How can you possibly trust your tire gauge?

How can you know your gauge is good? Without a known reference, you really cant. Best would be as other have said, compare it to others. But even then, what if those are also bad.....a bad batch in manufacturing.

Great question.

I recently had an issue with a fuel pressure gauge, which was expensive.
 
How can you know your gauge is good? Without a known reference, you really cant. Best would be as other have said, compare it to others. But even then, what if those are also bad.....a bad batch in manufacturing.

Great question.

I recently had an issue with a fuel pressure gauge, which was expensive.
I checked the small round US Gauge gauge on a calibration test bench. It was 1 psi low at 35 psi, despite being beat to crap. I chose to not calibrate it, out of fear of making it worse. It's OLD, and while small, it weights more than all my newer gauges, because it's built with really metal. My digital Ashcroft pressure gauge is basically dead on.
These are not cheap Amazon pressure gauges, though. Quality measuring tools are not cheap.


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I am not a fan of bourdon needle gauges. Too fragile. I also think it is a waste to spend money on calibrated gauges for the average consumer. I have 4 Milton pencil gauges that vary in age from 5 to 50 years that are all within 1 psi if each other. Milton is the only pencil gauge that I will trust. I keep a close eye on my tire pressure and make seasonal adjustments for average temperatures. I do periodically correlate pencil gauge readings with my tpms values.
 
I use Milton pencil gauges and the one I keep in the car is 30 years old, maybe older. It's within a couple pounds of the pressure monitor on my car ('23 Caddy XT4).
 
Bought the Jaco Digital that seemed to perform best. Haven’t compared it with the others I have, yet.

https://jacosuperiorproducts.com/co...-pressure-gauge-professional-accuracy-100-psi
This video is not very accurate. Bourdon tube gauges are rated at a percentage of full scale. Many are a class B (2% of FS from 25% to 75% of FS and 3% of FS for the first and last 25% of FS) or class A (1% of FS from 25% to 75% of FS and 2% of FS for the first and last 25% of FS). Digital gauges are often have a tolerance of a percent of reading or a specific reading ie. +/- 1% of reading or +/- 1 psi (this would be appropriate for a 100 PSI digital pressure gauge. The reason for the numerical tolerance is that to have +/- 1% of reading at 5 psi on that gauge the gauge would have to read out to 5.00 psi, and have that incredible accuracy at the low end of its range. So, if your digital gauge doesn't list it's tolerance as a percentage of FS or a percentage of the reading +/- a specific value or number of digital counts, the manufacturer is not being forthright.

ASME B40.1: Accuracy for Pressure Indicating Dial Type, Elastic Element Gauges​

ASMEb40_1_corrected.png
 
DISCLAIMER: I have not read through every post in this thread.

Buy three gauges. If only two of them read the same, throw the third one away.

I read an article years ago, probably in Esquire. It surveyed some tire gauges and said that the Syracuse Tire Pressure Gauge available through NAPA was the best. It was an inexpensive, pencil-type gauge. I bought those for years until they disappeared from the market .
 
This video is not very accurate. Bourdon tube gauges are rated at a percentage of full scale. Many are a class B (2% of FS from 25% to 75% of FS and 3% of FS for the first and last 25% of FS) or class A (1% of FS from 25% to 75% of FS and 2% of FS for the first and last 25% of FS). Digital gauges are often have a tolerance of a percent of reading or a specific reading ie. +/- 1% of reading or +/- 1 psi (this would be appropriate for a 100 PSI digital pressure gauge. The reason for the numerical tolerance is that to have +/- 1% of reading at 5 psi on that gauge the gauge would have to read out to 5.00 psi, and have that incredible accuracy at the low end of its range. So, if your digital gauge doesn't list it's tolerance as a percentage of FS or a percentage of the reading +/- a specific value or number of digital counts, the manufacturer is not being forthright.

ASME B40.1: Accuracy for Pressure Indicating Dial Type, Elastic Element Gauges​

ASMEb40_1_corrected.png
Proof by performance.

Project Farm found it to be a good performer so that was enough for me. At some point I’ll compare all the ones we have, from cheap pencil gauges to several small digital ones to two expensive mechanical gauges.
 
Tonight I checked tire pressure of the '25 KIA Soul LX . The tire pressure gauge is $11.88 at Walmart . Outdoor temperature was 38 .

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Accurate enough . KIA recommends 33 P.S.I. I think I set them to 34 >34.5 .

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Purchased 9/24/23 and gets plenty of use . So battery holding up .


Very close . A few lost a minimal amount of air when placing gauge on stem .

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'18 HYUNDAI Accent w/ 4 new COOPER Evolution Winter ( T-rated ) w/ studs .

FRONT :
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REAR :

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Autozone sells slime digital tire gauges up by the registers for around $6. I’ve bought one for each car and wasn’t expecting much, but they’ve proved to be dead on accurate. Between keeping my window clean and tire pressure perfect, I’m on my way to some specialist visits.
 
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