tire air pressure sensors

I'm good with them, what's your reason for the dislike?

Yeah I miss kneeling in the slush in the middle of the winter and dropping the little valve stem cap under the car.

Some are too sensitive (light comes on and beeps when one tire is 1 lb. off), some aren't sensitive enough, and then a lot of them simply fail. I have a strong dislike for them.

I agree. They are constantly going off on my wife's car and naturally, it is old enough now the batteries are dying in them.

Battery life is the major complaint. On my LX daily driver I have an app that deactivates the TPMS.

try being a tire installer, got to treat the tires like they super fragile, if you break them they are expensive and no matter what scanner I buy it seems like they can't program most of them, some people have summer and winter wheels so you got to program it ever 6 months to different sensors or swap the sensors defeating the purpose of having two sets of wheels, the batteries die, you get a forever idiot light on when your computer decides it can't make contact with a sensor, we can't stock enough different ones to cover most cars like we could valve stems, just one big giant huge pain in the butt. If you can afford to keep your car under 2 or 3 years old they are fine but 5-10 years down the road they are nothing butt trouble. I don't understand how people have gotten so lazy they can't even check the air in their tire once in a while butt they can check facebook 5000 times to see if someone likes their political meme they re-posted.

Just traded in an 08 Sebring in late December with 225K miles. Never had an issue with the TPMS. Never had a battery fail. I just bought two used aluminum wheels for my 16 Dart so I could mount snow tires on them. Both came from a salvage yard with the TPMS sensors still on them. After swapping them out I didn't get any light on the dash. They seem to be working fine. Both of those cars have the base system though. The dash light comes on if there is a low tire...nothing tells you WHAT tire is low.

The system on my 14 Ram is a little annoying at times I guess. Once the warning appears on the info screen, it doesn't go off until the tires are filled up to their recommended pressure. If you're a pound low, the warning will still stay on.

What bothers me much more than the tire sensors are the e-mails I get from the FCA stealership telling me the psi of each tire on my 2019 Charger. Big Brother is not my friend.

I bought a 2012 Jeep Wrangler last year. First car I’ve ever had with TPMS. Second day I have it the dash warning lights up. I check tires and they seem OK, but it topped each one a bit. Waited a day or two and it’s still lit.
Google it.

Well damn! Ya also gotta check the SPARE (makes sense right?). It was a bit low. That was it.

This thread reveals the biggest issue with the TPMS systems; They all work different. There are some systems that seem to be pretty well bulletproof, while others are a real PITA. Overall, my opinion is that they are not worth the expense and trouble for the second and subsequent owners of a vehicle. Thank Goodness there is no downside to putting a piece of tape over the light when it is on in the dash.

They've saved my tail on slow leaks several times and brought them to my attention before I got into a pickle. They aren't my favorite, but I'm not opposed to them.

More crap to fail, turn warning lights and beepers on, cost money and bother me. I don't want to be bothered by my car. I don't want it sending messages to other people about what I may or may not be doing.

I don't need it to brake for me, stay in my lane for me, turn my wipers on or give me directions to where I'm going. I don't want my car to do anything other than what I tell it to do. And I don't want to need to have $10,000 worth of equipment to change tires or change oil.

I've been successfully driving and taking care of cars for nearly 50 years without my car helping me. I've been in the business and seen the headaches this crap can cause when it stops working as advertised.

Both my Jeep and my wife's Jeep have the TP warning and I like it. Saves having to worry about her tires running low. Neither vehicle has ever given a false warning.

My take on them (if someone disagrees let me know please) is that it’s a good idea to change them at tire change time unless they are still pretty darn new. Mine are now 8 years old and I will be buying new tires in about a year.
I would hate for them to start failing after putting new tires on and have to pay for mount and balance on top of new valves.
Correct?

You can just break the bead and change them unless it's a Ferd that is banded inside the rim. Freekin Ferds...

Maybe you can but apparently the majority of vehicle ignorant people can't. Thus the Ferd Exploder debacle, anybody see a pattern here besides me? Heck I see a bunch of cars where people don't even know they need to check the oil let alone change it once awhile. But what the hey, they keep me making a good paycheck.

My wife had an Impala SS and when the tires were low it would email / text me! I'd ask her "is the low tire warning on in your car?" And she'd be all WTH? When were you in it? I finally showed her my phone and the message from the SS. I think it was an '08. Maybe 09 model.

Thank you...I did not know that.

This^^ Not a huge fan but at least I know a light will tell her the tires need attention. Her car has 30 series lo pro tires on it so it's really hard to tell when a tire is low by looks.Her car is 6yrs old and my truck is 7 yrs old......not a single issue with TPMS on either.....both have caught low tires that may have gone unnoticed.(I work on cars everyday so mine are the LAST to get any attention!)

I find several things irritating about them. First thing is that when we get a cold snap here, after dragging myself out in the bitter cold and firing up my car, I hear the chime and the light goes on. It’s sort of a given that when it’s single digits, the tire pressure will go down, and therefore I’m going to be staring at that light for a while until the temperature warms up.
The second seems to be a Chrysler specific, which is that even after adding air to the tires, the light will stay on for some time, sometimes even several days before it goes off. The display on my dash shows the tire pressures displayed and the low tire blinking. And I’ve got to stare at that thing for many miles telling me my tire is low with the necessary 38psi in it.
Both my 09 Challenger and 14 Dart do this.
I had a 08 Ford and when it’s tire pressure light went on, I’d add air and it would turn off immediately. Why does Ford get it right but Mopar can’t?
The only time the light benefited me was one time in that Ford. I was driving home and it turned on. Got home and checked it, and it was low. Tried to add air but air was leaking in the valve. I had some stems in my garage so I changed the stem, filled up the tire and it was fine. So the TPMS saved me having a flat tire from a slow leak from a leaky valve that time.
But since then, it’s just been an irritation in my Dodges.

I hate them too. I put summer wheels and tires on my Ram that do not have sensors, so that damn light is on all the time. When I went to put my stock wheels and tires on this winter three of the sensors would not work even after resetting them. Just more junk to break... So $50-60 bucks more everytime you put new tires on? NO THANKS!

On my Crossfire, they go right off after I add air, before I even get back in the car.

it depends on the car manufacturer. some cars the TPMS will automatically light will turn itself off. some cars you must drive a bit after adding air to get the light to turn off. some cars you have to push a switch somewhere to reset the light. some cars require a scanner to reset the light to get it to turn off.

also on some make of cars, i know most VW's are like this. DON'T HAVE SENSORS in the tires to check pressure. they use the ABS sensors to monitor tire rotation to check tire pressure. add air drive around the block and the light resets itself. the biggest drawback of this if you like to run higher or lower air pressure beyond manufacturer specs the light will automatically turn on, also change the tire size, circumference, you need to change the tune to turn off the light.

The whole issue is a great example of the government mandating a technology that wasn't ready for the marketplace. After several idiots panicked and flipped their Explorer's (see the Car and Driver article from that time that proves their was noting wrong with the vehicle's stability), the politicians decided SOMETHING had to be done.The problem was, they specified HOW the system had to work (a sensor in each tire), not WHAT it had to do.

I was running a municipal garage, and had a pair of 2000 Impala police cars (tremendous POS with a laundry list of problems). They DID have one VERY useful feature: a tire pressure warning system that was just several lines of code in the ABS computer that compared the rpm of each tire. If one tire's speed increased more than a certain % over the rest (as it would when the pressure in that tire went dow and the rolling circumference got smaller)it displayed a warning to the driver. NO sensors in tires to fail. NO additional hardware AT ALL. NO EXTRA COST, EVER!! Too bad it doesn't comply with the law...

I don't mind them. I actually bother to check tire pressures now and again but it's nice to have that warning that something is wrong if one ever does go low unexpectedly.

Yeah - if they're smart enough they work well. Our '13 VW CC sedan reports the tire pressure at each corner in 'real time', and only issues an alert after a significant loss, so I can monitor the pressure (summer/winter) to keep it correct, AND get the ALERT of a puncture after I hit one of the abundant potholes around here and replace the @&^#$&^*%# tire.
- Art

If you kept your tires properly inflated you would never know they were there.

And they blamed Firestone for the issue when it was Ford who set the pressure of the tires on their SUV lower so the yuppies wouldn't have such a harsh ride...

Vehicles that use the abs wheel speed sensors as a way to determine tire inflation are called indirect TPMS systems. Any car produced since 2008 has to have a direct TPMS system,meaning they need to have sensors in the wheel assembly.

NOT TRUE.. Honda's CRV , from 2013 up until at least 2018 have indirect TPMS systems... I am not sure what other cars also use indirect TPMS systems..

all the reply's covered it, plus my sis dose a once a month check on her 13 dart fluids,air a quick look at stuff and even tho the air pressure was ok she still had a light on and when she got new tires and replaced a rim she was able to to get a reg stem and the guy was dont tell any one its illegal and thats when i looked and found up to a $10,000 fine

That's odd to me, never had a single problem with my '13, '15 or '16. I switched wheels on my '13 to some '15 factory takeoffs, they sync'd up in about a mile. No scan tool required, just drove.

What I like about the FCA products I have had(16 Journey and 18 Durango RT) is that it reports the tire pressure per tire and the system doesn't require adjustment, you can rotate the tires and it picks up the right sensors without a scan tool. Our Chevy stuff at work requires a scan tool to get them right and the places that rotate the tires often don't do that right. So while it reports pressure for each tire, its your guess as to which one it is actually reading. I still would rather have them than not, especially on lower profile tires.

interesting
i just mounted and balanced a NEW tire on a NEW rim on a 2018 VW jetta 2 days ago. there was no TPMS sensor and no warning light on the car when it left.

I still think the real bottom line there was that a car or even an suv should not roll over because a tire pops, that was a ford issue also.

oh I watched an Exploder practically roll over on the highway one day. A semi was merging onto the highway on a very, very short merge lane on a bridge. the Exploder had to make a very abrupt lane change and that is when it nearly went over, he corrected to keep it off the wall and then it got really hairy. Back and forth several times at high speed and I was surprised it didn't come over the wall into the oncoming lanes, where I was. Low tire pressure was not the root cause of those things rolling over. They are narrow and have a high center of gravity. A very unstable vehicle to begin with. Add in a blowout and anyone with even a modest amount of critical situational thinking can envision the result. Again, Ferd stupid!

Sorry. The info I had says direct TPMS was mandatory at 2008......seems that was incorrect. Apparently they have figured out how to make indirect systems accurate enough to fulfill the requirements.Everything I deal with on a daily basis is direct ...my apologizes.

no biggie.
with modern cars ALWAYS consult the manufacturers repair info before starting repairs in areas you are not 100% certain on how to do the job.
new cars have evolved so much so fast it's impossible to know everything there is to know about them. even the same model of car but different generations have different type repairs for the same job with the same drivetrain. and so many manufacturers do the same thing with a different way the factory repair manual is important to have on hand when doing repairs.

there isn't a quick easy repair that is basically the same thing between all cars on them any more.
something else to hate about modern daily drivers.

her dart is weird hehehe i think it was a fleet vehicle have no idea what trim package it is

I look at all of these "idiot" lights and features a lot differently now. They are not for me as they are not for most of you because as noted you guys check your tires, know how to drive in snow without real snow tires, look at your temperature gauge and check your oil level too, You make sure you look at the gas gauge every time you get in to go somewhere so you have enough gas and not wait for the chime to let you know to get gas or worse run out. For me all of those warning devices are for the tens of thousands of "Idiots" that are out there that NEVER do that and are coming the other direction just waiting to lose control and cause an accident and KILL me or a family member or friend! The more devices that will annoy some IDIOT into at least complaining about some warning and hopefully take action the better off we ALL are. Backup cameras and passive braking that keeps someone from stupidly running over a child playing in the driveway behind a car (could be your child playing in a neighbor's driveway with their playmate) are well worth the price over a child's life. Tires that are properly inflated that help to keep the IDIOTS vehicle under control to the best of that vehicle's ability is more than worth the price of the components when that IDIOT swerves to avoid a truck on a short merge ramp. One of the bad things that happened back in '78 (?) was when Goodyear came out with All Season tires. Before that you either learned how to drive in snow or you put on snow tires and got around better and safer, and safer for everyone! Now the standard A/S tires do noting to the best of a tires ability, They are not the best in the dry, wet or snow, they are just "good enough" for "most" conditions. (They should make NASCAR run ALL SEASON RADIALS just like production cars for the thrill of it.) The more they make vehicles IDIOT proof, which is totally impossible the better chance we (might) have of those IDIOTS not injuring or killing someone else.......because we don't need no stinking tire pressure monitors, brake system failure warning lights, oil pressure warning light, three point seat belts, air bags, etc. because we're not IDIOTS like the few out there that share the road with us, our families and friends. We're in total control. Thank God.

And I'm sure that more than one of us has pointed out a low tire pressure and even to someone that we didn't know........just because we thought it may cause them a problem or it looked unsafe......or maybe that was just me? (I don't think it was just me

Mike