The small charges that get on your nerves

Tyre pressures should be checked when the tyres are cold, so it’s better to do the job at home rather than at a filling station. I check mine on a Saturday, or on Sunday if it is raining, and inspect the tyres for any objects in the tread.

Around the start of each season I check the pressure in the spare tyre. Space-saver tyres deflate faster because the pressure is greater than in a normal tyre, and the last thing you need if you have a puncture is a soft spare tyre.

This is nothing new and is, in fact, celebrated in the innkeeper’s song in Les Miserables.

When analyzing conveyancing bills for Which? in 1969 I found that the item of costs that most annoyed home movers was the separate disbursement that frequently appeared on solicitors’ bills “Stamp on contract 6d” (2.5p!) The 1970 report on conveyancing included an item about lawyers addition of extras.

I avoid using The Trainline because of their small booking fee, which was £1 last time I used their service. Since it is unavoidable, it should be included in prices.

I appreciate that one booking fee can apply to multiple tickets, but there is nothing to prevent giving a discount on multiple purchases.

Garage forecourts IMO are not the place to do check tyres. You may already have driven enough miles to alter the tyre temperature, the pressure checker may not be working, it may be inaccurate.

Here is something from 2005 which is quite exhaustive:
http://www.network.mag-uk.org/oct05p5.html
A later report from South Africa reports dangerous air pumps and the worst was over-reading by 14psi!

Tyre pressures change with temperature and advanced TPMS has a temperature compensation factor built in. There is a change of around a pound plus per 10 F. and amusingly most tyre pressures quoted to us is based on the correct pressure at 71F. Obviously there is an element of fudge factors with tyres and best best pressures, and how laden the vehicle is etc so one can be forgiven for not being too fanatical about precision.
http://www.goodyear.com/cfmx/web/corporate/media/news/story.cfm?a_id=371

One area of concern is that if your car is parked out in sunshine the tyres on one side will read differently simple because black rubber absorbs heat and warms the air inside which expands.
http://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=520

TPMS does have an upside and a downside and that humans are generally lazy. Most of the public do not check their tyres at all so TPMS is an improvement. The downside is that more people will now not look at their tyres at all and spot other damage or bad wear.

Like wavechange I do my pressures at home. I have a couple of gauges and a pump in the car so not only can I check them at home but when away on holiday.

I get a little niggled by postage and packing charges in connexion with buying on-line. It strikes me that companies are saving a fortune in overheads if they do a significant amount of business on-line. Popular retailers are probably getting as much turnover on-line as they would expect to get from several major stores but with a fraction of the costs. A warehouse is much more efficient than a department store, can operate round the clock, doesn’t have town centre rates and charges, and doesn’t get messed up by hordes of grubby customers. Maintaining the website properly is a major exercise but much more remunerative than a lot of window-dressing and in-store merchandising. Fulfilment and logistics don’t come cheap and I can see the justification for an order value threshold before free delivery kicks in to deter an excessive number of tiny orders, but I think any order over £10 should be free of charge for standard [up to 5 days] delivery.

We support our local theatre in Norwich; we book on-line and pay in advance [just booked three separate shows, one of them in June] but it always peeves me when £1.20 is added to the bill for “postage and packing” to send two tickets in a small envelope. I am surprised this cannot be absorbed in the general running expenses – they’re always sending us unwanted flyers for unpopular productions – and they might gain aditional goodwill; as a charity, they solicit a donation every time you book but I never tick that box because of their mean “p&p” policy!