I do check my air pressures each morning prior to departing, but I will admit I use three different gauges and none of them match each other. I have no idea how I would go about getting any of them calibrated. Tireman9, a good topic for your blog might be that very subject. I have weighed my wheel positions individually, and found it varies somewhat from trip to trip, and I was occasionally overloading the right rear by about a hundred pounds. I did switch to LT tires after debating my choices for over a year. I chose the no brainer situation where the load rating on the sidewall of my new tires is a third more than the ST tires they replaced. And of course I had to buy new rims in order to do this. The problem I see though is that because there is a difference in the way they calculate those max load numbers for LT and ST tires, there may be situations where switching to an LT tire from the ST tire may actually be a step up, but it is not obvious by reading the numbers on the sidewall because they are calculated differently. This is where I am begging and pleading to the experts like you and CapriRacer who know how to do this correctly. For some, the no brainer situation won't work for them, but with a little more information so they can do an apples to apples comparison, they can make an informed choice and improve their safety. Nobody wants to do something that is unsafe (i.e. put tires on their trailer that aren't as good as the inadequate ones the trailer manufacturers supply).
BTW: I won't supply the DOT serial numbers for my tires, I'm afraid someone from Nigeria will steal their identity.:B
I don't think I said anything about aging related to temperature. But the data you provide is interesting. What I have noticed though is that I see more people reporting blowouts here while driving through the desert southwest. The information of 180 degrees internal temperature being critical is also good information, as is the information about the difference in using a TPMS on the end of the valve stem and those that sit just inside the wheel. Of course those of us with our IR guns won't be able to accurately determine the internal temperatures as you pointed out in an earlier post. The best we can do is look for an abnormality.
It may have been me that Chris remembers reporting a high ST tire temperature. It was caused by a problem in the bearings and brakes. The bearings were running at around 150, but the tire wasn't that hot. It was about 25 degrees warmer than the rest.
That little $40 IR gun saved me a lot of time and bacon that night.
Once again . . . this thread just keeps getting better and better. I now know what features to look for in a TPMS and have a better idea if I should take a tire out of service due to possible hidden internal damage. Thanks Roger.
