Can anyone advise me how to return my 2015 Ford Focus (hatch back style) spare “donut” tire to the trunk such that the car’s tire pressure reading system will recognize it? Without doing so properly, the stupid light keeps coming on thinking I have low tire pressure. (This is yet another stupid feature of this car.) I see nothing obvious that the spare tire’s valve should butt against to get a tire pressure reading. How does this all go back in the trunk properly?
Looking at your Owners Manual it looks like the fault is coming from one of your full sized tires, not the spare. It doesn’t look like your spare has a sensor.
Are you certain that the other four tires are inflated to the PSI specifications set on the sticker, usually located on a door frame? Spares don’t usually have sensors.
Are any of the sensors or wheels new? I have a Focus too, but the RS model only came with summer tires. My first purchase was a set of winter wheels and snow tires from The Tire Rack. They advised the sensors would have to be programmed to my car, and they sold a tool that would do that. I didn’t buy it, because I had an oil change coming due anyway, and I figured I’d let the dealer do it. Sure enough, when I installed the winter wheels, the TPMS warning light was on, and wouldn’t go off. The dealership programmed them for me during the oil change, and didn’t even charge for it, so it must be a minimal task.
Incidentally, my Focus RS didn’t come with a spare at all. There’s a bottle of what I think is tire sealant and a little air compressor under the floor back there.
My ST has a spare and no sensor. Sounds to me like you have an issue with one of your “real” tires and/or TPMS sensor. I’m a little galled that there’s no display on Sync to show the actual pressures. It has on my wife’s last two Edges, and it’s a nice feature.
I had a TPMS sensor crap out on my Ridgeline a few months ago. Went to Costco where I bought my tires about 4 years ago. They replaced the bad sensor, rebalanced all 4 tires (I mentioned one appeared to be out of balance at highway speeds), rotated the tires and reinflated all 5 tires with fresh nitrogen because I added air to the tires from my air compressor. Total cost? 0.
Ok, after a second review of the manual, I see I may have been misunderstanding what the manual was trying to say regarding the spare and “alternate tires”. It is possible I was reading into this as my sister has a Toyota RAV-4 and claims the spare DOES register in the “tire pressure monitoring system” (TPMS) indicator. (Yes, I realize a Ford Focus is not a Toyota RAV-4, but this set me off in the wrong perspective while reading the manual.) The manual also shows the indicator symbol next to the text that says “each tire, including the spare, should be checked monthly…” misleading me to believe the spare plays into triggering the TPMS indicator.
If the RAV-4 is from one of the years where they had the full-sized spare hanging on the back hatch, then it would make sense for it to have a sensor since it’s SOP to include full-sized spares in the tire rotation schedule.
Has the temperature dropped a great deal recently where you live OP. I have had that happen in my car when the temp dropped very suddenly, the tire pressure indicator would go off in the morning when it was really cold, but after a while of driving and warming things up it would go away.