[rand49er]

Got a warning today that two tires were at 31 psi and needed air. The other two were at 33. I aired them up back in late July to about 40-41 (I religiously use 78% nitrogen air), and I now have 6.3k miles. Guess I thought it would take a lot longer for them to lose ~10 psi. Seems like a lot.

 

[loborojo]

Tire pressure will likely drop with colder temperatures. Maybe your 10 degrees is a combination of normal leakage and winter.

Filling your tires with nitrogen is sold as stopping tire leaks due to the larger molecules:
http://www.nitrofill.com/nitrogen-in-tires.aspx

To me it was not worth the cost.

 

[DA\Volt]

Yes, my Volt definitely needs the tires aired up far more often than I recall my two previous cars needing. I've only had the Volt less than four months and I've had to air them at least three times. One was down to 33lbs this morning, the others 34. I generally air to 38 cold. Weather had been cold in Los Angeles this week, well, for Los Angeles, but it hasn't been in the prior the months.

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[Mister Dave]

I religiously use 78% nitrogen air

Me too. It's still free.

Tire pressure will likely drop with colder temperatures.

Tire pressure will definitely drop with colder temperatures.

That and tires generally lose about 1 PSI per month. If you're losing air a lot faster than that it's either the bead, the valve or a puncture.

 

[acarney]

So wait, didn't you just use normal air then? (Normal air is around 78% nitrogen)

I think every 10 degree F temp change will produce about a 1 psi difference. So if July was your last fill I wouldn't be surprised for at least a five or six psi change. I usually check mine every month or two months and always am two to four psi down based on how quick the seasons are changing.

 

[Dutch]

Acarney is right. Not too long ago someone here introduced me to the "Ideal Gas Law", which basically works out to about 1 psi per 10 degrees temperature.

In other words if you start at July with a temperature of about 80 degrees and a tire pressure of about 40 psi, then when you hit 30 degrees (as you've been getting at night) the tire pressure is going to be down by at least 5 psi to about 35 psi even before you consider normal air loss over time. Losing 4-5 psi over about 4 months is not unusual for a heavy vehicle, my old Cadillac Fleetwood used to be like that.

Having said that, I do feel like I'm more conscious of my tire pressure in the Volt than I ever have been for any other vehicle. I guess is the mileage thing, and I do seem to "touch up" my tire pressure more often than I've ever done before.

 

[Jim in Tucson]

The Volt has always needed air in the tires more often than any previous car. I'm convinced it is the wheels, but I don't know how to prove it. I've had three different sets of tires on the Volt and they all needed additional air quite often.

 

[llninja]

Yes, my Volt definitely needs the tires aired up far more often than I recall my two previous cars needing. I've only had the Volt less than four months and I've had to air them at least three times. One was down to 33lbs this morning, the others 34. I generally air to 38 cold. Weather had been cold in Los Angeles this week, well, for Los Angeles, but it hasn't been in the prior the months.

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I think I mess with my tire pressure much more with the volt than any other car I owned because I can see the 4 tire pressures on the driver information console on a daily basis. On my other cars, it's less than once a month that I take a tire gauge to the wheels. But I don;t think I'm losing pressure at and greater rate. You might want to take a good close look to make sure you don;t have any debris protruding through your rubber. Spray cleaner is a good way to find leaks, you will see lots of bubbles forming near the slow leak.

 

[quirkySquirt]

Mine drop pressure as well. I even topped them off a month ago with similar temps to today and still lost 1-2 psi, which is acceptable from what I've read online. I'm guessing my attentiveness to this is also due to the fact this is the first car I've had with TPMS.

 

[rand49er]

Yes, my Volt definitely needs the tires aired up far more often than I recall my two previous cars needing. ...

The Volt has always needed air in the tires more often than any previous car. ...

Mine drop pressure as well. ...

Thank you. Our other two cars (Cadillac SRX and Cadillac CTS-V) have TPMS and do not lose pressure this fast regardless of ambient temperature changes nor did my previous cars. I just wonder if it has anything to do with them being low-rolling-resistance tires.

So wait, didn't you just use normal air then? (Normal air is around 78% nitrogen) ...

Ha!

 

[Joe67]

Tire pressure will likely drop with colder temperatures. Maybe your 10 degrees is a combination of normal leakage and winter.

Filling your tires with nitrogen is sold as stopping tire leaks due to the larger molecules:
http://www.nitrofill.com/nitrogen-in-tires.aspx

To me it was not worth the cost.

This ^^^

I would not expect a Volt to lose any more or less pressure than any other passenger vehicle tire....

 

[dwrede]

Could be just the wheels. I have one tire that seems to lose faster than the others, but not fast enough to think there is damage to the tire. It also seems to depend on which app I am looking at, On Star vs Chevrolet vs vehicle. They all will read the charge, tire pressure, by one off from each other sometimes.

 

[Insight Refugee]

I generally add air every six weeks or so; more often when the temp drops; less often when it is going up (for every 10 degrees F, tire pressure will adjust by 1 PSI). That's more often than on the company car (Ford Escape). Some of that is related to the fact that I run higher PSI on the Volt than the average car for efficiency reasons; as the delta between tire pressure and ambient pressure drops, so does the rate of PSI loss. I would not blame the Volt wheels, but the LLR tires may also have issues w/r/t their lighter construction.

My experience with the Volt mirrors what I saw with the Prius and the Insight ... LRR tires and higher pressures = pulling out the compressor more often.

 

[vawlk]

I just had to take my wife's ford explorer in to have the rims cleaned. Lots of corrosion built up on the tire bead causing me to fill up the tires every few days.

I've also had to do this on my old grand prix so I would venture to guess that it can also happen on the volt.

 

[rand49er]

... I would not expect a Volt to lose any more or less pressure than any other passenger vehicle tire....

Nor did I. But, just based on my personal, though admittedly uncontrolled, little experiment they sure seem to have.

Assuming I aired them up when it was about 27 deg C and it is now about 4 deg C, the Ideal Gas Law would seem to explain only approximately half the pressure reduction. No ... something else is going on here. Maybe all four have a slight leak in the valve stems ... but, all four?!! Seems unlikely. Hm-m ...

 

[jbakerjonathan]

Me too. It's still free.

Most, if not all, of the stations have installed meters that require quarters to buy air for a unit of time across many parts of the country. One place I stopped at when a nail caused a slow leak required $1.50 for 3 minutes of air. I paid that exorbitant price because I had forgotten that all Volts carry an air pump that plugs into the 12 volt PTO. lol As I write this I realize that maybe you are a little bit correct, if you factor out the cost of the Volt.

 

[santafe2]

I have one tire that seems to lose faster than the others, but not fast enough to think there is damage to the tire.

I'm on my 3rd Volt. Both Gen 1 Volts had this issue. One tire would lose air and require filling about once a month. My Gen 2 had this issue once at about 500 miles but it's still too new to know if it will be as regular an issue as it was with the Gen 1.

 

[kentlucas]

I have filled mine twice since taking ownership in Jan. I was already running higher pressures on my previous Civic Hybrid with LRR tires and don't see any difference in the rate of pressure loss between it and the Volt. I pay more attention now with the TPMS.

 

[CurrentEvent]

I have two problems with my tires. The dashboard display is two lbs low. If you check the tires with a gauge, they'll look two pounds higher. The other is when they rotate my tires, they don't switch the tire sensors. In my mind I have to allow for the fact that the tires are reversed. Next time they're rotated they'll be back to the right tires. It can get confusing.

 

[fishhawk]

Could be just the wheels. I have one tire that seems to lose faster than the others, but not fast enough to think there is damage to the tire. It also seems to depend on which app I am looking at, On Star vs Chevrolet vs vehicle. They all will read the charge, tire pressure, by one off from each other sometimes.

I had this problem with the tires on both of our Volts, even with constant temperatures. I replaced my OEM Goodyears with Continental PureContacts, and the only change I see now is due to temperatures. So in my case, it could have been the OEM tires were not sealing well on the rim, or the thin sidewalls on the tires actually leaked a bit.