How do you thump your tires?

Well yeah, but you use a special striker to strike your tires! You don't just "thump" 'em like most of us do!

 

I still get a "kick" out of the guys that kick their tires.

With flip-flops.

 

My feet are too old to be kicking tires, I use a two lb brass hammer

 

I always thought "tire thumpers" were just a way for drivers to get away with carrying a personal defense device. I tend to think that's why most people carry them, they work better at thumping heads than they do tires. You'll get immediate response to thumping a head as to where there will be no question as to the condition of said head, it will either be coming for more or lying on the TS parking lot.

You can't tell the pressure in a tire to any degree of accuracy by thumping. Sure, you can tell when one is almost flat but that's about it.

 

Get a heavy enough hammer and you'll be able to tell when one is getting low. Instead of a small 12 Oz. Or lighter.

 

I'm not a "super-trucker" by any stretch of the imagination but I bet our shop I could find the tire that was only low by 10 psi. They said they'd lower one by ten and I had to find it. I found that one and the other one they lowered by 20. 30 years of paying attention to sound and feel of a hammer hitting a tire helps I suppose. Still doesn't tell you the pressure, only that it's lower than it's neighbors.

 

You'll need to figure out on your own what works best for you to thump a tire. I've known people to use:
-ball-peen hammer, 5#
-rubber mallet
-small crow bar
- boot
-hand (fist or flat)
-fish beater
-claw hammer
My preference is my $5 claw hammer I bought at Kmart after I lost my previous one. It even matters how I hold it; I've grown accustomed to gripping it with three fingers, pinky off the end, to get just the right feel.
I didn't check every post here, but something else to consider; sometimes you'll end up with mixed tire construction on a trailer. depending on the construction, two tires may have the same air pressure , but can sound different. The casing or retread or both can be thicker.

 

I just go by the old fashioned THUMP from my hammer. With a HARD whack.

 

I haven't read all the responses, just the first page.

But have you considered that a hammer (and you didn't say what kind of hammer) and a tire thumper are two very different things?

With the thumper I use, I can tell between 90 and 105 PSI.
The rebound and sound are very different.

When I got with my first mentor nearly 6 years ago he had me check the tires with a thumper.
He told me that 2 tires were low, and to identify them.
I found 3 that were low, one by only 10 pounds.