Friday Fuel Economy: Check Your Tire Pressure

Reader Contribution by Staff

Over the years I’ve heard several different versions of this conversation:

It seems like I’m buying gas more and more often these days. I’m assuming my gas mileage is declining, but I don’t know why. 

Have you checked your tire pressure recently? 

Tire pressure? They look fine, why would I need to check their pressure? Why would it change? 

Unfortunately far too many of us drive every day with the assumption that our tires are properly inflated. Thirty percent of us, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, have at least one tire that’s low by 8 psi or more. This is bad news for fuel economy and our consumption of oil — we annually waste 1.2 billion gallons of gas according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Bad tire pressure also increases the odds of blowouts and other types of tire failure that can be a real pain, if not a serious risk to safety. 

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