Tire keeps losing pressure

One of my tires keeps losing pressure and I have taken it to the tire shop and they said they did not find anything after soaking it in their tank two times. They changed the core valve (I believe) thinking that would be the issue. After a day of driving it is losing pressure again. On average it loses 2 PSI a day, and usually plateaus around 26-28PSI I have noticed. I took it into the tire shop at around 27PSI so my guess is it wasn’t leaking enough to produce any noticeable amount of bubbles in the water. Anybody have any suggestions? Maybe take it in again and fill it to 45PSI so it can leak air? Or could the wheel possibly be the culprit?

 

Wouldn’t consider it off-road. Just take the occasional muddy mountain roads to go shooting and what not. It started leaking when I left the tire shop after my rotate and balance schedule. I wonder if the tech working on it wasn’t very well organized or the shop wasn’t.
I’m going to take a good look around it and see if I can find anything myself. Very inconvenient having to fill up my tire every 2 days.

 

Could even be a pin hole in the rim. Is this a factory wheel?

 

Bring it to a different shop?
Usually the shop would inflate more to see if they can find the leak so if you were getting the tire back at same psi as it went in they're doing a half ass job.

Could be a damaged wheel though causing the leak or like mentioned above, mud etc in the bead.

See if they can take the tire off and inspect the wheel

 

are you checking it manually or just going by the TPMS?

 

Seen this come through a number of times, the techs usually miss it as they're looking at the rubber not the metal.

 

Take it to a different shop. The tire shop should be able to find a leak no matter what.

 

It is an aftermarket wheels, SCS RAY10. It hasn’t had any significant blunt force that would lead me to believe that the wheel got damaged. I am going off of what the TPMS says, which leads me next to think what if the TPMS is faulty as the tire at 28PSI doesn’t look much different than the other three tires at 38-40PSI. I may buy a standard tire pressure gauge to see if the TPMS is bad.
What exactly is a pin hole? Excuse my lack of understanding for the whole shebam.

 

On some tires I have only been able to find it by submersing it.
My bet is the bead. Happens a lot on old aluminum rims from corrosion.

 

That’s what the office person told me they did, and apparently they did it twice.
I’ll go back this week and let them know it’s still leaking air. I purchased my tires there so they don’t charge for patching/fixing tires. If all else fails I’ll start looking into a possible faulty TPMS sensor and going to a different shop.

 

You might just have to take the time and do it yourself. Been there myself same situation.

 

Most likely you have mud and small rocks stuck between the bead of the rubber and rim. As @JimBeam said.... fill it with air. Put some dish soap in a spray bottle with water. Spray the bead inside and out and watch for bubbles.

 

Will do. Thanks for the advice!

 

Take it back and have them unmount the tire from the rim and put it back on.

 

I was planning on having them inspect the wheel too to see if they can find any damage/warping of the wheel that could be the culprit.

 

Highly doubtful if you don't wheel that hard or just run into curbs for no reason. I had this happen after I aired down for a run on a wet, slick day. Aired back up and within 2 hours it was back to 22 and holding. Was mud and rocks in the outside bead, not my rim or tire.

 

You can get pin holes in anywhere in the rim right through the cast. This will be invisible to the naked eye. Id pump up the tire to 50 psi and submerse it. If the shop was only looking for air leaks on the tire they were only doing half the job. If you are loosing air you will find the leak under water period.

 

That’s what I figured but the “experts” couldn’t seem to figure out their job.

So just to clarify, the bead is the outer part of the rim right behind what we can consider “the lip, where the tire essentially sits and creates a seal to contain the air correct?