Usually, you use a gas station to fill up your gas tank. Your gas gauge should start ‘beeping’ when your tank is down by a quarter or more and you begin to search frantically for a nearby gas station, which is very normal behavior. Do you know gas stations can handle another one of these emergencies for you? They can fill up your underinflated tires, for real.
Why does a gas station have an air pump and why use it?
As unbelievable as it sounds, nowadays, most gas stations are now allowed air pumps for serving high speeding customers. Furthermore, few states in the USA have laws for offering air pumps completely free.
You must be already feeling the advantages of using an air pump at a gas station if you are a professional driver or anyone enlightened about using vehicles.
The convenience of having a gas station that allows you to both refill your gas tank and your tires is on a whole different level. Your tank is low on fuel, you go to a gas station to refill and you notice that your tires are tired as well; so why not just pump them back to action right here and right now?
You should know that driving with underinflated tires is quite dangerous because firstly, it stays unnoticed until it is too late and secondly when it is late, there is nothing you can do about it. The best way of avoiding this is to check and keep them pumped at all times during a journey and with gas stations having air pumps, things like these have gotten a lot easier.
Now, you may feel hesitant about this if you do not live in states where air pumps are offered for free. The good news is, using an air pump requires a very small fee, about $2 or less, and some gas stations do not even take any.
If you have an air compressor of your own, then you do not have to worry about gas station air pumps. If you do not, however, you can always find air pumps at your nearest gas stations to help you. All you need to know is how to use them.
How to use an air pump at a gas station?
Using an air pump at a gas station is an extremely easy task. Just follow these steps and you are good to go.
1) Usually, when your car has an underinflated tire, an orange light turns on in your dashboard. Find the wheel that has the underinflated tire and park your car beside the air pump such that the wheel is closest to the pump. You may keep the engines on, it does not matter.
2) PSI means pounds/square inch. That is the unit of air measured in tires. A manufacturer’s sticker should be near the air pump. Use that to know the correct PSI ratings for your tire.
3) The tube that will pass the air to your tire is called a spout. Set up the PSI rating according to the manufacturer’s sticker, pick up the spout, and insert it into the tire’s air hole. Note that you will have to open the air hole cap before inserting the spout; do NOT lose that cap at any cost.
4) Sometimes you won’t have to set the ratings, there are sensors in the pumping machine that will know when the tire is sufficiently pumped and will automatically stop pumping. Bring out the spout from the air hole and close it with the cap. Put the spout back into its original place, i.e., the gas station air pump stand.
5) Enter back in your car and check if the orange light has now turned off. If it hasn’t, it either means you have pumped the wrong tire, or your car’s PSI rating for tires is wrongly set up. If the orange light has turned off, you are ready to roll back on the streets.
The steps are easy for sure, however, applying them as a beginner is very crucial to erase any hesitation or messing-up chances. Once those are gone, you might just start visiting gas stations more often than before.