Why Do Your Tires Lose Air During Cold Weather?

Over the past few days, especially this morning, you woke up to the symphony of "Low Tire Pressure" warnings.

You might even have one go completely flat with there being absolutely nothing wrong with it.

Chances are your tires are fine, it's just the recent turn in colder temperatures.

Why does this happen? There's a very simple explanation.

Why Tires Lose Air In Cold Weather

Air expands when it heats up. Conversely, it also shrinks when it gets cold, thus causing the air pressure in your tires to drop.

Air pressure inside tires drops one to two pounds for every 10 degrees of outside temperature, according to the Rubber Manufacturers Association.

Hankook Tires, Twitter

OK, technically the air doesn't "shrink", the colder temperatures just cause the molecules to slow down, causing the drop in tire pressure. When heated, the molecules bounce around, creating higher pressure in your tire.

So what can you do?

Nothing really, other than having a stack of quarters handy. However, make sure you don't lose too much air because it can break the seal between the tire and the rim and you'll have to get it professionally re-sealed.

LOOK: See how much gasoline cost the year you started driving

To find out more about how has the price of gas changed throughout the years, Stacker ran the numbers on the cost of a gallon of gasoline for each of the last 84 years. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (released in April 2020), we analyzed the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline from 1976 to 2020 along with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for unleaded regular gasoline from 1937 to 1976, including the absolute and inflation-adjusted prices for each year.

Read on to explore the cost of gas over time and rediscover just how much a gallon was when you first started driving.