No TPMS? Canadian version

US prius c doesn't have an oil change indicator light, no Toyota's do. They have a service engine soon or maintenance soon message. On Prius C it's a message that pops up on the main info screen.

 

True dat.

Honda's got a cool service reminder: not just counting kilometers, not sure what all it monitors. I'd guess km's, but also number of starts, mean coolant temp, rpm, because it varies depending on your driving style.

The reminder counts down by %, and once it gets to 15% remaining it also displays a code, which when you reference in the owners manual tells you exactly what needs doing at the next service.

That in itself is cool, and goes a long way towards stopping discussions with larcenous service writers.

 

On my c the light will come on and go off if corrected quite quickly.



It's pressure a pressure monitoring system not rotational. The rotational aspect is used with abs. The systems are not linked. You can take 4 synced up sensors and place them into a sealed chamber and fill to spec with air and the car will see all tires as being to spec. A bit of a trick folks with aftermarket wheels that won't fit the tms sensors do.

 

Ok... pressure sensor is better than abs in my book...

 

Or just ignore it.

 

I'm just about to the point of taking apart the cluster to block if the bs lights that are always illuminated and are of no value. Time will tell. That tire light would drive me bananas.

 

On our Canadian 2015, there is TPMS. But we put on winter tires without TPMS sensors.

At first it took over a half hour before the TPMS light started flashing for about a minute and then it stayed lit constantly.
After a few days it only flashed for a minute and then turned off and now it doesn't turn on at all after the initial "lights check". I expect it to go back to normal once we put the summer tires back on in the spring.

 

Convenient/intelligent if it shuts the light off after a few days of not seeing the sensors. I don't think the US version does that, in part because of the requirement for the system and the fact that fewer of us don't change to snows every winter. The folks who do would appreciate that!

It is likely that the system is more responsive to a low pressure signal from a communicating sensor. If it can't make contact with a sensor, it may poll for longer before tripping the light.

 

Our warning light stays on all winter with TPMS'less snow tires. But the stock tires, with TPMS sensors, are in a stack in the garage, and we park right next to them. So not sure what that proves.

 

Yeah, I hope it's more intelligent than broken!
The summer tires are stored on a rack about 7' off the ground at the back end of the garage. The C usually sits outside about 30' away from the tires, though a metal garage door. Even when it goes in the garage, it's never closer than 15' of the tires and the car's ignition isn't turned on for more than a few seconds while entering or exiting the garage so it probably doesn't have alot of opportunity to pair back with the sensors assuming 15' is close enough.

I too am a bit surprised to see that the TPMS light isn't nagging the heck of out us every day! I am figuring that the logic is that since none of the sensors are visible even after many days that it figures that it's not an actual malfunction but rather a deliberate act. I guess we'll see in the spring! I guess it's not impossible that Toyota (hybrid?) cars are _that_ intelligent!

 

I've heard that you can get sets of TPMS sensors to use with a separate set of snow tires on rims that can clone the IDs of the sensors on your summer rims so that the TPMS still works when you swap them. Has anyone done this? Is there a particular type or model number of TPMS sensor that you need for the Prius C?

I'm thinking of asking a tire shop to do this for me, but it would be useful to have as much info as possible in case I need to steer them in the right direction.

 

I've found these: http www standardbrand com en tpms oe-matching-sensors
That was something we considered but finding a local garage that could do the actual programming of the sensors using the same codes as the OEMs proved to be too lengthy for the time we had.

We might consider it in the future but so far, the TPMS light in the car isn't too annoying. And, we've never had a car with TPMS before and managed to survive anyway!

(sorry for the obfuscated link but it gets filtered out otherwise. I'm sure you can figure it out!)

 

What I find frustrating is the concept of Tire Pressure Monitoring is a very good idea; it's the complex and expensive implementation that's the problem. Not so bad with a single set of wheels, brand new car, but with snow tires or just the passage of time, dying batteries, it becomes prohibitively expensive to maintain.