The amber symbol on the dashboard is a threshold, not a gauge. It does not appear when a tyre begins losing air, it appears once a tyre has already given up a serious proportion of what it should be holding, which means the tyre has been running soft for a while before the car said anything. That is the first thing to understand about it at eleven at night. The second is that it cannot tell you why. A nail through the tread, a wheel that has stopped sealing at the bead and a valve that has cracked all produce exactly the same little symbol.
There is one thing it tells you for nothing, though, and it is worth knowing before you decide anything. If the symbol flashes for a while and then settles to a steady glow, the car is reporting a fault in the monitoring system itself rather than a soft tyre. That is a nuisance rather than an emergency. A light that comes on steady from the moment it appears means a pressure genuinely has dropped. Either way the useful next move is a gauge on all four valves rather than a walk round with a torch, because a modern tyre can be badly down and still look entirely convincing from three feet away.
The airport run is the classic one. Five in the morning, bags in the boot, and a tyre that has gone down overnight on a driveway in Nevern Square. There is a flight to catch and nowhere open, and the compressor in the boot is not going to hold it for the whole journey. Tight in Old Brompton Road, easy in Warwick Road: neither stops the job. Level in Warwick Road, sloping in Nevern Square: we set the car straight first.
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The mansion blocks and bedsit conversions around Earl's Court Road put a great many cars on the street overnight rather than behind a gate, and their owners tend to get home late. That is precisely when a warning light is least welcome and least likely to be dealt with. The temptation is to leave it until the morning and then find the car flat when you are already running behind. Two minutes with a gauge on all four valves at midnight is what decides whether it can safely wait, and it is worth doing before you go up.
A car parked near Nevern Square had shown the warning on the way home and the driver left it until morning. By then the tyre was flat. A screw had been sitting in the tread since the afternoon.
Another car showed the same symbol but flashed for about a minute before settling. All four tyres gauged correctly. The car was complaining about its own sensors rather than about a tyre.
A tyre on a car off Philbeach Gardens looked entirely normal to the eye and was well under its figure on the gauge. Low profile tyres in particular give almost nothing away visually.
A long way down. These systems are set to warn once a tyre has lost a substantial share of its correct pressure, not at the first sign of a drop, which is why a tyre can be noticeably soft for days beforehand. Treat the light as confirmation that something is already wrong rather than as an early warning.
Yes, and it is worth spotting. A period of flashing before the light settles is the standard way a car reports a fault in the monitoring system rather than a deflating tyre. Gauge all four to be sure, but if they all read correctly then the problem is the system and it is not an overnight emergency.
Only if you have actually checked. Put a gauge on all four and see. If one is genuinely low, driving on it overnight or first thing is how a repairable puncture becomes a new tyre, and sometimes a damaged wheel with it. If they all read correctly, it can certainly wait.
Every night of the year, which is convenient because these lights have a habit of appearing on the way home rather than on the way out. Ring the number and you will get a straight arrival time rather than a vague promise, and the tyres and tools are already on the van.
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