I’ve never had a car with TPMS before, with my car there is a full size spare in the back whose sidewall is damaged, causing the TPMS alarm to go off on the dashboard.
When I get a new tire at a place like costco, do I have to request anything special (any special tires) or is the TPMS part of the rim? Do I need to ask them to reset the TPMS system or will it automatically turn off the alarm after the new tire is put on the car?
Basically, do I need to buy special tires, make special requests when having a tire put on or pay any extra fees to have the new tire compatible with the TPMS system?
There are two kinds of TPMS- the direct kind where there’s a tiny pressure gauge attached to the wheel that transmits to the car, and there’s the indirect kind, where there is no gauge attached to the wheel, and the car determines the tire pressure through other methods- rolling circumference vs. speed, etc…
In the first case, they’ll need to look out for the sensors- they’re often part of the valve stem. In the second, all they’ll have to do is reset the warning (in my '12 Passat, all it takes is depressing a button in the glove box for 3 seconds).
My '19 Subaru Forester has the direct TPMS. Warning light on the dash as well as an info screen that shows pressure in each tire.
I’m awaiting delivery of new wheels with snow tires mounted, but did not opt for the TPMS units installed. They’ll be a warning light on the dash, but other than that no issues. The Subaru requires a unit that plugs into the OBD to program the sensors and I don’t have one. Perhaps this Spring when I change back I’ll get the transmitters installed for next year.
Additionally for the direct sensors, besides the tire sensors sending the information to the vehicle’s computer, the computer may or may not be able to receive the data from a 5th sensor. The computer may only have data fields for 4 sensors not 5. If you buy a TPMS sensor for the spare tire, the vehicle may not display its data when that tire is installed.
This comes into play if you want to have a 5-tire rotation pattern instead of 4.
This is true for direct sensors. It may also be true for the indirect ones as well. I set up my 2016 Jeep Grand Cherokee that way, and the 5th sensor started displaying its tire pressure when it was rotated in, and my spare now has a sensor. All 5 tires have matching rims.
This is what the folks at America’s tire and at my Jeep dealer told me — none of them could definitively say that if I bought a 5th sensor for the spare, that the vehicle would read its data. I had to test it by buying and installing that sensor into the spare, and when that spare got rotated into the pattern, voila!, I saw its pressure value once it got activated. I was a happy camper.
Of course, this works best with a vehicle with a full-size spare on matching rims.
My 2006 Honda Ridgeline tell me which tire is low. It’s part of the same warning cluster that tells me which door(s) are open, if my tailgate is open or if my powered rear sliding window is open.
Many cars will display the exact tire pressure in each tire. I thought that was pretty common by now. Much more common than landing on the Moon, anyway. I think pretty much every car I’ve owned since about 2009 has done this.
Wesley Clark, the way it worked on three of my last vehicles, I ordered an extra set of TPMS sensors for my winter tires. But that’s because I was ordering tires and wheels online and the tires arrived already mounted on the wheels. When I swapped summer and winter tires each season, all I had to do was recalibrate the system using the vehicles normal in-dash settings, just like adjusting the clock and other display functions. Super easy. If you’re getting your tires swapped at the shop but keeping the same TPMS sensors, a quick refresh of the system is all you’ll need to do.
If your car is a later model, I bet you’ll find the re-calibration buttons in your vehicle settings on whatever kind of in-dash display you have. If it’s a little older, you might have to find an actual reset button–like a physical button, possibly near your emergency brake handle. Then you’ll do some odd combination of ignition key setting and button pressing until a light blinks or a bell chimes… like resetting the oil change interval in some of the older cars when you turn your key to position 2 and then press the gas 3 times within 10 seconds, or whatever. After you initiate the recalibration, you have to drive steadily for a few minutes and then it’s properly reset. I’m sure you can google for your particular car or check the owner’s manual.
It’s different for every car, so the tire change people might not know how to reset yours (or won’t care). Kind of like how sometimes the Jiffy Lube people don’t reset the oil change interval. Regardless, re-calibrating it will either be very simple, or mostly simple.
So I got my spare tire changed (its a full size with a sensor), because the mechanic said the tire sidewall was cracked. I hoped that would fix the TPMS issue. It didn’t, it would still flash about a half dozen times before staying on constantly.
After a few days though, the tire light went out. The temperature did go above freezing, but it went above freezing several days before the TPMS light went out.
WHen I got the spare tire changed, the tire place checked the pressure on all my tires and they were all 30 psi, which is what they are supposed to be.
I thought the TPMS alarm was only supposed to go off when tire pressure was 25% below what its supposed to be. So wouldn’t that mean the alarm shouldn’t go off unless it is lower than 22 psi or so?
Does mildly freezing weather really cause tire pressure to drop that much?
Or did driving for a few days in above freezing weather somehow automatically reset the TPMS alarm?
I didn’t manually reset it because I’m still not sure how my system works.
the flashing light and the intermittent light even with adequate tire pressure tells me it’s indicating a fault with the TPMS system itself. could be one of the sensors is bad.
