Tire pressure sensors...

Each wheel has a receiver antenna in the wheel well. The R/F tire when moved to say the RR position would no longer be able to communicate with its original position. I suspect there is something else going on.

In my opinion the TPMS systems are a great example of a technology that was not ready for the market place but then I grew up at a time when we expected things to work correctly and they did because that was a wide spread expectation and companies followed through. No more.

Give me a tire gauge and leave that crap off.

 

I had TPMS on my 2006 4Runner. After a couple of years the batteries died and for another 4 years I simply ignored the dash light. When I replaced my tires at 78,000 miles they put in a new battery, but it lasted less than a year before going flat. The tires still have about 6 years of tread life left. Battery powered TPMS systems should only be on cars that have their tires changed every year.

On the other hand, my 1996 Vette had a RF power transmitting TPMS that never failed. But here, I was replacing tires about once a year anyways.

 

If you had a bad battery in a sensor you really had 4 sensors with bad batteries. In a small defense of the systems the batteries have gotten better but unless you put a lot of miles a year on the car they will never the less be a problem before tires are needed. You are experiencing the reason we are done buying new cars. I spend my life fixing them, I have no room in that life to have a bunch of needless crap in a car I own and I will not have a car with non operational stuff I don't feel like fixing even if I have no desire to use it.

I was in one of the larger Ferrari dealers recently talking to the shop foreman. We knew each other by reputation. He asked if I missed running a dealer service department. I just laughed and asked how he felt spending his days keeping infotainment systems working.
Such fulfilling work.

 

Well from a diagnostic perspective it is one of those things that if everything else checks out it needs batteries. Not really any other way of diagnosing them I am aware of with the equipment I am familiar with. You are supposed to put 25k miles on it a year and wear out tires every 2 and replace all the sensors while you are there.

 

Discount Tire (and others) have a non-contact device that can check the batteries

 

Good to hear. I inquired some time ago about such a device and at the time was still not around. I didn't figure it would be hard to do. Hard to believe they even went public with the systems without the capability.

 

I think some pressure monitoring systems require you to "calibrate" the settings after any individual sensor goes off. To calibrate it, you fill all tires to the specified value, then reset it through through the car menus. I vaguely remember this being the case, I think on our BMW, but I really don't remember the details at all except that you need to do some type of reset. If your system requires recalibration and you haven't done it, then that could cause the problem. It seems impossible for the dealer/shop to miss this, so it's probably something else, but I'm mentioning it just in case.

 

I think it was mentioned allready but the battery is likely nit the problem it is likely the sensor in the wheel well that rifledriver refered to. Not sure weather you picked that up.

When tires are rotated you must thenmatch them to the wheel well sensors again. Usually this is done with a magnet over the valve stem and the computer selecting that tire.

Have them check the sensor in the wheel well, or change the front two wheel well sensors side to side and if your LF now has a problem you know its the wheel well sensor not the tire sensor.

I have an aftermarket one on my 355 and I love it. It also gives tire temp which is nice for at the track.

I just changed batt eries after 3 years and it is wireless.

It is possible that yours are wireless but not sure, however the parts manual will tell you that.

 

There are several types of systems out there.

One that has no pressure sensors in the tires but rather uses the abs/wheel speed sensors to determine if a tire is going low because it is spinning faster (smaller diameter) then the others. My Audi S5 has this. These are the ones that need to be calibrated any time you have an issue so it can develop a baseline when everything is correct.

Then there are ones that have a sensor in each tire and communicate to a central receiver. The positions of each tire have to be programmed. If you move tires around, it will not know that and report pressures for wrong wheel positions. Many cars have a system like this.

Then as Brian has mentioned, there are systems with sensors in each tire and a receiver in each wheel well. My Porsche Cayman has this. However, when I rotate the tires it detects this and relearns the new positions automatically after driving for a minute.

I recommend you do the following. First make sure all tires are inflated to the pressures (cold) indicated on the factory placard in the door jamb or fuel filler flap.

Then verify that the pressures on your manual tire gauge are relatively close to the pressures displayed in the dash.

See if your problem goes away.

You can also tell if the proper wheel positions are being reported by picking one tire and letting the air out, say to 20 psi, and see if the dash reports the correct wheel position. Make sure you are somewhere where you can reinflate. I'd do the left front and right rear (one at a time).

If any of the wheels are reporting wrong positions, find yourself a shop that has a Bartec TPMS scanner and ask them to perform a relearn procedure. Takes 10-15 minutes and no wheels have to be removed or put the car up on a lift.

 

TPMS systems will often pick up signals from other systems and give false alarms. Especially true on those systems that do not have antennas in relatively shielded locations like wheelwells. Wheelwell antennas can also become covered with dirt and affect reception. Harmonics from very high power sources like police radars can also cause false alarms. Our Jeep's TPMS gave us a blowout warning a few years back when we passed a police car that had just made a traffic stop.

 

In my Acura MDX, whenever I drive in snow and snow builds up in the wheel wells, the TPMS sensors are unable to report and the car tells me first all tires are flat and then that the system has failed and to go to my dealer. I drive into my garage or down the mountain and the snow melts off and the whole system recovers and reports fine. Fun.