That sounds right.
That’s bizarre and I wouldn’t have believed it either. I’m surprised I’m not seeing people asking about it online. I’m gonna look through a random manual to see if anything jumps out.
Everything about that feels wrong. From what you said about being in the cold, to needing to be able to keep a phone charged, to get it out of a dangerous location etc. And what if the tires are fine but a TPMS sensor is reporting the pressure incorrectly.
Part of me wonders if there’s something else going on like a the shifter wasn’t fully in park or a loose connection on a neutral safety switch or something else that got jostled back into place at some point when you filled the tire.
ETA, another thing, depending on how low the tire pressure has to be for the car to decide not to run, even cold enough weather could do it. Those of us in cold climates often see our low pressure light turn on when the temperature suddenly drops overnight.
I might not agree with it, but I could understand not allowing the car to be driven, but not allowing it to even start is odd.
Welp, I’m confused. I’m not seeing any thing on the internet suggesting this is a thing. I even flipped through the manual for a 2023 Elantra, which actually had a warning about the potential danger and damage that can be done by driving on a significantly low tire.
Significantly low tire pressure makes the vehicle unstable and can contribute to loss of vehicle control and increased
braking distances. Continued driving on low pressure tires can cause the tires to overheat and fail.
I don’t think they’d put that in there unless the car is able to be driven with a low tire. Of course it’s very possible that the car I looked up doesn’t have that ‘feature’ (or it can be turned off).
I’m really interested in what’s actually going on here.
Good points. It happened over Christmas last year and I have not heard about it happening again. That is interesting about the shifter wasn’t fully engaged. I honestly cannot remember back but I may have tried to put it in park/neutral but I am not sure.
I think my first question to the person (even if it’s after the tires are filled and the car is running) would be “How did you know this?” or “What made you think that was the problem?”.
Basically, I’d be curious if it was in the manual or chatGPT said it or it was on reddit or what?
The only thing I could find that made sense was, and I’m not vouching for this, that if one wheel is significantly lower, to the point that the speed sensor is sending data that the computer knows is wrong, it can trip the immobilizer (anti-theft) and shut the car down and/or not allow it to restart.
But that seems pretty far fetched, since, people drive with under inflated tires often enough that I’d think it would be a known issue.
I know, well, I assume, you didn’t jump the car. If you had to do that, I’d go with the actual most plausible thing, that the driver got a flat, pulled over, turned on the blinkers and ran the battery down.
Yeah. As a former car guy long ago, color me super-skeptical this “won’t start w flat tire(s)” idea is anything other than rampant operator confusion.
It utterly flunks the laugh test.
Cites or it didn’t / doesn’t happen.
The other thing is that TPMS sensors aren’t active until the car has been moving for a minute or two. To save battery life, they’re designed to turn off when the car is motionless for a few minutes. So the car has no idea what the pressure is when you first turn it on, and wouldn’t be able to tell that air was added either.
I’ve gotten “Which address do you have an association with?”
'Zactly. I bet the quality of the questions has gotten better since these types of quizzes were first invented 15-20 years ago. In this case bland and generic wins over explicit and detailed.
One very stupid design feature that I have encountered on security screening on all airports I have used in this century:
You typically spend a long time in a queue with nothing to do than slowly shuffling forward.
Then at last you come to the table where you need to doff certain items (jacket, cap, scarf, belt if metal buckled, watch in my case because it is large and metallic, coins if any) and unpack certain items from your hand luggage (everything electronic, including power bank, plus the bag of fluids if any), everything into plastic bins.
The stupid design feature: this table is short, there is only place for one or at most two persons to fill their bins at one time. People like me who have to separately put a lot of items from clothing and hand luggage into the bins (7-11 items, in my case) have to work pretty frantically in order to not hold things up. Others do not have many items to unpack but are elderly and slow (not their choice).
It would make a lot of sense to lengthen this binning table so 3-5 people can fill their plastic bins at one time, so someone with a lot of items, or a slow-moving person, does not hold up the operation. But I have never encountered such a comfortably sized lead-in station to security check.
Curiously the station after security screening, where you get the bins back and pack/pocket/don the separate items again, not always but often is of appropriate size so you do not have operate frantically.
Are there any airports where this put-things-into-bins station is long enough?
Yes, some airports have multiple stations where people can put their stuff in bins and then push the bins forward onto the conveyer belt. I’m looking for an online photo but can’t find one at the moment.
Before the same screening station?
Yes. Here is an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article from 2016 showing the system. Five people can load bins at the same time, in one screening line.
That looks like an excellent set up (I assume you grab new bins from below the table).
Yes, you do. And as soon as you grab a bin, another appears in its place. And similar stations are standard at many airports.
Most of the problematic installations are at airports where there’s simply no room to put in longer tables. Which is no help if that describes your home airport.
Professionally speaking …
While you’re standing in line, there is nothing preventing you from removing everything from your pockets and putting them all into your purse, or an exterior pocket of one of your bags. Such that as you approach the actual screening machines and the too-short table, you merely need to heave your bags up there, doff jacket, belt, and shoes as applicable, and move on through.
Likewise at the other end, just gather your stuff, don your shoes, belt, and jacket, then proceed into the terminal. You can reload your pockets later elsewhere where time and space is not at a premium.
If there’s no room, it’s only because of the poor design. There’s room for the long winding line-maze, and they need the long winding line-maze because they’re so slow to process travelers through, and they’re so slow to process travelers through because only one person can unload their stuff at a time. Double the size of the unloading tables, and you could halve the size of the maze.
I do this before I get in line, so I’m not juggling the stuff between pants pockets and suitcase pocket while also trying to shuffle along with the crowd. When I get to the check-in spot, I have my phone in one hand, the other hand is pulling my luggage, and the only thing in my pocket is my cash. Wallet, keys, and anything else that might have been in my pants pockets are now in the exterior pocket of my carryon bag.
Coats and shoes, though, are the parts that take the most time.
As of July 2025, TSA no longer requires shoes to be removed. (Although I flew through the Westchester County Airport earlier this week and was asked to remove my shoes in a TSA PreCheck line as a one-time random check.)