Checking tires-thumping method

[Bluto]

In all my years of driving I have never "thumped" a tire to see if it's bad.

I've seen thousands of truckers doing it at rest areas but, I have never seen a motorhome owner or trailer camper using a small bat to thump tires.
The thump method must work well if the truck drivers always check their tires with that method.

I have 10 tires on the pavement and I visually check them at each stop.
I'm thinking of getting one of those bats and trying it.
What kind of sound does a bad tire make when you thump it?

Do any of you use the thump method for checking your tires?

[AldeanFan]

The truckers are checking to see if they have a flat tire.
On a duelie, if one tire is flat you can't tell by looking since the other tire holds the truck at normal height. If you watch closely you'll see that they don't beat the front tires.

I kick the tires on my tandem trailers to check for a flat, and use an IR thermometer to check all tires for excessive heat at each stop. The IR thermometer will also tell you if you've got a hot bearing or hot brakes.

[Crusty]

Once you know what a particular tire sounds like when it's inflated properly and then thumped it can be a quick check of tire pressure (they should all sound the same with a consistent thump). Truckers spend a lot of time in a particular truck and so get to know it really well. A better quick test is to feel the tire temperature with the palm of the hand on the sidewall. An underinflated tire will be noticeably warmer than the rest. A good tire pressure gauge is still the standard however.

[TG Twinkie]

I wear hard sole work boots when on the road. Once you have the tires inflated to the proper pressure. You can give it a kick with the toe of the boot.
It will make a specific sound.
Now, one should realize that this method won't tell you if the tire has lost 3 pounds of air when it was originally filled to 60 pounds or so. But it will tell you if you have lost 20 pounds. Which may not be visible by looking at the tire.
If you are worried about a 3 to 10 pound loss of air in a tire. Stick with a gage.
But keep in mind that every time you push the gage onto the valve stem there is a slight possibility that something could get lodged in the check valve in the valve stem which could cause a slow leak. And always keep good caps on the valve stems.
Tires in good order lose around 3 pounds a week under normal conditions.

[slowmover]

A tire thumper is nice non-lethal weapon to have at hand. Sort of like a 4/D-cell MAGLITE. And the ostensible purpose of each is durned handy.

I use a plastic weighted-end thumper for my pre-trip inspections. Think of the procedure as one does with a kettle drum: bounce

.

[Bluto]

I now have a pretty good idea about the how's and why's of using one because of the answers I received. Thank you all.
Bluto

[slowmover]

Forgot to add that the main reason one doesnt' see A/S owners (and many RV owners) using tire thumpers, is:

1] Fenders limit access for the swing
2] TPMS makes moot the question of pressure

But a tire thumper, or an engineers hammer, is still a nice way to make ones walk around the rig in a dicey area. As mine is right at the 65' limit it's a loonng way all the way round.

A short cheater bar would also work. Think dual purpose and the right tool may already be at hand.

.

[AldeanFan]

Originally Posted by TG Twinkie

Tires in good order lose around 3 pounds a week under normal conditions.

Loosing 3 pounds a week is NOT normal conditions, If you're loosing that much air you have a real problem.

Tires often do loose air, particularly with aluminum rims when you have significant temperature changes, but 3 pounds per week or even 3 pounds per month is way too much.

I have 41 tires between all of my vehicles (cars, trucks and trailers) including spares. None loose even a measurable amount of air in a week. Last week I got one of my classic cars out of storage and it had lost about 4 pounds of air per tire since it was parked in September - 7 months.

[ZoominC6]

For many years we've used the Doran Pressure Pros to monitor our tires and can't imagine feeling comfortable utilizing anything else considering the damage a bad tire can do to aluminum or the plumbing dump valves should it come apart on the road.

[perryg114]

Feel of the tires or use an IR thermometer. The one that is running hotter than the rest is low. Just eyeball it and the tire that is sitting low needs air and probably has a nail in it. If you just need something to vent your frustrations on then bat away. When I stop I always walk around the whole rig and look for problems. The last problem I found was my break away cable was rubbing on the ground and was almost worn in two.

Pay attention Grasshopper and you will find many things.

Perry

[Bluto]

On my last trip to NM my pressure sensor gizzmo broke and I didn't know I had a flat on my dually pickup on the inside tire. So I drove and drove, not knowing. Only inkling I had was a odd scraping noise when I applied the brakes coming off the hwy ramps. Since the brakes seemed to be working fine I thought that maybe some MN dust worked it's way on the discs. Visual is fine and touching works too, but on those inside tires and no air pressure system working I completely missed it. I doubt if even an infrared temp guage would have showed a hotter hub or tire as the weight was all on the outside tire and wheel.
I like the idea of using the thumper as a defense piece when walking around checking things out. I would not look as out of place walking around with the thumper at a rest area as I would with my sharpened camping shovel in my hand, ha, ha!

[perryg114]

Yeah I guess if you have dual tires it is a good way to tell if one is flat. I spend too much on tires not to add two more to the mix.

Perry

[slowmover]

Road Pro Tire Thumper



LOVES carries it. The largest selection of truck things will be at PETRO or T/A truckstops.

Non-dominant hand use.

[Gene]

I have read thumping tires does not work to tell a change in pressure. It may show a flat on duals or tandem wheels though. I was taught to thump duals eons ago during a very short career as a school bus driver—but they didn't tell us anything about how it sounded or felt other to say "use this bar". TPMS works much better.

Gene

[jlckmj]

I have read thumping tires does not work to tell a change in pressure.

That is not entirely true, I started thumping tires while running heavy equipment in the 70's. You can tell the difference in tire pressure by the sound, and how much the thumper bounces off the tire. Are you going to be able to tell how much air the tire lost? NO, but after time you will be able to tell one of them is lower than the rest.

Jim

[CapriRacer]

There was a time where our truck tire specialists had a contest where seminar participants would guess the inflation pressure by thumping a tire. A prize to the guy closest. A very dramatic way of informing people that thumping is a pretty crude way to deal with inflation pressure.

[overlander63]

Tire bumping was more of a practice in the good old days, when you had dual bias ply recaps on 18 wheelers. You couldn't always tell if a tire was flat just by looking, especially if the rig wasn't loaded, but you could tell the difference in sound and bounce of a tire knocker between a flat and an inflated tire. Modern technology has made this generally not needed.

[wahoonc]

Originally Posted by CapriRacer

There was a time where our truck tire specialists had a contest where seminar participants would guess the inflation pressure by thumping a tire. A prize to the guy closest. A very dramatic way of informing people that thumping is a pretty crude way to deal with inflation pressure.

It won't tell you the pressure, but it will let you know if one tire sounds different from the other. I had a flat repaired on one of my dual wheel, dual axle equipment trailers, the guys put it on and down the road I went.

Did my walk around the next morning and that tire sounded different from the ones next to it. They had not put enough air in it, it was a good 15-20# lower than the rest. I was about to load up close 20,000# of equipment it would not have made my day to have another flat tire, especially on a loaded trailer.

Aaron