Tire Monitoring Systems.

Pressure monitors are a great thing if you have really low profile tires. In many cases if you lose pressure on a really low profile tire you will cut the sidewall out of it in very short order. I was riding with my boss in his C4 Corvette and I sensed that he had a rear tire going down. We were on the freeway and he didn't react quickly to my urging (he wasn't the brightest boss I ever had) and in about 500 ft he managed to cut down the rear tire and we were stuck changing a tire late at night on the freeway. Post mortem inspection revealed a nail in the tire, but the sidewall was cut out 90% of the way around the tire when the rim came down and cut it. $250 later the next day he had a new tire on the car... If he would have had a TP monitor system he wouldn't have had the problem...

 

As long as the system works right they are a great thing. I know someone who played around with the system for 6 months and countless trips to the dealer to get the system to work right. Ended up being a short in a wire, but if they don't work they are a pain in the ass.

 

Thanks for the valuable information - we're picking up an '09 Audi TT Coupe in Ingolstadt in a two weeks and it has this system - car has 19" wheels with low profile sport tires.

Carol

 

I can't stand TPMS systems. From my BMW that spit off more false warnings than chicken little to the C6Z06 that would go into "limp home" mode when it sensed the TP going too high on the track. The Lexus loses sync everytime the rims are off. It has become a pet peeve of mine. There needs to be an off switch on the damn TPMS.

 

I have disabled my TPMS system in my MKV GTI mainly because I was too cheap to spend $250 for sensors on my $450 winter setup (Wintersport 3D's and steelies).

I never turned it back on when I put my summer wheels on and next summer I will be running aftermarket wheels that wont fit the sensors (supposedly).

For VW-Audi, anyone with a VAG-com can do it.

 

My wife drives a new CRV and the TPMS is a PITA. We haven't had any problem per se (it is brand new) but I was looking at either winter rims OR using the current ones as winter rims and buying a new set of summer wheels/tires. Turns out that the sensors cannot be interchanged between wheels. If we buy new wheels we have to buy new sensors....close to a $100 each !!!. Not the end of the world but a pain none the less.

 

Another thing to mention. I think I read on a Toyota forum that a guy was going nuts because his TPMS light was on but all of his tires were filled to the required psi. It turned out that his spare tire in the trunk was low.