Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Free Air pressure check - line around the block

I wanted some new all terrains for the pickup since the rears are about out. Fronts look almost new but I am silly and OCD on tires so I got four new ones.
The Discount tire near me had a small sign Free Air Pressure checks and the line of cars remained a dozen or more most of the day. Cracked me up. Cold weather lowered pressure and rather than
A) fill it up themselves- I have to imagine at least a few had their own compressors at home or
B) spend a buck fifty and at a convenience station (they will often let paying customers use air for free) - and set the pressure to desired

Either option takes less time than burning fuel in line for fifteen or twenty minutes so I guess chilly weather was the culprit? If so holy cow we are really doomed. .

This line took one or two needed guys off the floor and out of bays where people in the lobby were backed up waiting or new shoes on their vehicles.

Don't know about y'alls but our local Discount Tire- which is practically next door to NTB, does a CRAZY amount of business.

Now, I am sure some are just dying to know which AT's I had and what I replaced them with - and tell me how I screwed up by not going with their choice. Ha!

Next up ...motor oil additives and why I am now a believer!!!! Should be fun huh?

Sounds like they offered it as sort of an advertisement. Free air pressure check, for some folks who don’t know how to do it. Like grandmothers and such. Good advertising because when those folks need new tires where do you think they will go to purchase them?

Knew a person who was told there was summer air and winter air for tires, they went to the shop and asked them to swap out the air. Ohh well.

They also get a good look at tires and brake rotors while checking tire pressures.

Probably talked a lot of people into some paying business that day.

You might or might not be surprised at the amount of people that dont honestly know how to air up a tire in this day and age.

Among all other simple task they have never done in their sheltered existence....

It really is pathetic...
Parents are mostly to blame for it also...

🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

It sure is frustrating to stop at a gas station when away from my home shop to air up a tire, pay a dollar or whatever only to find the POS air pump maxes out at 30 PSI or so, when I need 60+.

For that reason alone I have stopped even trying to get air from a gas station.

B) "spend a buck fifty and at a convenience station (they will often let paying customers use air for free) - and set the pressure to desired"

One of the few things California does right. Free air at filling stations. They can't make you pay for it.

They had that stupid line at ours a few weeks ago too.

Discount Tire is great. “Just come back every 6k miles and we’ll rotate your new tires”.

Stupid me thought I’d just pop in. 3 hour wait.

Ok, let’s make an appointment so I can time it better. Come back next week. 20 minutes early. “Sir your appointment was for 4:30, so I can guarantee we will have you out by 5:30”

Jack stands and impact wrench for the win.

Last one I went to 3 years ago, inserted money, nothing happened, out came the Benchmade knife, placed the hose and nozzle in the bed of my truck as reimbursement. I had been ripped-off by an air machine for the last time that day.

That and chicks marrying soy boy, man bun wearing, homos that were probably in line waiting to get their tires aired up too...

^^^This^^^

Most of the little brats wouldn’t know what the valve stem is if you told them. Much less know how to check the oil level in their engine. They’re the Participation Trophy Generation. As were most of their dumbass parents. 🤪

Just curious but why are your rears wearing out so much faster than the fronts? Do you rotate your tires?

If your not a paying customer they don't have to give you free air.

Air is free, without purchase around here at most gas stations but you need to learn which ones have the better compressors.

Swifty- that is a TFF.

The air pressure thing is something DT always offered. My guess on the line is that more cars now have low pressure alerts - if not down right pressure gauges like mine has ( bless you Dad) and many just don't know about cold air temps.

Friend is going through new tire issues at Firestone and mentioned the guys working there are the experts. I cautioned him on that and referred to a debate I was dragged into some years back. A friend was arguing with his two cousins who worked at a tire shop. He finally asked me what the numbers meant- like 275/60. I told them width and aspect ratio - which is what he was telling them -and they went quiet. I got no idea what they were thinking the numbers meant but I do know sometimes it is best to trust your own dang self.

yeah, I've always defended that type of person, because most of them are a product on the environment they grew up in.

At a Boy Scout camporee, I was the last adult to get there, so I got assigned the task most other adults hate...teach kids to tie knots...
So I'm suppose to have 10 kids per group. Instead 'the women' running the day, send me 40 kids at once. Makes sense to them, as they have no idea how to tie knots, nor could care less...

So I go back to military train of thought, and find out how many kids I have who are Eagle Scouts, or Senior Scout ranks. I have 5 or 6 of them, so I break the group up, and assign each of those boys a knot to teach the other kids in their group and then just rotate the groups thru each station.
I get one kid who is an eagle scout, and assign him to just teach a square knot. Says he can't do that either. Tall kid, but I asked his age... 12!
you're a 12 year old eagle scout? yet you can't tie a square knot? NOPE.

ya gotta be kidding me! Shows me his shoes, velcro straps. "This is all mom and dad ever bought me...that is what they wear also". Kid seriously didn't know how to tie his shoes or a square knot. I show him how to tie one twice. He picked it up immediately and taught the rest of the cub scouts assigned to the exercise how to tie a square knot.

Its NOT that the kids like that are that dumb. Its compliments of lazy ass parents, who don't teach the kids the basics.
later meet the parents when they pick up the kid.... Manbun Dad, with Beard of course. Hippie wannabe mom, driving a BMW. Raggety clothes to 'look hip'.... could easily detect from 100 feet away, Mom and Dad had decided to smoke a joint before picking up Junior...

Most often, its not the kid, so much as the excuse for parents that they get stuck with.

I've had to teach many kids in scouts, some very simple things in life. You show it to them twice, and they got it. Mom and dad just teach them to be a democRAT ( translate that to the concept of Go Thru life with your head up your ass and let someone else do all the work and be responsible so you don't have to be).. Pretty much what occupies most of the Left Coast.

My ex wife was that dumb....I asked her does she ever check her oil, after I changed it and got two quarts out of the engine.

Her response in a snob attitude kind of way. I check it each time I start my car. If the light goes out it has oil in it!
If she didn't run the crap out of her car, there would be OIL in the engine, full not half gone.

I bought her Volvos for a car, so the kids would be safe in an accident. and changed her oil every 60 days. Sometime she'd put 2000 miles on the car in that period, and some times 5,000. Depended on how often she took off up to northern Minnesota to go visit mommy...

My father had me work on the family cars with him. Before I was old enough to drive I was changing oil, replacing belts and hoses, cleaning and gapping spark plugs, setting points and ignition timing, and adjusting valve lash for solid lifter cams. It was a different time.

Can’t imagine my life without an air compressor.

Have one in the big shop, 60gal
Have a six gal in the jeep shed
Another six gal on the patio

I won’t roof, frame, paint, sand, rotate tires without one. Air hammers, chisels, ratchets

In Minnesota it's Kwik Trip. It's the only place I go.