TPMS Gets the Job Done

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has concluded it's 58-page TPMS report: Evaluation of the Effectiveness of TPMS in Proper Tire Pressure Maintenance. The findings listed in the report are staggering and reinforce the importance of TPMS and proper tire inflation.

The NHTSA estimates that the presence of a tire pressure monitoring system reduced the likelihood of a severely under inflated tire (25% of more below recommended pressure) by nearly 56% in some 2004-2007 vehicles.

Information was collected from various sources, including gas stations across the country. Inflation pressure data provided by gas stations revealed that 23.1% of vehicles not equipped with TPMS had at least one severely under inflated tire compared to only 11.8% of vehicles equipped with TPMS. The NHTSA then found that the percentage dropped to a low, 5.7% for 2008-2011 vehicles.

Now check this out. The NHTSA has also concluded that the owner of a TPMS equipped vehicle saves about 9.32 gallons of fuel during the first eight years of the car's operation. The savings for a light truck is 27.9 gallons of fuel during the first eight years of operation.

The collective, TPMS equipped vehicle fleet has saved about $511 million in fuel.

For the full report, please go to: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811681.pdf