Hi. 09 honda fit. 97k miles.
I left my car on grass for 15 days in the summer; it was not moved. Lots of morning dew/moisture covered the car daily.
After starting to drive I noticed a loss of 6 to 7 psi per month and have to refill air a lot. Tire place didn’t see any leaks. Been like this for 6 months.
I check the tire with a great pressure gauge and air pressure sensor also lights up on car.
The tires are only 14 months in use. Great tires.
Any ideas? I think the heavy moisture seeped into tire. Its winter here in NY state and filling tires a lot is not fun. thanks.
The wheels themselves can leak. More common with the pricier alloy wheels. Do you have alloy wheels? That’s one idea. But especially if you have steel wheels, I’m guessing what NYBo suggests above, the wheel bead needs to be cleaned up. That’s done by removing the tire and wire brushing the beads, the applying some bead sealant before re-mounting the tire. If you want to try something yourself, remove the wheel that seems to leak the fastest, clean the dirt and debris off, then “paint” it with a paintbrush and soapy water, checking for bubbles. Use a level to orient the wheel perfectly horizontal to check for bubbles in the bead area. Check for leaks at the valve stem too, both where it seals to the rim, and the tip, after removing the valve cap.
If there’s a leak it would have to show up in a dunk tank of course. But not all shops have water tanks big enough to dunk an entire wheel.
Thanks for replies.
They are oem alloy wheels. I’ll take it to my mechanic and ask him to remove tires check bead seal/ wheels. Its beyond my meager skills at this point.
underinflated tires make driving the car harsh among other things.
I had this exact problem on one of my truck’s wheels, tire kept losing air gradually. I’d have to top it off once a week or every other week. When I removed the tire from the rim it was immediately apparent the bead area on the rim was rusty. Wire brushing and bead sealer fixed the problem straight away. I even hauled a heavy load of firewood the other day, tire didn’t seem to lose any pressure at all.
Aloy rims corrode more quickly at the bead in salt conditions than steel ones do.Counter-intuitive but true. I have observed it long enough to know, that is why I won’t buy a car with alloy wheels. About 7 years and they start leaking.
Personal experience - No they don’t, necessarily. 2 cars in the driveway, 14 years old and 17 years old with their factory aluminum wheels. Neither car is a problem for leakage. The 14 year old’s wheels LOOK like crap, but they don’t leak.
I do know, however, that Ford had a serious problem with leaks through very poorly cast wheels (full of occlusions and inclusions) for some years back in the '80s and '90s. I assume those problems have been solved by now.
In short, some badly cast wheels do have the problem. But it is not universal.
I have lived in Western NY my whole life, never more than 60 miles from Buffalo. We use the most road salt of any place I have seen and the temp frequently switches from just below freezing to just above when salt is most active. The lake that moderates our temps also causes numerous lake effect storms so our salt is applied most days.
Like I said a car with alloy wheels is good for about 7 years here before it starts leaking. I am talking about a car used for commuting all winter.
This problem is not due to defective castings ( I have never owned a Ford product ) but is pitting at the bead area and when you dismount the tire you can see not only the pitting but also the salt residue that has eaten its way in. You can take off a perfect looking tail or brake light housing with a gasket that is sealed so well you have to pry it off and find salt inside.
We don’t have 14 and 17 year old car here that have been driven that many winters. We do have used car dealers that have their own car haulers to bring used cars from down south and we have used parts stores that bring truckloads of doors, gas tanks etc. from down south also. Even the plastic tanks have to be replaced, the metal locking rings rust and expand so much that they create holes in the threaded part the fuel pump assembly gors into.
So you think your experience applies to all wheels on all vehicles in all parts of the country throughout all time. Well, it’s hard to argue with a belief that strong. Except to say that it’s a big country. With millions of alloy wheels out there of all sizes and designs, cast and machined by countless automotive vendors.
I guess you must also know a great deal about casting. You must have been to many more casting houses than I have, talked to many more engineers from casting houses, and done far more metallurgical failure analysis on castings than I have. I’ve done a fair amount, so I guess I just have to tip my hat to superior knowledge.
I guess I must be blessed to not have lived your experiences with alloy wheels. My friends must be blessed too. Most of them don’t have your wheel problems. Except, of course, a few that had Ford Tauruses back in the '80s. I’ve examined one of those wheels closely and it was clearly a very poor casting. Well, that’s what I thought until I read your post.
So, to summarize, all the tires go from fully inflated at about 32 PSI to zero pressure in about four months? That has nothing to do with any common cause for tires to lose pressure. Losing 6 PSI from summer to winter is an easy thing to explain if the temperature dropped by 60 degrees F. If they all are really going from full to half full every couple months it is worth having the rubber stripped, inspected and remounted. We have an '07 Fit that doesn’t lose a single pound every six months other than the temp-related decrease (or increase). That car has rubbish discount tires. We also have an '06 Accord that sits all winter and doesn’t lose any air in the tires from fall to spring. That car has better than OEM Pirellis. Tell us what you find as the cause. This one has me stumped.
I propose a simpler version of what George_San_Jose1 suggests. Get a spray bottle, mix up some soapy water, and spray it all over the tire while it’s still installed, especially the valve stem and bead areas. There’s a good chance you’ll see the leak (indicated by bubbles) even without taking the tire off and laying it flat.
Something similar happened to me once. It ended up being a bad batch of Chinese-made valve stems.
Take the car back to the tire shop where you last bought tires and see if they’ll either install fresh valve stems or at least replace each Schrader valve in each one. It’s a cheap way to throw parts at the problem to see if it gets better.
TSM If you reread the the part of my post that you reposted you will see that I said here. Here is the only place I have had any experience owning a car. The OP said they live in NY State.
Fair enough.
But I’ve lived in NH (for much of my life), North Dakota, and Illinois, and cannot believe that all alloy wheels only last 7 years in upstate NY. Sorry, but I just cannot believe that. I’ve spent a good deal of time upstate, and while the lake-effect storms can be brutal (I got stuck in one once and ended up staying at a hotel in Syracuse) it’s no tougher on automobile wheels up there than it is in NH.
Having looked into the casting problems in some wheels, as well as having analyzed a number of casting problems, done a bit of metallurgical analysis on various cast alloys (working with metallurgists), looked into a failed cast automotive wheel that couldn’t hold air, and reviewed casting processes with their company representatives at more than one casting house, including Hitchiner whose primary markets are automotive and aerospace, I can testify that there are many variations in alloys and casting processes, some that can manifest themselves as occlusions and inclusions in the parts if not done properly.
In summary, it is simply not true that cast alloy wheels last only 7 years before leaking. Alloys, processes, process controls, and conformal coatings that have become commonplace have long since addressed the issues that cause porosity. It is only true that SOME alloy wheels develop leaks, generally because of damage to the rim.
NH, IL, and ND have things in common, they are much colder than the Buffalo area, and have less frequent storms and less snow. and except for Chicago they don’t have a bare roads policy where every road is to be plowed and salted to bare pavement. places that are colder use more sand and less salt. We also add chemicals to the salt that makes it more corrosive. I expect we will have to agree to disagree on this one.
Yup, we disagree. And, having lived in the three areas mentioned, I feel qualified to say that we disagree on the weather differences too. And on road treatments. NH adds corrosive chemicals too. I’d bet that because of heavy EPA regs, they’re the same ones they use where you are.
As regards the wheels, we definitely disagree. And it isn’t because of weather. It’s because I’ve had alloy wheels for… let’s see… 45 years. The only ones I ever had corrosion problems with were the ones I bought in '72, and that was in ND. They pitted.
thanks.