this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2025
16 points (100.0% liked)
Motorcycles
2881 readers
2 users here now
Here we discuss everything related to riding, maintenance and gear.
Rules:
- Be respectful and inclusive.
- No harassment, hate speech, or trolling.
- Engage in constructive discussions.
- Share relevant content.
- No advertising or self promotion.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
That is not normal at all. You should get them checked out.
Yeah what he said. Your bike tires should hold pressure over a season. I have to add air to my motorcycle tires maybe twice a year.
That being said, I wouldn't count on the gauge on a shitty compressor to be accurate. Get yourself an accurate tire pressure gauge and check it over a couple days without riding it in between to make sure it's really losing pressure sitting still. If it is, fill it up and take it back to the dealership and tell them to fuckin' fix it! And don't let them 'fix' it by putting slimy sealant in your tires. That shit is a mess to clean up when you do a tire change, and it's just a band aid. You want to know if they sold you a bike with defective rims or tires, basically.
To be honest, I have used 3 different tire gauges throughout the time as well so that very well could be it. One for a car air compressor, one for a portable compressor, and the cheapest possible manual pencil gauge I could find.
I’m going to order a proper digital one.
Get your proper digital one and use it exclusively. Consumer tire gauges are basically never calibrated consistently, especially mechanical ones, and you'll drive yourself nuts getting all different readings from different gauges, none of them agreeing with each other even though they're all measuring the same thing. Down that road lies madness.
The pencil gauges in particular are uniquely terrible, and are tantamount to random number generators. Find all of yours and throw them away.
As others have said, your tires should not be losing air that fast. You probably have something wrong with one or both of your valve stems, or the beat seat if your tires are tubless. I dutifully check my tire pressure before, er, well... most rides, like the MSF manual told me all those years ago. Many rides. Okay, certainly before some rides, occasionally.
I have seven (7) bikes in my stable right now. (They're the ones in the header image in this very community.) I have to add air to the tires in each of them once, maybe twice per season at the outside. If you're having to do it every day, something is wrong.
Yeah you got that right - the whole driving oneself nuts with consumer tire gauges. For all I know my tires could be totally fine and I’m just consistently not using the same gauge twice 🤪 I only realized after a comment here and then watching a Project Farm video where he tested like 10 different gauges and a whole bunch of them were wildly off (by more than 5psi).
My gauge arrives in a couple days so we shall see. Thanks for the advice!
Edit: ya this was it. I’m dumb and my tires are good.