this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2025
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My brand new bike is losing 2-5psi per day in the tires. Is this normal or should I be concerned? (lemmy.ca)
submitted 1 week ago by PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca to c/motorcycles@lemmy.world
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I’ve been monitoring it for a few days. I carry a small portable air compressor and the digital gauge on it consistently shows the pressure being around 2-5 psi lower.

It seems the front tire loses air slightly faster than the rear but I can’t confirm that yet.

It seems I have to top up both tires before every ride now. I do around 80-150km per ride and measure inside a my garage before riding.

Should I be concerned? Is this normal? What has been your experience? Put my mind at ease one way or another 🤪 I just want to ride safely.

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[–] PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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.

[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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.

[–] PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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.