My Adventure Finding A Tire Pressure Gauge

OK, so on my way to work Thursday the low pressure tire warning light came on my dash.  I freak out, but I didn't get an accident.

I check my tires after I park, and the only thing I could see is that some jagoff took the cap from the valve of my passenger-side front tire.  I thought -- or at least I like to think -- that my car is so new it's sensitive to such things, and that what little air that is coming out of the uncapped valve triggers that light.

That's when I realized that I don't know where the extra tire valve caps and the tire pressure gauge are.  It's funny that they're never where you need them when you need them.  That's when I started to freak out.  I really, really, really didn't want to buy these things when I know I have them.

Well, I finally found the caps (of which there are four of them; when someone stole my cap on my old car, I had to buy a new pack, and the one at the gas station only sold them in packs of four) in the desk of what was my old bedroom.  I was hoping that capping the valve would solve the problem.  It didn't; it's still on.

So now I have to figure out which tire is low.  But I have to tell you, since Thursday I have looked at all four of my tires and even pressed my thumb against them, and they all seem fine.  And yet that damn light is still on, so the car says a tire's low.

But I can't figure that out yet because I still haven't found that damn gauge.  It should be in the car.  I swear that is in the car.  Logic dictates it's best stored in a car.  But it's not in the car.

So -- and this contradicts me not spending money -- I am now using this occasion to buy only the best tire pressure gauge out there.  And Consumer Reports (from 2012) says that the two best are digital and from the same company: Accutire.  Is ten bucks a little extravagant for a gauge?  Yes.  But if it's the best, and if I don't know where my old one is, hey, I'll do it.

Now, I need to find it.  And I can't.  It's not at AutoZone, it's not at Target, and I just checked Sears, and it's not there, either.  All they have are their own name brand gauges.  Man, there really isn't much of a market for gauges, is there?

So it looks like I will have to order this thing online.  I'm totally ready for it.  I have the hearing aid-style batteries that I need to operate it, and as far as I know my tires are still not dangerously low.  (I took a guess and pumped a second's worth of air in them yesterday [Saturday], but no such luck; it's still low.)  Once I do I will get to the bottom of this.  But there is a definite possibility that there's nothing wrong, that the tires are (or at least were before I put more air into them) properly inflated, and that that damn light should not be on, which means I have to take it to the dealership to get that fixed.

A car 17 months old should not be doing this.

Stay tuned, maybe.