How to catch someone letting air out of your tires

I attributed the 50% drop to multiple factors:

-the drop in temperature; and

-waiting a month or more between tire pressure checks

…because I realized the temperature change wouldn’t be enough alone.

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Makes sense. What kind of vandal only lets half of the air out of someone’s tires anyway? A half-assed vandal, I’d say.

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…and all four uniformly? That’s one heck of a coincidence.

Well, it’s a precise vandal that takes pride in his work, apparently. I’m imagining a vandal sneaking around with a tire pressure gauge!

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Unfortunately in today’s world that is a lawsuit waiting to happen. :grimacing:

In a trespassing case? First of all…if you’re stupid enough to try and sue a homeowner for an injury you sustained trespassing on someone else’s property in the middle of the night…(although frankly given the utterly stupid things people sue over…)

You can be sued for anything…but actually getting damages is something else. I don’t know of any court that would allow that to proceed.

A friend & his family went out for the evening while they were gone an idiot broke in the house the dog bit the idiot & he sued because of the dog not being restrained.

I’m assuming he didn’t actually win anything, though?

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No he did not win just put my friend through the hassle of getting a lawyer & taking of work to go to court the idiot got 30 day’s jail time for trespassing because as the judge told him there was no law against being stupid.

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I wonder about that. Booby traps get whoever set them in trouble. I’m thinking of shotgun traps in seldom used homes to shoot invaders, even if they break and enter the house. The board with a nail seems similar to the shotgun trap, though not nearly as likely to kill someone.

You have to prove their booby traps and not just construction material.

turned out to be all 4leaking around the rim. the tyre place had never heard of all 4 leaking at the same rate especially as 2 of the tyres were only a few months old - and couldnt actually find the leaks. but they took all the the tyres off and remounted them all fitting new valves and the problem was solved
thanks for all your comments

You said all 4 tires were “leaking around the rim”

Yet you also said the shop “couldn’t actually find the leaks” but they remounted them with new valves

If all they did was install new valves, how would that fix “leaking around the rim” . . . ?!

the tyre shop said [before and after doing the work] they were probably all leaking around the rim. the weird thing was all 4 leaked at the same exact rate and went down from 40 to 20 in about 1day day or so then stopped around 20psi. i guess that gloop they use when fitting tyres might have cleaned any fine dirt off the wheel maybe that cured the problem ? . iv been checking the pressures ever since i had them remounted a month ago and alls well. the tyre shop said hed never heard of 4 tyres doing that .They made sure tyres were fitted in exact same position i noticed theyd put a yellow mark on each tyre next to the valve position .

i paid £57.50 to have it done with the new valves and balancing took about 1 hour all told

I’ve been mounting my own tires of late and I’ve learned they’ll often leak a little around the rim unless I take the time to wire brush the bead area first. The way I tell the bead is leaking is to jack the car, remove the wheel, pump it to the desired psi, and place it on a surface so it is exactly horizontal. I use a 3 foot level to verify. Then I brush some soapy water around the bead. If there’s a leak it’s very obvious at that point, as I can soon see masses of tiny bubbles forming here and there around the bead area. In my case when there’s a bead leak it only leaks when the pressure if higher than a certain amount. After the leak causes the tire to go below that psi it stops leaking.

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Simple fix for this problem: Security tire stem caps. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VL4MZKM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Medium security, but vandals don’t carry allen wrenches with them!

True this is old but still . . . Before TPMS it was just standard procedure to pay the extra $2 for a new valve stem when getting tires. Now you wait till failure. Also the shop normally will wire brush the rim to insure a good seal for a while.

Interesting but the car I rented last week had no caps at all on any of the tires. I discovered that when I went to let some of the air out 45 and 52# when the book called for 35#. I don’t carry a tire gauge anymore. Maybe they got tired of using a wrench to take the caps off.

Before TPMS, those Schrader valves were cheap and cost about $5 after retail markup. Now they’re a higher quality part (usually, I should hope, considering what they cost).

Most of the folks in your generation bemoan that we’ve become a throwaway society, and don’t bother fixing things anymore. This is one of those rare examples of things going in the opposite direction.

No, when you get new tires, they replace the cores if your sensors are still servicable. The stems are metal so they don’t degrade like the rubber ones do. Just had it done, $4 per tire.

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