and the gauge at the same time so that I could check them againt a suposedly acurite number, and they seem to be within mesurable tolernces.
I also wonder about the weight and ballence, that is the only thing I don't really know about, but they don't seem to weight much more then normal metal valve caps, and I know hub caps aren't all that well ballence, and when I got the car it had a wheel lock on each wheel that weighed an extra ounce, so I figure without hub caps, or wheel locks or any of that, a valve cap is going to be reasonable.

Thanks for the info. How can you lose for 8.18.

__________________
CO ZX2

garage/view/239

100+MPG Fill

Coasting Info

Front Fender Skirts

I don't think balance is going to be an issue. So many ricers run around with those "firefly" LED valve stem caps, and those things probably have some weight. I never heard any of my ricer friends complain about them screwing up their tires/wheels.

Yeah well my brother mounts the tires for them ricers and he tells me they cause some problems at really high speeds even with the little that they do weigh - bending valve stems and leaking air - he balances to a fraction of an ounce for the boys that want to go over 150mph. Car tires it should not matter so much because the weight of a car tire is much greater than a bike tire. I do wonder what size button cell they have inside them to make the LED lightup - probably runs down the battery pretty quick if they cool off at night, loose pressure and blink when no one is there.

Then it's a racket! You put these on and drive at high speeds, making the valve stems bend and leak air. Then the LED blinks and kills the battery!!

Yup the oil and battery companies are in it together. Remy had the same thing happen at Eveready in CT they did not want to make a rechargable Lithium battery that was safe and flexible. They want to keep making the throw away batteries.

Yep. I saw those a month or two back (and picked up two sets of the 40psi units). Unlike many of the places, the local NAPA really did have the 40psi caps that I wanted for my CRX and my wife's Civic (most stores only had 32 and 36psi units). And while they were slightly more per set than some of the units in the other stores, the NAPA units were in the correct psi for my needs, looked slightly lighter and smaller (less drag on the wheel), and also slightly better constructed than many of the units.

BTW: While 40psi might be low by the standards of this forum, it's actually pretty high by most car standards. However, I picked the 40psi caps (I actually often inflate to 42psi in practice), because it is still way above my car glove box plaque recommendations (32psi in the CRX, and only 28 in the Civic), while still being low enough that I'm both below the rating of the tires (44psi tires) and below the level where my wife complains about how the car drives (you have got to pay attention to the "wife acceptance factor" with some mods)...

NOTE: At least at the NAPA I go to, you can get a small discount if you are a AAA auto-club member, and show your AAA card during checkout. The discount isn't large, but (around here) it is slightly higher than the local sales tax, so it's a bit like getting the tax paid for by the discount. And every little bit helps! So if you are already a member of AAA (we are, mainly because the "emergency road service" is nice if/when one of our high mileage vehicles decides to have problems, often while we are commuting to/from work), you might as well ask if you can get a AAA discount.

I've had these valve caps for slightly over 3 months now, and am still impressed with them, I just switched from snow tires back to summer tires, so I checked tire presure on all of them with my digital gauge as I removed tires and valve caps, two tires were about 3psi low, and the caps don't start changing untill they get down to 46psi (4psi low), I've sence noticed that one of my summer tires has a slow leak (put in a tiny bit of slime and make sure it puddled over the nail hole) and so it's nice being able to tell at a glance if the tire really is low, or if the ground is uneven.