Road trip essentials

[PilotZero]

About to go on a road trip north until it gets too cold for the tires. There will be long stretches of desert with no cell contact. Aside from plenty of water, is there anything I should take with me?

I have a Black & Decker portable power station with jumper cables and an air compressor, an accurate tire pressure gauge, and a front/rear dash cam (insurance is a PITA when collisions happen out of state). Battery pack for my phone. Reflective vest and flashlight if I have to walk on a desert road at night.

Anything I need to do or remember to check for the Type R?

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[PilotZero]

Okay well I'm back from a 2,000-mile road trip to the north and back, across a wide variety of temperature, elevation, and road condition changes. Temperature went down to freezing over night and I left my hotel when my weather app said it was 40°F.

The air compressor came in handy. The TPMS warning light came on during the ride home while I was in the middle of nowhere Utah, so I pulled over and topped off all the tires. They were getting into the mid-to-low 40s and one was at 38 PSI. I'm not familiar with the mathematics of PSI changes through the elements, but after driving hard around twisty mountain roads for hours and hours, I suppose I was bound to squeeze a little out of them. After that no more warnings on the entire way home.

Didn't see a single CTR.

 

[JYR]

1psi for every 10deg. You don't 'squeeze' air out of your tires.

 

[Night Fury]

Just in case..

 

[CivicXI]

Not sure why your TPMS was picking up low pressure due to temperature. I though it worked by calculating a pressure differential between tires.

 

[PilotZero]

Not sure why your TPMS was picking up low pressure due to temperature. I though it worked by calculating a pressure differential between tires.

Me too. It was the rear driver's side tire that was lowest, which made think I had just taken some turns too hard. I've seen pictures of those tires on hard turns and they look practically ready to slide off the rims so granted I'm no tire expert but I don't imagine myself sounding too ignorant saying that. But I'm learning by going out and doing. It was a very, very long drive up and down the western edge of the American Rocky Mountain range.

 

[tacthecat]

Monitor that tire for air loss - there is a slight chance you damaged the tire/tires by letting them get too cold and not following the recommended no movement/warm-up procedure.

 

[PilotZero]

Monitor that tire for air loss - there is a slight chance you damaged the tire/tires by letting them get too cold and not following the recommended no movement/warm-up procedure.

That makes sense, and I will. Do you have a proper link to that procedure? I don't believe I've ever seen it and it certainly wasn't something the dealer went over with me.

 

[tacthecat]

That makes sense, and I will. Do you have a proper link to that procedure? I don't believe I've ever seen it and it certainly wasn't something the dealer went over with me.

Believe there is a WARNING right on the Window sheet.

There is a post I saw within the last week that has the CTR PDI procedure http://www.civicx.com/threads/type-r-pdi.12345/ But...

From my Jun post:
"Here's part of the write-up from Tire Rack https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Continental&tireModel=SportContact+6

"The SportContact 6 is Continental's Max Performance Summer tire developed to meet the engineering demands of vehicle manufacturers' highest performing models. .... However, like all Max Performance Summer tires, the SportContact 6 is not intended to be serviced, stored nor driven in near- and below-freezing temperatures, through snow or on ice....

Note: Tires exposed to temperatures of 20 degrees F (-7 degrees C) or lower must be permitted to gradually return to temperatures of at least 40 degrees F (5 degrees C) for at least 24 hours before they are flexed in any manner, such as by adjusting inflation pressures, mounting them on wheels or using them to support, roll or drive a vehicle.
Flexing of the specialized rubber compounds used in Max Performance Summer tires during cold-weather use can result in irreversible compound cracking. Compound cracking is not a warrantable condition because it occurs as the result of improper use or storage, tires exhibiting compound cracking must be replaced.""

 

[PilotZero]

Well it definitely didn’t get down to 20. I knew about that. I know of no warm up procedure for below 40 or below 32. It only got down to 30 over night.

Still it’s possible there was a small effect? I’ll keep an eye on it.

 

[LongRun]

I'm fairly certain that the Tire Rack warning about tires cracking at 20ºF is wrong. Continental's technical bulletin, the Honda Civic Owner's manual, and the Honda PDI bulletin all say that the temperature to worry about is -20ºC = -4ºF. I'm pretty sure Tire Rack's warning is their generic warning for UHP Summer tires copied over from GM's technical bulletin "Information On Tire Cold Weather Cracking", which is suspect for a few reasons, including its age (first issued in 2014, tires have changed since then), lack of corroborating information (no such warnings appear on any other car or tire manufacturer's web sites that I can find), no Continental tires are listed in GM's bulletin, and in the Aug 2016 version of the bulletin, while all the tires had the same warnings about losing traction below 40ºF, only some of them had specific warnings about cracking at 20ºF). I'm sure it doesn't help that the two sets of warnings both use the number 20 (20ºF or -20ºC) and that the critical passage in the Continental document does not specify C or F and the preceding minus sign can easily be perceived as a dash instead.

Why are you putting so much air in your tires? Honda recommends 35PSI front and 33PSI rear. 1-2 pounds over can be justified as a matter of taste but more than that and you are simply over-inflating tires that are specially tuned to have different performance on the sides compared to the center and rely on proper inflation to do their magic.

 

[PilotZero]

The sidewall says 50 PSI.

Well, what little sidewall there is.

 

[LongRun]

The sidewall says 50 PSI.

Well, what little sidewall there is.

The sidewall marking is the maximum pressure the tire can handle; more than that and it risks bursting like a ballon when it gets heated up by driving. The proper pressure for inflation for OEM tires is worked out by the car and tire manufacturer, and in general is primarily a function of load, i.e. how much weight it is supporting. Stick to Honda's recommendation of 35 PSI front/33 PSI rear unless you really know what you are doing and have a good reason for departing from it.

 

[wjkuleck]

Inflation recommendations are a combo of weight on the particular wheel and suspension design/tuning. Anyone remember the differential pressure spec on the original Corvair? If I remember correctly, the rear tires were to be "under"-inflated to compensate for the swing axle design. Or something like that, which I'm not inclined to take the time to look it up.

So follow the recommendation for both tire life and handling.

 

[DrwMDvs]

Our TPMS units don't actually monitor the tire pressure on each wheel, but actually monitors the speed of each wheel in comparison to each other. So if you set all your tires to 40 PSI and calibrate it at that pressure, you won't see your TPMS light come on. If one tire starts spinning faster or slower than all the rest, then it'll trigger the warning. There would be a built in margin for error, so a few pounds off and you probably won't see a light.

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