Today, April 7, is National Tire Gauge Day in Japan. It serves as a reminder to not only check your tire pressure but your tire pressure gauge as well, as over time its accuracy can diminish from use. This year marks the 15th anniversary of Tire Gauge Day, which was established by Asahi Sangyo, a company that makes — you guessed it — tire gauges.
To celebrate the occasion, Asahi Sangyo is giving away free tire gauges and some stores around Japan are offering free tire gauge calibrations. Asahi Sangyo is one of Japan’s oldest tire gauge companies. It was founded in 1946 and took part in the very first National Auto Show, which became the Tokyo Motor Show.
The company points out in their Tire Gauge Day announcement that for all the advancement in technology, the contact patch hasn’t changed all that much:
Today’s new automobiles continue to evolve day by day, including collision mitigation devices and autonomous driving… On the other hand, the point of contact between the road and the passenger car has not changed from the old days, and each tire has a contact area of only one postcard… The correct air pressure setting is essential to demonstrate the performance and safety of the tire.
Remember to check your tire pressure today!
“…but your tire pressure gauge as well, as over time its accuracy can diminish from use.”
Good to remind us to check our tire psi…and as I take my cars out for summer, and change over to summer tires on the winter cars I always check in spring as a habit.
However, the accuracy of my tire psi gauges seemed to be all over the map.
When I raced, I asked the tire guys at Toyo and Hoosier to check both of my fluid filled “accurate” gauges. They looked at me funny and didn’t have a standard or measuring device to check and calibrate gauges. As it was, those two high performance gauges read different pressures themselves, and needed to be calibrated. Does anybody here know how to accurately calibrate tire psi gauges?
None of my tire gauges are calibrated traceable to the National Institute of Standards and Technology. I guess the answer is to do it yourself with a U-tube manometer.