Tire Pressure and Temperature

[Brenwol1]

I have a 2019 21' Heartland Mallard TT, single axle. The tires take 80 psi and (from advice in the forums here) I keep them at 80 psi cold.

I recently added TPMS monitors on both tires from Blu TPMS. It reports to an app on my phone and works great. It allows me to set pressure and temperature thresholds for alarms. My questions is this: what should be the max settings for temp and pressure?

Brenwol

[jimcumminsw]

I can't answer your question.

But this is why I do not like a TPMS monitoring for tires, information overload. When towing your trailer the tires could have different parameters from when you started out towing with the tires at ambient temps. Why? This depends on what the ambient daytime temps have risen too and if you are in sunlight or shade. I check my trailer tires for temps every 2 hours when we stop with an IFR gun. The tires on one side can be as high as 15 Deg's difference if it is on the sunny side or shady side. What I look for is temp difference between the two tires on the same side. These should be no more than 2 to 5 Deg's different, if they are than something is wrong. I also use the old trucker method, hit the tire with a mallet if it is soft or mushy than something is wrong.

This works for me and I have been towing since the late 70's.

[Jon_C]

My TPMS has those settings built into the system for alarming based on the cold pressure i set for each tire. I can tell you my cold inflation pressure is 110psi and the pressure normally rises up to 125 psi while traveling around 65 mph with the tire weight load at approximately 90%. My sensor is on end of valve stem so the temp is not reading the tire directly. The most important point to monitor is pressure, as long as the tire is not overloaded and has proper pressure for the load it will be fine as long as tire is in good running condition. ( not dry rotted or aged out or have previously been run under inflated etc...)

[Brenwol1]

Originally Posted by jimcumminsw

I can't answer your question.

But this is why I do not like a TPMS monitoring for tires, information overload. When towing your trailer the tires could have different parameters from when you started out towing with the tires at ambient temps. Why? This depends on what the ambient daytime temps have risen too and if you are in sunlight or shade. I check my trailer tires for temps every 2 hours when we stop with an IFR gun. The tires on one side can be as high as 15 Deg's difference if it is on the sunny side or shady side. What I look for is temp difference between the two tires on the same side. These should be no more than 2 to 5 Deg's different, if they are than something is wrong. I also use the old trucker method, hit the tire with a mallet if it is soft or mushy than something is wrong.

This works for me and I have been towing since the late 70's.

That is what I experienced. My TPMS measures from inside each tire independently. The sunny-side tire read 91 psi while the other read 89. Since I arbitrarily set the threshold at 90, it alarmed.

[1bigmess]

It's not information overload if it prevents a catastrophe. Makes me wonder how pilots fly safely if they are constantly suffering from information overload.

More than you might ever want to know about tire temperature:
RV Tire Safety: Temperature

[kdauto]

I am not certain on aftermarket add-on trailer TPMS systems but all factory automotive and light truck TPMS automatically take into account temp and pressure differences as the tires warm up. It isn't surprising to have some tires start out at 80 psi cold and hit 95 psi on hot asphalt after driving for hours. Nitrogen inflation or any other gas will NOT change this, research Boyle's law.

Not many OEM automotive systems trigger with overinflation but some GMs do, a few others as well. If you have to set a high pressure threshold I'd set it 25% above the recommended or preferred pressure, same as the 25% OEs use to trigger below preferred pressure.