Bizarre question for the mechanics here

F=MA

F=MA

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This makes no sense to me. Thought I'd run it past the minds here and see if anyone has any thoughts about this one.

Vehicle is a 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee. My wife bought it new.

For as long as I've been involved with this vehicle, it's had what appears to be a slow leak in the right front tire. Over the course of six weeks, this tire will deflate from 40 p.s.i. to about 15 p.s.i.

New tires (factory model Goodyears) five years ago didn't fix the problem. Rotating tires doesn't move the problem to another corner. Swapping with the brand new spare doesn't matter.

Right front tire...always. The other three corners require air about once for every four times the right front needs it.

This issue didn't seem to exist when the vehicle lived in Michigan before we got married.

I only have one thought here, and it seems really out there. Our subdivision exit is a sweeping left downhill turn with a stop sign at the end. Again I don't know if this is a realistic theory, but I wonder if the sidewall is flexing enough to cause the bead to lose its seal occasionally as the 5000 lb. vehicle is slowed while in this turn.

It's not the wheel, it's not a valvestem, it's not a tire. Ruling out all these variables leaves me with nothing to work with here.

Any thoughts?
 
I think your wife is doing it to drive you crazy. :laugh:
 
If your talking severe weather differences might very unlikely but may be an issue. You could try nitrogen to see if that holds better. This would however be the first time I have have actually seen nitrogen be a real benefit. but who knows. your best bet is to get a spray bottle with soapy water and hose it down inside and out around the lips and see if you have air escaping from the lip then do the same for your valve stems and the tire. if nothing else it will tell you where on the tire your having air escaping and you can go from there. Hope that helps. (or tell your wife she's not supposed to drift those turns so hard in the jeep :poke: :laugh:)
 
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That does sound bizarre, does the leaky right front continue to leak when moved to another corner? Does she grind the curb when parking, is it parked next to the water heater/furness in the garage? Cat pee on it? Too weird.

Get out the spray bottle with soapy water.
 
I guess I dont see what the soapy water will do. He said, no matter what tire/wheel combination is in that spot, it leaks. When when the so called leaky tire is moved to another position, it stops leaking.
 
It will help identify if the angle is the problem or if it is something he's not fully seeing yet. He did mention that he still needs to fill the rest of the tires up about every fourth time he airs up the front which is still pretty frequent. So this will identify if it really is the hard angle he parks on or if there is an underlying problem that weight and angle are making more apparent on that tire such as a misplaced or incorrect type of wheel balancing weight on the lip that may be creating just enough room at the bead to allow air to escape faster at that angle. either way it couldn't hurt to check and go from there.
 
mymaster said:
Does she grind the curb when parking,
Click to expand...
This was my only rational thought.

Unless you have a cockatoo........Many years ago I was watching a news show about a fellow in the Australian outback who came out to find a flat tire on his car. He changed the tire and took the flat to a mechanic for repair, but the mechanic found no problem. A few days later, a different tire was flat. Again, the mechanic found no problem. This kept happening, always a different tire was flat - it seemed like someone was playing a trick on him.

And indeed, there was a logical cause, but it wasn't obvious and he only caught the culprit by luck. The fellow owned a pet cockatoo, a big white bird with a crest on it's head. Cockatoos are very clever birds, with the intelligence about equal to a 3 year old human child. In the middle of the day, when the air was hottest, the cockatoo would would walk over to the car and find whichever valve stem was closest to the ground. The cockatoo would climb up and hold onto the rim of the wheel, and then would unscrew the cap of the valve and press his beak into the valve to give himself a nice cooling blast of air in the face.

They actually showed the bird doing this on TV, and, as the owner of an umbrella cockatoo for over 20 years, I can easily imagine our bird Casey doing this. Many years ago, we boarded her at the vet when we went to Mexico. According to the staff, Casey kept playing with the lock on her cage until she could could open it easily from inside. The staff thought this was funny until one day she opened her cage and then went around opening all the other cages until all the birds were freed. That's my girl. :)

casey.jpg
 
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Thanks all.

It is always the right front...regardless of which wheel/tire combination is on it. The other three tires require air maybe once every six months...probably less frequently than that. The hill/turn combination is on the way out of the subdivision.

The vehicle is parked in a garage at our home. When my wife is at work, it is in a parking lot in a non-residential area where there'd be no kids walking home from school (I don't think kids here know how to walk to/from school).

No cat or bird, and hvac/water heater are in the basement. There is no visible damage anywhere on the tires on that side of the vehicle, and she doesn't park along the side of the street anywhere.

If it were a parking curb, it seems it would also impact the left front tire equally?

Like I wrote, it's a bizarre thing that I've been dealing with for seven years now. Thanks again for the suggestions so far.
 
Pump it up on friday afternoon and let it sit til sunday night. Check the pressure and if it is still right, Then you should follow your wife and see what she may be doing to loose the pressure. This is really odd and my only thought is ,Maybe your vehicle is posessed. If this is the case I would advise to SELL.:laugh:
 
shadetree57 said:
Pump it up on friday afternoon and let it sit til sunday night. Check the pressure and if it is still right, Then you should follow your wife and see what she may be doing to loose the pressure. This is really odd and my only thought is ,Maybe your vehicle is posessed. If this is the case I would advise to SELL.:laugh:
Click to expand...

That's a good idea.

We keep talking about getting her a new car in two years...but we've been saying that for the last four years. The Jeep has been paid for for some time, and despite the ridiculously bad gas mileage it just hasn't made financial sense to get rid of it.

When we do upgrade, I imagine we'll keep the Jeep, as occasionally it is useful for something more demanding than the morning commute.

A German car may be in our future again. Time will tell.
 
OK...this is so strange you would post this. We had a 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee and one of our tires had a slow leak that would take one to three day for the tire to run down. In the end Les Schwab found that we had a pin hole leak in the casting of the tire! Jeep warranted it but said they had not seen this occur before. You could not see the hole other then to take the tire off and put it in a leak tank and wait for the bubbles.
 
alumminum rims? they are horibble for loosing air ... that one rim just might be ever so slight off and causing just it to loose air
 
Well after reading all the other posts I really have no theory left to add, but maybe a question...

What is your Jeeps name, and does it hang out with Herbie~?~ :laugh:

PS: liked the one about the bird~!~
 
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