Bought VIN # 44,182 two months ago--now that the long (little less than two year) 04 MY is finally winding down, I wonder if they cracked 50,000 vehicles. Felt the first 2000 mi were bumpy as hell, til I checked the air pressure and found 40+lbs in the front tires. (Details!--thanks for the excellent prep job!) Got the passenger side dash creak big-time, but little by little it bothers me less, assuming that the hassle and attempted cures could easily be worse than the disease. Radio reception is dis-appointing, have yet to find the perfect seat-comfort spot, and think I detect a tad sideways slippage on some turns (maybe I've just been reading too much). Getting a sweet 25-30 mpg's right from the git-go. No color remorse whatsoever--PPW is striking, seems a little older (like me), airy and elegant. All old issues, much discussed, almost never resolved, and trifling compared to the over-all quality of this ride. All I want to do is drive it, push it, corner it, smell it, spend time in it. It pampers and pleases and puts a smile on your battered mug. The fun is back, and the rest is like that little bit of sand in your shoe at the beach, reminding you that no matter how wonderful life is, it'll never be perfect.

 

The supply of 04 seems to have dried up pretty fast in the last month so I don't think they made it to 50K units.

40PSI I'd check some of the other stuff too - you might have 6 qt of oil in the engine.

 

wow 40psi is very dangerous... the higher the psi, the higher chances of blowout due to expanding gases in the tire.

PPW is the best color.... but i'm biased, i have that color too.

 

There has been talk before concerning the tire pressure and I think the consensus was that is what they inflate the tires to on the lot to prevent flat spots when the cars are sitting there for extended periods of time. I wouldn't read into that being shotty prep work unless you find some other issues.

It does surprise me that you have poor radio reception... are you listening to stations that are weak? I haven't had any reception problems unless I am listening to a weak station. Otherwise, my radio is very clear and I really like that I don't have an antenna poking out of the car somewhere.

 

Overinflating for lot waits is fine (like the TSX really needs that ) but then to deliver it to a customer like that is

 

When I took delivery of my 04...the ride was terrible...stiff...and I could hear the tires boing over the highway seams and bumps...

Found that my front tires were inflated to 46 psi and the backs were at 44 psi

 

I wonder if the new tire pressure monitoring devices required after MY06 will also have a warning for overinflation.

 

Wait a minute. Were you guys measuring the tires right after driving, when they were still warm?

You have to measure your PSI while your tires are COLD, meaning your car hasn't moved for at least 3 hours.

 

The tires couldn't be anywhere near recommended even if those measurements were taken when hot.

 

Right. Speaking of which, what is the disrepancy in PSI between hot and cold tires?

 

Good article from Tirerack on Air Pressure:

The tire pressure recommended in your vehicle's owner's manual or tire information placard is the vehicle's recommended "cold" tire inflation pressure. This means that it should be checked in the morning before you drive more than a few miles, or before rising ambient temperatures or the sun's radiant heat affects it.

Since air is a gas, it expands when heated and contracts when cooled. In most parts of North America, this makes fall and early winter months the most critical times to check inflation pressures...days are getting shorter...ambient temperatures are getting colder...and your tires' inflation pressure is going down!

The rule of thumb is for every 10° Fahrenheit change in air temperature, your tire's inflation pressure will change by about 1 psi (up with higher temperatures and down with lower).

In most parts of North America, the difference between average summer and winter temperatures is about -50° Fahrenheit...which results in a potential "loss" of about 5 psi as winter's temperatures set in. And a 5 psi "loss" is enough to sacrifice handling, traction, and durability!

Additionally, the difference between cold nighttime temperatures and hot daytime temperatures in most parts of the country is about 20° Fahrenheit. This means that after setting tire pressures first thing in the morning, the vehicle's tire pressures will be almost 2 psi higher when measured in the afternoon (if the vehicle was parked in the shade). While that is expected, the problem is when you set your vehicle's tire pressures in the heat of the day, their cold pressures will probably be 2 psi low the following morning.

And finally, if the vehicle is parked in the sun, the sun's radiant heat will artificially and temporarily increase tire pressures.

We put some of these theories to the test at The Tire Rack. First, we mounted two tires on wheels. We let them sit overnight to equalize and stabilize their temperatures and pressures. The following morning we set them both to 35 psi. One tire and wheel was placed in the shade while the other was placed directly in the sun. We then monitored the ambient temperatures, tire temperatures and tire pressures through the day. As the day's temperatures went from 67° to 85° Fahrenheit, the tire that was kept in the shade went from our starting pressure of 35 psi to a high of 36.5 psi. The tire that was placed in the sun and subject to the increase in ambient temperature plus the sun's radiant heat went from our starting pressure of 35 psi to a high of 40 psi. In both cases, if we had set our tire pressures in the afternoon under the conditions of our evaluation, they would have been between 2 and 5 psi low the following morning.

Next we evaluated the effects of heat generated by the tire's flexing during use. We tried to eliminate the variable conditions we might encounter on the road by conducting this test using our "competition tire heat cycling service" that rolls the tires under load against the machine's rollers to simulate real world driving. We monitored the changes in tire pressure in 5-minute intervals. The test tires were inflated to 15 psi, 20 psi, 25 psi and 30 psi. Running them all under the same load, the air pressure in all of the tires went up about 1 psi during every 5 minutes of use for the first 20 minutes of operation. Then the air pressures stabilized, typically gaining no more than 1 psi of additional pressure during the next 20 minutes. This means that even a short drive to inflate your tires will result in tires that will probably be "underinflated" by a few psi the following morning.

Add all of these together, and you can understand why the conditions in which you set your vehicle's tire pressures are almost as important as the fact that you do set it.

 

Good stuff, Viking.

 

viking.

 

good to know

 

I measured my tire pressure about 2.5 hrs of being parked